Temporary Happiness

Des Plains River.

20 minutes to kill.

Bait caster.  Steel leader.  Rapala Husky Jerk (Firetiger).

High water.  Fast current.

Nothing.

20 minutes of satisfaction.

Buzzing in darkness

3:30 AM is either late in the into the night, or early in the morning. It all depends on how you look at it.

Clocks wrong. The hammer will fix it!

For me 3:30 AM is early in the morning, and for the past 2 weeks, I have been fishing for about 30 minutes before I go into the gym for my morning workout.

There's just something really peaceful about fishing when you have nothing but the moon and stars providing you light. The lake I fish is always calm and almost glass like each morning. The other day I was joined by 2 hooting owls, who talked me into fishing for an extra 10 minutes.

Watch out for those skunks...and not the fishing kind.

For these quick outings I primarily use either a spinnerbait, or a buzzbait. I always start off with the buzzbait, because, there's just something extra cool about casting that lure into the darkness and being able to hear it chug along. The best is when you hear the bass blow up on it, and even better is when you hear a blow up and you can no longer hear the chugging of the lure. FISH ON!! 

Beware of the shadows.

Ninja fishing!

I'm going to try tossing a big popper with my fly rod next!

Skunked.

Not the fishing type of skunk, either.

Like every morning before I let my dogs out in the yard at 3:30 AM, I turn the light on and make sure there are no critters in the yard. The coast was clear, and I let the dogs out. Daisy usually runs to her spot and does her business and she's back right away. Bo usually wanders around a bit. Well, Bo wandered around, but Daisy, did not do her usual, instead, she kept sniffing all of the bushes very closely. This sort of alarmed me. While I was paying close attention to my dogs through the window on the storm door, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye, I looked down, and I'll be damned....it was a baby skunk standing on the step on the opposite side of the door. The skunk was watching Daisy sniff all of the bushes.

Even knowing that the baby skunks don't have the glads to spray, I knew that momma or pops, couldn't be far. I began to panic. I opened the door and tried "shooing" the baby skunk away with my foot, but that only drew the attention of my dogs, who now noticed that there was another animal in the yard. Thankfully, the little skunk jumped off the step, and under my porch.

....then I got a nose full of that god awful skunk smell...

I called the dogs in and smelled them the best I could. Daisy was perfectly fine. Bo on the other hand, caught a little bit of the spray. My guess is that Momma or Poppa skunk sprayed from under the porch hitting mostly the porch, and a little bit of Bo.

Bo received a quick tomato bath. I only had a can of diced tomatoes, but I think it did the trick...my girlfriend thinks otherwise.

They are living in a hole they dug out underneath my cement step, under the porch.

I've been researching ways to get the skunks removed without having to contact someone to trap them. (and pay them.). I taped a flashlight to my GoPro camera, and used the app on my phone to view the underside of my deck. I found where the skunks have made a home/hole. I soaked some rags with ammonia and used a pole to stuff the hole best I could.

My GoPro light set up.

Screen shot from my GoPro camera - Before I placed the ammonia soaked rags inside.

Screen shot #2 - I did the best I could with the rags. It was an awkward angle.

Hopefully, that will force them to relocate to someone elses backyard or the field nearby.

Skunked Fox

Went out with my buddy Danny to the Fox River. He and our other friend The Fat Gordo did really well at this spot a few weeks ago catching some nice smallies.

My weapon of choice was my fly rod and various flies. This produced absolutely nothing  =)

Danny started off with a jig n craw, but missed a few strikes. On the wade back he switched to a gold inline spinner and caught a few small smallies, and then a quillback as we were about to step out of the river and call it a day.

Here are the few pictures I took from the day.

We couldn't find anyone hiding...Either they're really good at hiding or they're no longer oppressed. :)

Never seen one of these. Had some help ID'ing it.