All About Pocket Knives

Nice training camp, Scott! Regarding the Swallowtail Kite: they are one of my favorite birds to see. I am not a serious birder these days, except for raptors. I love raptors, and Swallowtails are great to see and to watch.

Lee - that sounds like a heck of a day of fishing!

Very cool snapper photos, Joe. Turtles have been quite active in my area over the past couple of weeks, what with the onset of hot weather and a good bit of rain too. Mostly I see box turtles about my yard, and streaked head turtles when I am kayaking. It is unusual to spot a snapping turtle out of the water.

Thank you, Mel
It is unusual to see them out of the water. Of course they come out to lay eggs.
About two hundred yards down the trail I came upon another one and it went into the water. I assume it was headed out to lay eggs too until I came along. This one was a little bigger than the first one. The first one had a shell about 12 inches from front to back.
The second one was approximately 14 or 15 inches long. It is a pleasure to view them.

Must be egg laying season all over because I've seen numerous on the roads this past week!!

Haven't had bass thumb in a while.....sadly.

Camp finished yesterday.
Instructed how to use Brace Drill.
Helped the boys make mallets.
A father son mountain bike team thanked us for the trail work we did (I know, there's no mountains in Florida but it's a trail you ride your
mountain bike on) on their trail......and it's a long trail.

Each boy left with a Kershaw Cinder and their mallet!!

They get bigger.......

I wouldn't want to tangle with that old rascal. He could bite your leg off.

jerryd6818 wrote:I wouldn't want to tangle with that old rascal. He could bite your leg off.

Yeah, he's got his mouth open and I don't think he's yawning. What a critter.

RobesonsRme.com wrote:They get bigger.......

That is a big one! Many years ago I hooked one like that on a trotline. He was so big I cut my line in two and towed him back to the bank (I was in a canoe). When I tried to slide him out of the water the hook broke. Probably just as well - I had absolutely no use for a snapper of any size, much less a giant.

If I am going to catch turtles, I prefer them the size of these two ...

TripleF wrote:Must be egg laying season all over because I've seen numerous on the roads this past week!!

Haven't had bass thumb in a while.....sadly.

Camp finished yesterday.
Instructed how to use Brace Drill.
Helped the boys make mallets.
A father son mountain bike team thanked us for the trail work we did (I know, there's no mountains in Florida but it's a trail you ride your
mountain bike on) on their trail......and it's a long trail.

Each boy left with a Kershaw Cinder and their mallet!!

That is the best one yet. Wow, I can hear these guys 30 years from now...'when I was a kid, this ole guy used to take us out into the woods'.... Stories they will remember and pass on after you have passed on. Great work and joy Scott.

Great pics fellows.
A good jaunt outdoors settles the nerves.

This one has been haunting me the last few days.
Hand drill Mullein spindle on yucca platform.
Hand drill embers are hard to come by in the humidity of my world. Could not get a good pic of the red ember, but she is there!

jerryd6818 wrote:I wouldn't want to tangle with that old rascal. He could bite your leg off.

Yep and if he bites you he wouldn't turn you loose until it lightnings!!

Ray

RobesonsRme.com wrote:They get bigger.......

Actually, the problem with picking them up like that is if you drop it it could really injure it.
I wouldn't want to hurt one of them.

Today's fishing

doglegg wrote:

TripleF wrote:Must be egg laying season all over because I've seen numerous on the roads this past week!!

Haven't had bass thumb in a while.....sadly.

Camp finished yesterday.
Instructed how to use Brace Drill.
Helped the boys make mallets.
A father son mountain bike team thanked us for the trail work we did (I know, there's no mountains in Florida but it's a trail you ride your
mountain bike on) on their trail......and it's a long trail.

Each boy left with a Kershaw Cinder and their mallet!!

That is the best one yet. Wow, I can hear these guys 30 years from now...'when I was a kid, this ole guy used to take us out into the woods'.... Stories they will remember and pass on after you have passed on. Great work and joy Scott.

That'll be cool Floyd. I hope so!

Those snapping turtles can be monsters.... as Scott was saying I have seen them crossing the backroads here as well recently off to lay their eggs .. Little painted turtles too... Similar to Mel's story - long ago when I was a young kid I hooked what I thought was a monster fish except the line was just slowly moving back and forth across the lake - when it got within sight after 10 minutes all I could see was moss on what looked like a log - however as I finally coerced it closer I saw it was a giant snapper with moss growing on the back of his shell - well needless to say I ended up cutting my line as he was trying to take a bite of me when he got to shore ...

Eustace - - I imagine you have some good trout fishing in Bulgaria too??

LongBlade wrote:
Eustace - - I imagine you have some good trout fishing in Bulgaria too??

In fact, it is not, and the reasons are many. Many small hydropower plants in mountain rivers, fishing with bleach or electricity, lack of control ...
A good fish two years ago:

Thanks Eustace ! That is a nice trout - looks like a brown trout but there are so many trout species and variations I am not sure... Very sad to hear of the problems with the mountain rivers & power plants and the effect on the fish... of course your problem is not just in your country and even here in the USA we have problems in certain areas even though conservation efforts fight very hard to maintain clean water and fisheries... in fact it can be a constant battle...

Very nice photos, Eustace. Looks like a mighty fine river to fish. In my part of the world it is a lot harder to keep a nice river nice than you would think. Someone always wants to dump stuff or build stuff that messes up the river. As for trout, it is too warm in my area for trout, but that just makes the sunfish better.

Here are a couple of colorful fellows that I caught and released today. Longear sunfish: one of my favorite fish. They bite aggressively, fight hard, look beautiful, and taste good. Locally they are known as Red bellies.

Nice Mel ... We have longear sunfish up north but never seen any with those bright red bellies - what a pretty fish ... We have plenty referred to as bluegills and I have to agree with you that for their size they like to pull big time and indeed are aggressive... I remember being out on a small pond on a windless evening and a few bluegills which were thick as your palm were pulling the row boat in a small circle... I have heard they can grow to 2 lbs or so - I imagine those would be a hoot

Dinadan, I recommend you try a #0 Mepps spinner with the red plastic tubing on the shank of the treble hook. Gold or silver, depending on water clarity. Killer lure on all the sunfish species.

Charlie

Dinadan wrote:Here are a couple of colorful fellows that I caught and released today. Longear sunfish: one of my favorite fish. They bite aggressively, fight hard, look beautiful, and taste good. Locally they are known as Red bellies.

Interesting! Mel, can you take a picture of the fly?

Eustise, in today's Ripley's Believe it or Not. Say's that in Bulgaria if a person nods the head up and down it means (no) and side to side is (yes). The opposite of us. Great as I like to learn. Lot's of good information from them.

I was too busy to take pictures today, but the wife and I along with the two youngest boys went to the lake for some bluegill. Simon, the youngest was jerking them out of the water like nobody’s business.

We wound up with four big ol slab sided keepers. Used a Mora to take off the heads and scale them. They’re waiting in the freezer now ready to join what we catch tomorrow. Lord willing.

Here’s three more, and the mora I used to clean them. These will join their brethren from yesterday and wait on a few more.

I found these today in the beehive. See those long cells hanging down? Those are superceedure cells. That means the old queen ain’t keeping up anymore, can’t put out eggs like she used to, so they’re raising some new queens. The strongest will kill off the others and she’ll become the new queen.