Crappie Fishing in May

A lot has happened in the last year, and we have finally settled in a comfortable 2 bedroom town house in Osage Beach. That follows moving out of a two story four bedroom house into a 5th wheel RV, and out of the RV into the town house. I am ready to stay in one place for a while.  I like being close to everything AND ten minutes from my work.

I have gone fishing every day-off for the last two weeks, and I have some nice crappie fillets in the freezer. I clean the fillets, chill them in ice water, drain them off, and cover them with a cornmeal-flour mixture to freeze them flat on a cookie sheet.  Then they go into a bucket in the freezer.  When I'm ready to cook them, they go from the freezer into a hot skillet with peanut oil and in minutes they're ready to eat.  Yummy!

The crappie are harder to catch now, and it takes some hunting to find them. Last week they were about 10 feet offshore, and yesterday they were much farther out and deep.  I was using minnows, and an ultra-light rod with a 4 pound test line.  I would take the minnow to the bottom and bring it up a few inches at a time until I found their location.  They were tricky to catch, and I had to try several different hook sizes before I settled on a number 2 gold hook.  I even tried tiny trout hooks and caught two crappie on those, but missed several too.

I don't have a boat, so my fishing is done from the shoreline or from a dock.

This morning I made a small batch of banana bait to play with later today. I like fishing in the afternoon, and so far, that has been very productive. Here's the recipe for a small batch of banana bait, just enough for a day or two of fishing.

Take about two inches of banana and eat the rest.  Mash the piece of banana and add one TB yellow cornmeal, one TB of sugar, and a heaping TB of flour and use a fork to mush everything up. Add a few drops of vanilla and put in a little covered dish in the microwave.  You should have a piece about the size of an English muffin.  Microwave on high heat for one minute and let it cool about 10 minutes still covered.  The bait should be still warm but not hot.  Dust your hands with a little flour and squeeze and knead the ball till it's elastic.  Put in a little plastic bag and take the grandkids fishing. It's non toxic and smells nice.  Using a piece about the size of a jelly bean, squeeze it onto the hook. You can use either a single hook or a treble.

I like to find an area where I can see little perch in the water and toss in tiny pieces to see if they're feeding.  If the conditions are right, the little perch will gobble it up.

Warning - it only takes a tiny piece to catch a really big fish.  I have caught ten pound catfish on tiny pieces of banana bait. Set the drag on your reel and prepare to have fun.  I usually use an ultralight rod with a 4 pound test line on an open faced reel.  As long as there is nothing in the water to get your fish tangled up, you can play with him till he gets tired and lets you bring him to the surface.  A big net or a gaff helps a lot.

Life is short - Go fishing!

I have enjoyed all kinds of crafts since I was a little girl, and I still love to start a new project and finish an old one.

My grandmother Hazel taught me to crochet, my mother CoraBelle taught me to quilt, and my Aunt Eileen taught me to knit.  I think I must have been one of those kids that they had to keep busy to keep out of mischief!

I was born in Iowa, and lived there for 29 years until moving to Texas. From Texas my husband Jim and I moved to Michigan for a short time, where I worked at Bear Cave Resort in Buchanan until we relocated to Missouri.

 I love it in the Ozarks, and the fishing here is great.  If I'm not at work at the hospital, I'm either writing, fishing in the lake, or creating new designs and patterns on the computer.

I work very hard at creating the patterns, and it is also a lot of fun for me.  Usually I have some idea in my head of something I want to create, or my husband Jim says , why don't you make a ............(whatever).  I might get halfway into making an item, and if it isn't going the way I want it to,  I'll frog the whole thing out and start over.  I may make notes as I go along, and I may wait till I finish - whatever works.

Occasionally I come across  yarn that just wants to be made into something special!  Then it either goes into something for babies,  little dogs, one of my kids, or grandkids.   And when I create something new, I take pictures as I go along and make notes to write the pattern.

My closets are so full of yarn, there is barely room for clothes.  When I want to create something new, I go digging in the yarn baskets to get inspiration.

In 2009 I wrote my first novel, a general fiction called "Abbey of Dragon Lake."  In 2012, I completed the sequel, "Blood Ties".  They are both available on Amazon.com for Kindle. I am currently working on my third novel, "Close to the Heart".

Every November, I join in National Novel Writing Month with thousands of other writers and take the challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days and another book is born.  Then I take the next few months and edit.  If you've always wanted to write a book, go to www.NaNoWriMo.org and join us for a month of fun and madness.  You won't regret it!

Three days a week I work a 12 hour shift  in the local hospital.  I work in OB, helping with the Moms and babies, and sometimes in surgery.  Every day I'm not working, I'm either knitting, crocheting, writing, or quilting.

