My battery charger refused the battery and indicated it was bad. O’Reily however was accepting of the battery and I was back at the launch in an hour and a half. The time difference allowed it to be ten degrees warmer- 40 to 50. I trolled about and managed one fish. He saved me from the skunk.
They tell me that the crappie will be spawning with the Full Moon this month. This Moon is sometimes called the Snow Moon and will occur on February 16th. So I imagine the fish are staging near their spawning grounds, wherever that is, and simply were not around to spot my fine selection of jigs. I did try to troll past the hydrilla, pretty close, and got fouled up a few times, but my single fish came out of the water well away from the weed lines. I was hopeful of catching a large specimen as this is a good time to do so, but they must be busy.
I guess I will just have to wait them out on this spawning stuff and catch them on the backside after they have had their festival. Their carnival of the flesh. Either that or fish another lake so I can dip jigs in the weeds. That lake is so chocked full of hydrilla that getting close to shore is impossible. I cannot imagine all the fish spawning at the same time, so maybe the big ones go early.
I had plenty of time to examine my newest jigs as they swam. I have been using those 0/0 blades on a size 0 ball bearing swivel and they looked pretty good. The blade does not spin, but rather kind of tickles the bait’s belly as it travels. Just a little added attraction. I felt that the look was excellent as it kind of mimicked a minnow’s tail action. So my various plastics were paddle tail, curly tail, tails with a ball on the ends, and each seemed more active with this blade.
It is tricky to insert the blade into the ball bearing swivel’s teeny tiny little itty bitty split ring. Very hard to see but once the gap is spotted it is fairly easy to simply force the blade in, no pliers. The split ring resists to it’s full capability as the swivel’s hole keeps it from opening as it rotates about. Sometimes I forget which way I am supposed to be rotating and it comes back off.
My experiment with electroplating is now over with. I rate it a failure. The copper did not plate over the lead jig heads near as well as it did other metal objects. Even those other items were left with a a dull almost copper like appearance. I could try nickel plating but think I shall skip it and save myself the misery. I am certain that someone out there can get good results but I was unable. I liked the idea of creating shiny jig heads but will have to find another way. I did dip some freshly poured into clear powder paint and that did OK, but still not that bright shiny look I imagined the fish would like. Even though eyes don’t matter and painted heads don’t matter these things matter to me.
I did buy some of the Bobby Garlands BassPro was selling. I also got some of the Mr Crappie baits as well. I must say that if I were reduced to buy plastics from just one major distributor, it would be Mr Crappie. I ordered some of their Scissor Shad baits and they are very large baits and their little ball ended tails waggle pretty nicely. They come with eyes, but so do my jigs so…..the fish probably laugh and yell out Four Eyes as they go past.
I am back to using a sinker in front of my jigs that are fished close to the boat. I was making large jig heads to get them down, but now that I am back to adding sinkers I am using smaller jigs. I add a small swivel with a clip, then add bobber stops to keep it forward of the jig, and then clip on a 2 ounce sinker. This means the line is run straight through no knots. I can adjust the amount of spacing the sinker is in front of the jig, and when I retie jigs this spacing is easily adjusted to compensate for the loss in line during the retie. So far pretty slick but the hydrilla can grab the sinkers much former than the jigs and the sinker slid back a few times due to this. Still I like the setup and enjoy that the lines go almost straight down into the water. This allows me to select the depth more easily and prevents that line from wandering back to where it could get involved while trying to land a fish.
Now for Dock Shooting Jack’s enjoyment.
Sunday I cooked ribs for a Girl’s Volleyball league and that was unreal. We unpackaged, seasoned, and smoked/baked 800 racks of spare ribs. I was overwhelmed by the size of the pile of boxes, and we started around 8:00 a.m. The company had three cookers on site, and one is called M.O.A.C. Which stands for Mother Of All Cookers. It is large enough to allow seven full grown men to stand inside. It has multiple levels of shelving that rotate about as a propane fire heats the oven. Fans blow the air about inside. The flame also passes over firewood for the smoke part. 250 racks of ribs fit beautifully inside. We did the cook in two phases.
I feel that the ribs I make at home are better, but then I have time then to manage things. Slopping about in gallons of pig blood, there really isn’t much time to fiddle about. That and we have to flavor the ribs to suit everyone’s palate, and that means nothing too spicy. We cooked and the girls wrapped and loaded the cars as they pulled in to exchange their tickets for ribs. It was all over by 4:00 p.m. so I did get to see the end of the first NFL game, and all of the second.
I was absolutely amazed when they pulled the drains on MOAC and all that hot grease came geysering out the chute. Gallons and gallons of super heated grease. What a scene it all was and I got completely covered in various substances along the way and managed to burn my hand more than a few times. Besides my regular pay I got a $250 tip from the girls. They ended up with seven coolers filled to being overfilled when no more cars were coming. Those leftovers were ribs they sold but no one came to pick up. Not sure what they charged for ribs but they made a killing.
Pig grease was covering everything and everyone was all smiles. I figure 400 pigs contributed their best as well. We were at their volleyball arena and they have four courts. The girls were all sports as it was 24 degrees that morning, but it warmed up nicely as the day ensued. My hands went from frozen to on fire depending on what I was doing. Pulling the hot racks out of the ovens was burning my hands even through the gloves. No blisters or such, but I kept a bucket of water handy and would hold the gloves underwater in between racks to cool off. Did I mention the pig grease that was everywhere ?
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