Monday afternoon I went to the house on the river to take my hunting “stuff'” and prepare for fishing Tuesday. After taking a Bud ride to look at my boat, I returned to the house. My wife likes the old oriole nests that usually fall out of the trees this time of year during spells of freezing rain. There have been none of those this year. The orioles like to build their nests in the trees along the river so I set out to collect some. I took a .22 bolt action with open sights to do the job. The first one was in front of the house. I pulled up in the jeep and took aim to shoot the small limb, about the size of a pencil. On the first shot the  limb parted and the nest came down. I couldn’t believe it. There was another close by so I tried it. Again to my surprise it hit the ground on the third shot this time. Getting a little cocky, I pulled up to another and shot 15 times and it did not budge. By then it was getting really dark and I couldn’t see my sights, at least that’s my excuse. The birds use strands of towboat rope and other things to weave their nests which are a work of art.

The next morning the water temp was 48 degrees at 8:00 when I started. A shaky head got the call and finally caught one weighing 4-0 that was 13 feet deep.

During the day the bite was light. Not the electrifying tap we like to get. The bait would just stop. As the day went on the water heated up to 55 degrees and the bite heated up a little too. In one spot I lost a jig and then was fishing with a DT-10. There came a terrible backlash and the wind started blowing. As I was trying to get the tangle out the DT-10 somehow went deep and hung on a log. I wound up backlash and all but still could not save my DT-10. After it broke off, I had to cut out the backlash. I pulled out some new line and re-spooled which meant splicing the backing and the new lines together with a blood knot, all the while being blown into a treetop. Not a happy 30 minutes but I kept my cool and started anew. Shortly there after A 4-14 turned up on a parrot colored DT-10. The water had warmed and the fish had moved up to feed. I ended up with 8 with 2@ 3-2 , a 4-0, a 4-14 and of course a 2-14 for a top five weighing 18 pounds. Not too shoddy. I quit at 2:30.