 The first cast got that square bill unit on and I am on the water. God, it feels good. I'm on a big old lake right now that I hadn't been to in a while and I'm just glad to see it's not flooded. It's actually down. So I'm going to try some bass fishing. I'm also going to be looking for some gar today. I know that sounds weird, those two combos, bass and gar, but I got my gar fly with me in my big rod. And this lake is known for having not only spotted gar and long nose, but the big old alligator. So what I'm doing right now is I'm fishing just an edge. As I'm going back in this creek, I like these just little boat docks back here, throwing this square bill because I got a rocky bottom and there's a bit of a color change. It looks like they've been pulling water. Oh my. There's a carp. So much gears for a sec. I'm going to take me a Saucy at 4.8 and I'm going to stick it on a three quarter ounce jig head. I'm going to stick it down in the depths on a post spawn point and see if we can get bit by something large. Okay, I've got some fish marked here. I'm about 50% sure that some of them are stripers. But those are still fun and this is a post spawn like really good looking bass spot as well. So make sure we get our drag loosened up just in case old Megalodon decides to get on board here. I'm on the deep side, throwing to the shallow side. So I'm in like 25, throwing up to 15, like a 10 foot drop. This is a little bit farther than a deep diving crankbait will typically go and I really like to throw these swim baits in staying to clear water in the post spawns. This lake is normally clearer than this, but oh gosh, got smoked. Wacked it. Wacking it. Wacking it. Gosh. Missed them. Oh, violent. Man, I got bit three times right there. Oh, yeah, got that one. There we go. Hit it like a ton of bricks. Spooned him. Oh, it's a drum ski. We got everything down there, folks. Everything down there. Got him up on the spoon. That is just a clear sign everything is down there feeding. The drums usually get the leftovers because they're the slowest of the slow. Okay, I'm going to try to hit this with the deep crank. I find it hard to believe I did not get stroked on that. I was 15 foot high spot right there. I might have pushed these fish out when I got on top of them. If I don't get bit on this cast, I'm going to head up to this point where I've seen a bunch of birds dropping in on some shad. All right, let's push up there and see what we can do. Hey, first bass, spotted bass, on the old log, five inch, just twitching it around here. There we go. Nice little bass. I really don't know much about the spotted bass spawn. I've always heard they spawn a little bit deeper, but I don't think I've ever caught one off a bed. They're kind of a mysterious spawner. This is a really good post spawn technique right here. Just taking any kind of stick bait and just twitching it at the surface. There's a lot of fry garters up in the shallows. So I was trying out deep. I didn't get any bites, so I came up in here just to kind of see what was going on. And we got our first bass bite, so we're definitely going to give these marinas a little harder look. Got it. Oh, no, that's a cable. Put my spinner bait in your face. Anyway, trying to get a little spinner bait bite going here on just a point coming out of a spawning pocket. I just don't know what these bass are really doing here, this lake being so far down. They ought to be on this, though, I tell you. Just made myself what some people call in the biz a run. And I've gone to some clear water a few miles up the lake. Oh, my God, that has to be a big catfish, being a whopper. He has shad. I'm out here on that main lake right now. I'm trying everything. Just picked up a crankbait and I hit the point, didn't get any bites, but I could see a couple fish sitting in that nine, 10 foot zone. So I'm just dragging a finesse jig, a little juicy half ounce. Oh, wait a second, gar, the gar. Straight dangle on you, sir. Oh, I see a bass. Oh, that's a bass coming to get that fly right now. Oh, this is a very interesting situation we have here. I saw a gar. I got my fly out and a bass, a good bass, like three or four pounders just cruising here on earth. Oh, my. Oh, my. I think we have found the nursery. That is a little striped bass, not yet ready for the world. I'm just throwing a little crappie jig back here, seeing what we can get into. I'm getting thumped. I am in the very back, very back from the creek. The water is about three or four degrees warmer than the other parts of the lake. Oh, yeah, got him. Begin. Begin. It's a tiny little spotted bass, not even a largey. Very, very small. Oh, my. That was a zinger. I don't know what that was. Looks shiny. There's one. What do we got here? This is the striped kind as well. Oh, gosh, you made me bleed. Savages, absolute savages. I started seeing a bunch of little marks on the graph and thought they might be at least some little bass, but they are looking like they're going to be stripers. Oh, gore, gore. And I'm hooked up on something. That's a stick. No, this gore's right in front of me. Keep cruising in here and fishing for whatever we might find the right one. Oh, we got to get this fish. Come on, man. Got a bedding bass, my second one of the year. Oh, nipped it on a little weightless. Okay, now. I think the key with this fish is, oh, you snapped at it. I think the key is to not let it sit there for too long. Every fish is different. Amazing, amazing how gingerly they can just bite it. I want to see how big this fish is. We'll see if it's like a two or a three. I'm not telling you. Oh, my gosh. I just want to see how many times have you been caught, dude? I see one spot over here. Yeah. You've seen a lure or two. Finally got them on that little juicy. Goodness gracious. I've never had a fish just whack it so many times, come after it, and then actually not catch them. Good, how's it going? Pretty good. How's the crappie button? Not great. Not great? The other day it weren't, but. Hope you whack them. Everybody going after crappie. I want to show you all something on that jig. Both the pincers were missing, so that fish hit it so many times, knocked the pincers off, finally grabbed the whole thing. Finally got it, man. I saw that. He was stubborn. It looked like it. Nothing big. Not a whole lot of fish. Hop in this one, bro. Yeah, that's why the bass are all screwed up a bit. Yeah. Oh, well. When you go to the pond, you light them up. You can't compete with ponds, man. So good. See