Still alive at 65.....!!!!!

ShootingArts said:
I saw a hundred pounder and one hundred twenty pounder both caught on the same trotline by a commercial fisherman. They are a commercial fish in Louisiana and not uncommon. Sounds like a tall tale but I saw one that would dwarf even that 253 pound gar one day when fishing in a backwater of the Mississippi. It was spring, bass were spawning, and that was what we were targeting. So was a gar. It was cruising parallel to the shoreline sucking up big bass like they were minnows. It swam next to a twenty foot log and just under the surface. Even with a little magnification from the water that fish was still huge. It looked as long as the log.

I had an H&H spinner on a fairly heavy rod so thought I might at least fight with the gar awhile. Ran it in front of the gar's nose a few times, it couldn't be bothered. All of the trees and underbrush in the woods the Mississippi had overflowed into had filtered the water so it was crystal clear. I decided I would snag it and at least see it explode. I cast the bait over it's back a handful of times and let it drop down a foot or two on the other side of the gar and jerked. Those huge scales on the gar must have been almost bulletproof. I couldn't even snag it and it ignored my efforts, the string over it's back and the heavy lure hitting it.

I talked to a man that would catch huge catfish out of the Mississippi on rod and reel. He used saltwater surf fishing gear. He said most weekends that he fished he would hook something too big to turn and get a reel stripped once or twice a weekend. That was under the old Mississippi River bridge at Baton Rouge. It was pretty common for the bridge to get hit by barges and a barge had hit the bridge and sank wrapping around a piling. The corp decided they had better send a diver down to take a look, make sure the bridge was unharmed.

The diver went down and came up just a little later. As he walked out of the river he was shedding gear. He got in his pick-up and was fixing to drive off leaving his gear behind when somebody asked him what was wrong. He said he had dived all over the world with huge sharks and orcas and such but he could see them. By the time you were sixty feet down in the big muddy you are in black water. He said he bumped into a catfish nose to nose big enough to swallow him neat!

I suspect there are some huge monsters of many varieties in the Mississippi. Not far from it a friend found a dead alligator on the bank that he taped at 17'-4". Would have easily been a state record, maybe world record. Just a couple miles from where he found it my brother and I saw one longer than our bass boat that was fifteen feet and change. That had been a couple months before the one was found on the bank, probably the same one. I knew of one killed reported to have measured over sixteen feet and Big Jim measured close to fifteen feet five years or so before he had to be shot for getting too friendly with people. Once they get over about nine feet long they consider humans prey. Fortunately they don't know how slow we are!

Hu
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These pics were from a trip I made to Shreveport in 2018. I spent one Saturday fishing the Red River just below Lock #5, and this fish hit a gold colored Johnson Silver Minnow spoon. Biggest freshwater fish I ever caught.
When I hooked it, I initially thought I had log or a branch, but it kept moving upstream. Then I felt a few head shakes, and eventually got it to the shore in front of me. It must have spooked and took off for the other side of the river, and at that point, I never saw the fish at all. (the Red River is really the Brown Muddy River) After another 5-10 minutes, I got it to my bank again, and it came up to the surface. That's when I realized how big it was. I was fishing with 15 pound braid, and a 10 pound mono leader, so I figured it would end there with the fish splashing around in front of me. Luckily, the guy in the second pic was up near the dam with his sons, and I waved him down. He was amazed that I actually had the gar hooked in it's mouth, and couldn't believe I got it in like I did. He kept telling me how much the fish was worth, so I told him that if he helped me land it and take a few pics, he could have it. He couldn't hop into the water fast enough, and wrangled it up on shore. He took a couple pics for me, then his son took some with us both holding it. After the pics, he thanked me, and they carried it up to their vehicle and left.


Gar1.JPG


Gar2.JPG
 
pt109 said:
There isn’t much of a problem knowing how heavy a fish is……most of them come with scales.
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That pun is so bad that I had to laugh out loud! Some are so bad they are good.

About what gar are worth, the fish market was giving a dollar a pound when I saw the monster. Twelve years old and several hundred dollars in my eyes when I was trying to figure out how to make it mine!

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
Paul, I have always heard everybody has one book in them; and it is usually a good place for it to stay! I have written a few chapters a handful of times, that is about as far as I can get. I have always felt like you could write a good book. You are smarter than the average bear and you have lived a life.

Some can just toss off a book. If I am to put together one worth reading it is going to have to be outlined and built block by block, by no means a light undertaking. As it happens, I listened to Waylon Jennings talking about writing "Waylon" earlier today. He had a ghost writer and it still took him three years to get it done!

