No Artificial Ingredients Indeed
July 31, 2007
Back from our family’s vacation to Costa Rica, I am left feeling extremely grateful for not only the well-received rest and relaxation with family; I enjoyed exhilarating experiences previously unimaginable.
Costa Rica’s ad in this Sunday’s New York Times includes the tagline “No Artificial Ingredients.” I’ll say. What with monkeys offering our singular wake-up call swinging limb to limb just outside our hotel balcony, to iguanas joining us on our walk to breakfast, to a highly venomous snake slithering right before our eyes on our drive to dinner, to native raccoon-like critters sharing the bar under the grass-thatched hut where we dined for most meals…nature called out loud and clear. Everywhere.
We watched the volcano erupt at Arenal and watched with delight when we saw it played again on the national news that night; patted the frogs which resident caretaker Valencio sheltered and raised; glared at the crocodile swimming in the same water where we white-water rafted; and enthusiastically spread mud on our faces while we sipped organic coffee at a mountaintop café. (I never thought I’d be wearing a volcanic mud mask in the middle of Costa Rica in front of strangers…but then again, I figured I’d never see these people again, either.)
Monster Hunt: Ledge Lunker Blues Part II
July 30, 2007
Originally published in Procats Online Magazine
Settin’ It Up
Once Jeff has picked his area by marking the right bottom contour near the thermocline and the right space between the fish and the bottom, he is ready to deploy the drift socks. Williams will usually only use on drift sock or "sea anchor" to set his drift at the right speed and path.
Some anglers use two anchors out the side of the boat but Jeff prefers to drift with the socks either out the front or the back to get a more controlled drift. If the wind is moving at a fairly good clip, Jeff will fish from the front so the wind doesn’t push his boat too fast. If the wind is fairly slow, he will fish from the back so the wind has more of a flat surface to push on, thus speeding up his drift. Jeff notes that he will catch more fish if he speeds up or slows down the drift when he needs to cover more or less water.
Penguin Parade
July 29, 2007
Phillip Island is a small island and nature reserve off the coast of South Australia, about 140 km from Melbourne. On the island you can see koalas, kangaroos and the main to attraction, the Penguin Parade on Summerland Beach.
Every day at sunset, the Little Penguins (also known as Fairy Penguins) because of their diminitive size, return to the beach. As my husband is a penguin fanatic, it was one of the places on our list to visit during our trip to Australia.
There is a visitor centre at the top of the beach with details of all the world’s penguins, there is a gift shop too and rangers who can answer questions about everything you wanted to know about penguins and more.
As dusk was approaching, we made our way down to the beach, as did everyone else. On the beach was a stone grandstand, rather cold on the behind, so bring a coat or blanket to sit on.
Some people had even brought along a picnic, a family day out. As it got darker, people became more subuded and talked less, keeping an eye out on the beach to see the arrival of that first penguin.
Monster Hunt: Ledge Lunker Blues Part I
July 29, 2007
Originally published in Procats Online Magazine
Summertime angling for trophy-sized blue cats on huge reservoirs can be tough. Peer across an expansive lake and the sheer vastness will seemingly swallow you whole. Where do you start? Do you just go out and look around with a good locator and hope to see some arches and begin fishing? Based on past experiences you know two things. Sometimes you have to drift. Other times you’ll have to anchor. How do you know which to do first and what types of structure are you looking for that will hold big burly blue cats?
Procat pro-staffer Jeff Williams ardently targets big blues on Truman Reservoir and Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. A lifetime of big-lake catfishing has taught him a thing or two about catfish behavior in reservoirs, and according to Jeff you can put more fish into the boat if you learn a few keys to summertime blue cat location. Before we get into the fishing part let’s look at the two lakes Jeff fishes.
Lake Ledges
Costa Rica: Land of Natural Wonders
July 28, 2007
Costa Rica is a small country - just 75 mi/120 km separates the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean Sea at the narrowest spot - Costa Rica still has some of the most diverse scenery in the world. Its coasts have both sandy beaches and marshy swamps, while its interior is dotted with volcanoes, dense with rain forests and abundant with unusual flora.
When you are planning your Costa Rica vacation, make sure to visit destinations like Monteverde Cloud Forest, Corcovado National Park, Tortuguero National Park or Manuel Antonio National Park. In addition, you will enjoy in your Costa Rica vacation, a wide range of adventure travel activities, including scuba diving, hiking around the Arenal Volcano area, and exploring the dense tropical rainforests.
What to do? Where to do? Fly through the rain-forest canopy on a zip line? Go white-water rafting? Climb a volcano? Laze on a white-sand beach in guanacaste and manuel antonio national park on the pacific coast or Limon on the caribbean coast? Check out colorful marine life while snorkeling? Or try to hook one on a deep-sea fishing excursion?