You are invited to visit my Etsy stores any time you need a pattern.

www.ozarknomad.etsy.com

www.ladytatterly.etsy.com

www.mandalabay.etsy.com

Want to go fishing? Here's my free bait recipe!

Get ready to catch fish. If there are fish in the water, this bait will catch them. Guaranteed.

There is a little story behind this recipe. After the crappie head for deep water in the summer, I will often fish for bluegill and perch because they're easy to catch and really tasty too! I have made different kinds of dough bait for fishing ever since my dad taught me how to make it when I was a kid. Bluegill are scavengers (like catfish) and they will bite on almost anything. I've caught them on MacDonald's french fries. As long as the dough bait has a cornmeal and flour base so it sticks together, you can add various ingredients to tempt the little fish. One day several years ago I wanted to go fishing, and there was one over-ripe banana in the kitchen. Always ready to experiment, I mashed it up and added this and that and cooked it on the stove. It cooled off and I took it to the lake for a few hours of fishing. You can imagine my smile when the little bluegill LOVED this bait. Suddenly, BAM, something really big was on my line. Darn, it must be a turtle, I thought, because it was bending my ultra light rod double. I have the drag set light on the four pound test line, and I played with this lake creature for a while, wanting to see what it was. When it tired of fighting and I was able to gently coax it to the surface, I saw a big catfish on the line. I was dock fishing, didn't have a big net, didn't want to fall in the water, so I laid down on the dock and could just reach the catfish jaw to haul it in. That was the beginning of a fun summer of catching all kinds of fish on my homemade banana bait. If you want to catch crappie with this bait, you have to add something to the hook with some wiggle and flash. You can put a little bit of the dough on a jig and hook as an attractant. I love this bait ( and so do my grandkids) because it has a nice smell, I can store it in the freezer till I need it, and a little bit goes a long, long way. Anyway, here it is, good luck, and have fun. Here's the recipe. Take a kid fishing.

Grandma Toni's Homemade Banana Power Bait for All Kinds of Fish

First, wash your hands! Fish don't like hand lotion and perfume. If you have a lemon scented dish soap, use that. You will have to do some of the mixing by hand, and you don't want to contaminate your bait with something the fish don't like.

Mix together 1 mashed banana, 1 cup of water, 1 cup of cornmeal, 1/2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1 Tablespoon sugar, 1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal, a dash of salt.

Mix it well and put it in a microwave proof container with a cover. Nuke it for 2 minutes on high. Take it out and it will have the outside edges cooked and the inside will be soft. Stir it again until it is all the same consistency and nuke it again for 2 minutes on high.

Take out the dough. It should be the consistency of stiff playdough. Knead it well as soon as it has cooled enough that you don't burn your hands. Add flour as you knead to keep it from sticking to your hands. Be careful, this stuff is hot! Once it is kneaded and cooled, you will have a rubbery hunk of dough about the size of a large grapefruit. Divide it into smaller portions about the size of an egg and freeze it in a bag with a little flour to keep the portions from sticking together. When you want to go fishing, just take out a couple balls and head for the fishing hole.

Use a small hook or a treble hook and a piece of dough about the size of a pinto bean. A little piece of banana bait can catch a really big fish!

I hope you have as much fun with this as I have. I made up a batch this morning and put it in the freezer for the next camping trip.

Etsyhookers Team

I have always wondered how people can spend hours upon hours at the computer. Don't they have a life? And then I discovered Etsy, a place where people from all walks of life sell their handmade items. I signed up and began posting my original crochet patterns for sale there, along with the finished items. I was hooked. If I wasn't creating new crochet items and writing down the directions, I was looking at the work of other Etsy sellers and looking for new materials to use in my designs. Then I signed up to be on the Etsyhookers team - a group of Etsy sellers in love with crochet. I found myself spending most of my free time at the computer, and as I attempted to do more things with the computer and the Internet, I felt more at home in Cyberspace. The Etsyhookers team is in the process of moving their group from Ning to Facebook, and that is yet another learning experience, as I add more content to the new site.

My life away from the computer takes me to the hospital, where I work in Labor and Delivery as a tech. I take care of the needs of patience, assist the nurses and doctors, supply our department with materials needed to function, and assist in surgery when it's necessary. I work twelve hour shifts, usually three days a week, and although it's physically demanding sometimes, I love it. I work with a great team of women who are passionate about their jobs.

My recreation away from work and the computer includes photography, travel, knit and crochet, jewelry making, beadwork, painting and drawing, fishing, writing, and astrology. You may see a little bit of all these activities in my posts.

This is the beginning of a new facet of my Etsy experience, and my plan is to link my blog to Etsy and share life with my friends. Thanks for viewing.