it. You're going to stab them now. We're trying. Pull it at everything. I'm about to stab them, too. They're tough. Real difficult out here today. And I know why. I know why, because of the water. They've been sucking it out. They're putting it where I live, which we don't need any more water. Please, let the water stay in here. The water being taken out. The bass is trying to make a bed, get situated, and then the water drops. What are they going to do? They're going to move. They're going to move out deeper, or they're just going to wait till the water stabilizes. So it's not always about water temperature. Sometimes it's about just the overall stability of the water. You have just good, stable conditions without a ton of rain, and the water's not fluctuating. Sometimes the bass will spawn when it's like 60 degrees, or maybe they'll wait until it's like 68, 70 degrees. I'm sure they've already had a really good spawn here like a month or two ago. But I'm looking for that second wave. So I caught me a second wave fish. Not a very big one, you know. Two and a half, two and three quota, maybe. I was expecting to see a ton of cruisers. I ended up seeing a lot of little, tiny little bass, and then a couple of decent ones swimming around, but they were not apt to bite. They ain't going to go today, y'all. The force, the fish force is not with me. At least I still get to come out here and fish. I heard somebody comment on my fish brain page that they can't even fish in the state of Washington. Like there's a state order not to fish. Heading in, y'all. It's getting dark. Truckin' turkey, runnin' in the field right now. Little him. Y'all want to know what's unbelievable. I'm an adult outdoor man in my 30s, and I've never gotten a turkey. Never harvested a turkey. Oh, good morning, everybody. Man, got in late last night, slammed the pizza, went to bed, woke up with a flare exotic shirt on. Can you believe that? I want to show y'all what my lovely wife did yesterday. She moved all these rocks and made a pathway to our chicken coop. This just makes things real nice here in the morning. You just come out here, just, you know, get your coffee, come out here, high step it. Over to the rack of the groups. Okay, let's see what we got here. The bobcat has been back one time, y'all. I'm gonna tell you what is extremely frustrating, too, about how this bobcat goes up on this wood pile. This is the one place that I've just consistently kept the trap going. You know, it's, I worry about the traps a lot of times with letting the chickens free range and then having Emmy out here, but just watch this. The bobcat goes and like shimmy steps just on that right side of that wood pile right there, okay? Look at, look at his finessy little feet. And he's just thinking about these little chicks in there, these little pullets and that duck. You come over here and just look at this. Now I put this piece of wood right here right now, so that won't happen again, but it's like it knew this was here and it was more well-hidden before. Like it was in a nice crack and covered up with leaves, but I just wanted to jump up there and get clapped, you know? It's like it knew the trap was there and it stayed on this right side so it could get on top. I mean, this is a clever cat, y'all. So I've looked at some of y'all's comments on ways to enhance the paw traps and ways to conceal them more and attract the cat. Let me all mention like putting it like a fur tail or something like that, you know? Like a fake, just something curious, like literally like you would think a house cat. It definitely keeps lingering around though. There was like four or five days where I thought, yeah, it's been defeated. It's gonna go off in the woods. It's gonna tell all the bobcats and the foxes like, hey, you can't get into the racially-reduced. It's locked down now, not the case. Hunger kicks in, phew, predators, instincts, they just keep coming. So we're gonna try some new things. Try to get the cat eventually, either by hook or by crook, we will get the kitty. Today I'm gonna leave y'all with a glimpse of what is to come here where I normally park my boat. So the boat is being parked here. We got a bunch of rock that we're moving in, but I'm setting up an area right now. Building, this is probably one of my biggest projects I've ever done, that's the biggest currently. Next to it, this isn't gonna take me nearly as long, but it's just bigger, heavier stuff, is building a second driveway and then having to build up a small retaining wall. This is what I've got going so far, and I want this to basically look like a park. Like if you're pulling into a camp space, you know? You know, hook up your RV, all that fun stuff, that's the look I'm going for. So I've got railroad ties, I've got some of this rock right here, I've got a base of that set up, I'm gonna stake it down into the ground, it's gonna be probably two tiers high, and I've just gotta add a little back support back here, not an engineer, don't know what I'm doing. But what I'm thinking, look at this cat, it's a chicken treat if I've ever seen one. So what we'll do over here, OSG already proved it, is we're gonna put some dirt inside of here along with our rocks, and then we're gonna plant herbs in these cracks, in these little crevasses here, and those herbs are gonna be used as bug defense in our chicken coop and run. For those of you that don't know, natural herbs that keep bugs away, rosemary, mint, what's the third one? Spear mint is another form of mint, but I like it. I'm gonna roll up my sleeves here before the storm comes in, and I'm gonna get it done. So next time you all see this area, it is going to be pretty daggum sweet, and babe, you've done an awesome job over here. Thank you. You know, you're the finesse, I'm just over here. Oh my gosh, you're rocking my muscles right now, cause they're, they're, they're rock solid. Actually she's the muscle, okay? This lady's got some arms. Anyway, it's just a fun little project we're working on to make our little camp, so to speak, more campy, because look, I mean, look at our house. Looks like we're, looks like we live in a state park, and I like that. So add a little signage, maybe get some of y'all awesome creative people out there to make some park signage, you know what I'm talking about? A little brown sign, a little yellow lettering carved out. Anyways, thank you for tuning in to this on the water and outdoor experience here in the backyard. I will see you very soon. God bless you. Later.