Its Raining… Time to Go Fishing!
July 27, 2007
Ah, fishing in the rain. You may not like the rain, but the fish sure love it!
You may not believe it, but you may catch more fish while it is raining. There are a few good logical reasons for this.
First, when it rains, the worms come out… and naturally, many of those worms along with other bugs get washed into the water. The fish know this and react by feeding. The underwater world erupts into a feeding frenzy, especially if it hasn’t rained for a while.
Another reason is that oxygen levels rise from the rain hitting the water, which increases fish activity levels. There is so much oxygen in the water that it is easier for the fish to swim faster and longer without getting tired. When they see your nice tasty-looking lure, they’re much more likely to go after it.
If you’ve ever been up on a high mountain, you know how much faster you lose your breath and get tired… that’s because there’s less oxygen up at the higher altitudes… come back down to sea-level, and you have more energy and can breathe easier. When it rains, for the fish, it is like coming down to sea-level after living high in the mountains.
Costa Rica White Water Rafting Trip
July 26, 2007
Costa Rica’s mountainous topography and copious rainfall are both responsible for one of the best white water rafting river choices in the world. Experienced rafting outfitters regularly run about half a dozen of rambunctious rivers, and those river trips not only provide plenty of excitement, but also allow enjoying gorgeous scenery. Not only do white water rafting enthusiasts flock Costa Rica, including several Olympic kayaking teams, but every year tens of thousands of visitors experience here the thrill of rafting for the first time.
Costa Rica is the perfect place for a first white water rafting trip experience, since it has several rivers that offer a combination of reasonable rapids and beautiful floats. There are even rivers that are great for family excursions and bird watching, since they lack big rapids and flow through forests full of birds and other animals. In fact almost all river trips offer chances to see a bit of the country’s wildlife, such as iguanas, blue morpho butterflies, parrots, otters, king fishers, and herons.
Concentrate on Your Fishing
July 25, 2007
I was watching a TV Show with Bill Dance and he was talking about concentration. I thought well this is going to be a boring show but of course, it wasn’t. Matter of fact it made sense. Bill says Concentration not only makes you a better fishermen but also helps you forget your daily woes.
Learn something from every cast. When you get a strike…..analyze it. What was the cover? What was the lure speed? What retrieve did you use? What was the water temperature? What was the depth of the strike? What was the oxygen level? What was the lure color? What type of lure? What position was the boat to the cover?v Was the strike a slight bump or hard jerk?
A light bump usually means inactive fish.
If bass strikes shallow………usually active If bass strikes mid-depth…….usually semi-active If bass strikes in deep water…usually inactive.
So, how does this help you? Well, if you can imitate the last conditions where you caught a fish, chances are you will catch even more without spending hours searching all over the lake.
Highpointing: It?s Not Just For Mountaineers
July 24, 2007
Mount Sunflower, Kansas. Ebright Azimuth, Delaware. Hawkeye Point, Iowa. Hoosier High Point, Indiana.
They may not have the name recognition of Mount McKinley (Denali), Mount Rainier, Mount Whitney, and Mount Hood. And they certainly are far, far easier to get to! But all these places have something in common. Each is the highest natural spot in its state.
Welcome to the world of Highpointing. Thousands of otherwise sane people have set out to drive, stroll, hike, or climb to the highest point in each of the 50 states. Many never plan to make it to the tougher highpoints like Denali (in Alaska), Rainier (in Washington) or Granite (in Montana), but they’ve discovered the fun in planning trips to locate the unusual "summits" of Sunflower (located on the flatlands of Kansas), Ebright Azimuth (yes, a suburban neighborhood can be the site of a state highpoint), Hawkeye Point (located at the end of a feeding trough on a farm in Iowa), and Lakewood Park (turn right at the restrooms, and stroll a short way along a path in a Florida park).
Bicycling Down The River
July 24, 2007
My river-rafting adventure started on a bicycle. The small daypack I wore carried a hatchet, a saw, some scraps of rope, food, water, a garbage bag bivy sack, a hat, and odds and ends. It weighed less than fifteen pounds total.
It was late May, so Id stay warm in my homemade bivy, without a sleeping bag. I might wear my hat, and pile up some leaves to sleep on. If the mosquitos were bad, I’d use my headnet, which, I had learned, would also trap warm air around my head, keeping me warmer. I had matches and a lighter, in case I needed a fire in an emergency.
Thirty miles of pedaling had brought me from my home in Traverse City, Michigan, down the backroads to the Baxter Bridge, on the Manistee River. It was almost 10 a.m. I pushed the bicycle into the woods, and rolled it along, lifting it over logs, until I was a mile upstream. Looking around at the trees, I knew this was the place to start the river rafting part of the trip.
Sometimes Adventure Involves A Lot Of Work