Hu
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I think men who forged their own path, went thru the trials that taking the 'road less traveled' brought about, have the best books in them. Nobody wants to read about some poor bastard who gets up a 5 every morning to provide a stable environment for his wife and kids. They have my respect and to a small extent, admiration, but even moreso the men who did it their way and lived to tell the tale. Squeezing every drop they can from each day without fear of 'beyond here there be dragons.'
The 1%ers.
There be one or two roun hea someplace!!😂
 
garczar said:
used to be in the cigar business. so i'm the 'czar of gars'. hope this clears up things. nothing to do with fish although here in Oklahoma we have MONSTER size gar: https://www.oklahoman.com/story/spo...est-fish-ever-caught-in-oklahoma/60748966007/
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OK, so what's your favorite cigar?
I always liked a Maduro 50-52 shorty (3-4") because I was never in for a long smoke. First taste of fire and I'm done.
I liked Onyx for affordable and tasty, with good sizes.
Don't smoke anymore because that smell doesn't come out and I don't want to taste it for a day after...
 
sudocrushms said:
OK, so what's your favorite cigar?
I always liked a Maduro 50-52 shorty (3-4") because I was never in for a long smoke. First taste of fire and I'm done.
I liked Onyx for affordable and tasty, with good sizes.
Don't smoke anymore because that smell doesn't come out and I don't want to taste it for a day after...
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OneHandedBreak said:
Look into DMSO as a way to prevent the big C from coming back. Glad you made it through this test!
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sudocrushms said:
OK, so what's your favorite cigar?
I always liked a Maduro 50-52 shorty (3-4") because I was never in for a long smoke. First taste of fire and I'm done.
I liked Onyx for affordable and tasty, with good sizes.
Don't smoke anymore because that smell doesn't come out and I don't want to taste it for a day after...
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Yo Garczar!! Do you recall the 'Tinder Box??' Those Tobacco stores in malls around the Midwest where you could buy a real cigar or pipe tobacco that wasn't in a pouch or can. (Prince albert - let him out) 😂 My brother got me a nice meerschaum pipe there for my 21st.
Have it to this day. Mermaid w big tits right where you hold it. Rubbed that thing like Aladdin's lamp for years!! Got one helluva Patina now. 😂
 
sudocrushms said:
OK, so what's your favorite cigar?
I always liked a Maduro 50-52 shorty (3-4") because I was never in for a long smoke. First taste of fire and I'm done.
I liked Onyx for affordable and tasty, with good sizes.
Don't smoke anymore because that smell doesn't come out and I don't want to taste it for a day after...
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i'm a maduro guy myself. onyx are good as are padron, punch, el rey del mundo. chillin moose by foundry cigars is current fave.
 
MitchAlsup said:
For the record:: I went through a "Transurethral resection of the prostate" yesterday.
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Wishing you a smooth and mellow recovery! Never had mine checked after hearing this from a coworker. We were peacefully sitting around after lunch huddling out of the wind on an outdoor job when a coworker let out a hell of a yell!! Everybody looked at him, "What's the matter?" "I just realized that the doctor had a hand on each shoulder when he checked my prostate yesterday!"

I hope it doesn't hurt you to laugh!

Hu
 
ShootingArts said:
That pun is so bad that I had to laugh out loud! Some are so bad they are good.

About what gar are worth, the fish market was giving a dollar a pound when I saw the monster. Twelve years old and several hundred dollars in my eyes when I was trying to figure out how to make it mine!

Hu
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don't know how it works with gar, but with pikes the monsters taste even worse. the french eat them though. they are exported to france where the frenchmen make "quenelles" of them
 
MitchAlsup said:
They stick a catheter up your urethra with a tool that bores a hole out of the center of the prostrate (leaving the urethra sound) but so that when I go through radiation (later) the prostrate won't swell up and close off my ability to pee.

Yeah--its no fun.
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Ok thanks. The radiation screwed up my bladder/bowels. The bowels are prettywell ok but the bladder is still damaged.and i had an artificial unit installed to stop the leaking. It won't be activated for another 3-4 weeks and hope it works. I don't want another catheter installed
 
George the Greek said:
Ok thanks. The radiation screwed up my bladder/bowels. The bowels are prettywell ok but the bladder is still damaged.and i had an artificial unit installed to stop the leaking. It won't be activated for another 3-4 weeks and hope it works. I don't want another catheter installed
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I can, NOW, understand why.
 
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