Multi-Species Double

just starting to see a few….not ready to tell anyone to make a trip for them just yet….wont be long though.

I heard people say the white bass bite is great in pool 4. when do they actually spawn… i heard it was in around late april. but how come you dont see them hanging around like the walleyes. do they suddenly appear an than leave?

They will start showing themselves at the water approaches 50 or so degrees. You will find them all along the bends in the river up by the dam, the mouth of the Vermillion, and the exit chute by Diamond Island. It won’t be too long!

Something’s been messing with my bird feeder. Historically, I’d be quick to blame a masked-bandit (I dispatched 8 of them out of my yard last summer), but I had my doubts that it was a coon this time around. Mostly because the feeder has been emptied without being dislodged from the pole. Perhaps a deer has been the culprit…though there hasn’t been evidence of it (few tracks).

Two nights ago, I awoke around 3:30 after hearing a loud clamor outside our open bedroom window. A moonless night, I had to flip on the outside light to see the bugger. A big coon lept from the feeder and scampered into the woods.

(I should point out that I live in rural Itasca County – well away from neighbors and well into the woods.)

So last night I baited my live trap and set it at the base of the feeder. Sleep found me easily, feeling confident that I’d have the bugger in the morning.

5:30 this morning I awoke to a disturbance outside our bedroom window…I peaked out into the dawn to see a large coon leaping off of the feeder. The livetrap was sprung. And not empty. Milling around inside was a very small and very alive skunk.

Drat.

A fistfull of .22 hollow-points were fed into my Remington Nylon 66 as I kept tabs on the coon. It was preoccupied by digging up my yard in pursuit of earthworms. Sporting only my boxers, I tip-toed out of the porch and onto the deck in efforts to gain a favorable position to dispatch the coon. My aim was true and the bugger was lay to rest.

My attention now turned to the skunk.

Shooting a skunk through the mesh of the live trap is a bit of a challenge. The planets must have been in line for me as I was able to dispatch the critter without it spraying.

Sorry gang, no photos – just the story.

Quote:

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Sorry gang, no photos – just the story.

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That’s OK, I didn’t want to see you in your boxers holding the trophy skunk anyway. My old man tells me quite a few stories each summer of racing from the house in the skivvys to chase down pheasant killing varmin. Gotta love country livin’!

LOL. Nelson will have to tell his bear baiting story from last year. According to him the skunk looked like this…