Difficulties posting

  Sorry all, it's been a trying week to get things posted.  My PC is still down, and I have had some issues with my blog format.   I'm still so new to this that it is taking me a while to figure it out.  So, I promise that tomorrow I will try to get my format issues resolved and post.  I can't use the PC as an excuse tomorrow, as Mommy skunk and the Skunk in the Middle will be on a field trip, so I can use the laptop.  I'm sure Baby Skunk will sleep at some point in the morning, thus allowing me to catch up on my duties.

Back into the swing of things

Go REV!!

  Ok, mixed results on the weekend.  The rest of the skunks had a great time.  The skunk in the middle has a new hero, the Revvin REV.  He is a pastor from the panhandle who races cars on the side.  The boys got to meet him this weekend, check out his car, and watch him race.  Apparently, he is quite good.

Thank God he's 11 years from turning 16!

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  I think we may have created a monster...this boys loves cars.  He made out like a bandit on his birthday.  Give the boy Hot Wheels and he is happy.  They were only able to stay a couple of days, but they really packed it in.  It was nice to have them home again.







I think it took a bit out of him!















  My part of the weekend was not nearly as successful.  I had my fishing trip, which I planned with the help of my new friends at the NE Fish and Game Association.  The plan was to go to Wagon Train SRA, fish by raft until sunset, then park it on the beach and spend the entire night going after catfish.  Then, at dawn the plan was to get back on the boat, and try to get a few Wiper Bass.

  As you may have noticed by now, things rarely go as I plan them.  Gallup once told me my #2 top strength was Adaptability.  It's a good thing, due to weekend like this.  It started innocently enough.  I found the SRA without difficulty, got the boat inflated, loaded and launched without a hitch.  So far, so good.  I drifted around the dock area for a while, trailing cutbait and a nightcrawler, using my anchor as a depth finder.  I didn't find any holes (or fish), so I moved out onto the main lake, which is deeper.  As I was pulling toward the west jetty, SNAP!  I turned around to see the lower half of my right oar slowly sink to the bottom of the lake.  Great....canoes have keels.  This allows you to pull on either side of the boat and still follow a relatively straight line.  Inflatable rafts have no keel, just a flat bottom.  I'm glad no one was recording my effort to paddle my way back to the dock, though I did hear a few chuckles.

 As I'd had no luck at all, and all I could hear around me at this point was the Husker game being played by 35 different radios, I pulled out and went to Branched Oak, a much larger lake on the other side of Lincoln.  It was full on dark when I got there, but I got myself set up on the beach, with my big rig geared for cats and outfitted with a strike-alert bell.  I sat down to read my book.  After pulling in my bait to check it and occasionally replace it for 4 hours, at 2:30 AM, I finally heard a tinkle from my bells.  Knowing that a friend had pulled a 56 lb flathead from this lake last week (!!), I was excited.  It wasn't that big, but it put up a big fight.  I finally pulled in a 22" channel cat.  Not huge, but it was easily the biggest fish I'd ever personally caught.

  As luck would have it, that was to be the only fish I caught the whole trip.  At dawn, I headed over to the dam and decided to take a 30 minute nap.  I set my phone alarm, for what it was worth.  I ended up sleeping for about 2 hours, missed the entire dawn bite.  Oh well, I got my gear put back together and single paddled my way out to the spot where the Big Brother Skunk had caught his monster wiper this summer.  I tried cutbait, crawlers, lures, spinners...I tried in 20', 10' and right up on shore.  Never even got a nibble.  Oh well, I was tired and sunburned and the other skunks were on their way home, so I packed up and left to get some house cleaning done.  I'd been home for about 4 hours when I pulled my catch off the ice to fillet it, and my heart sank.  My fishing bucket was not in the car.  Apparently, I left my bucket which was filled with my working tackle bag, meaning most of the tackle I own, my brand new fillet knife and my brand new landing net, in the parking lot at the lake.  I raced over, praying to find it still there, but alas, it was gone.  Then I got bitten by an ant or something on the way home.

  Well, the weekend is over, everyone is safe, and I learned a lot about solo fishing.  The most important thing I learned was:  Do a walkaround before you leave a fishing area!!!