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[cool][#0000ff]Made a speed run last week to visit family and friends in So. Cal and Arizona. Loved the warmth (100 degrees), atmospheric enhancement (smog) and economic challenges ($4.17 gal. gas).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]No fishing, but did walk out on some of my old favorite fishing piers in California. Major harvest of small mackerel going on. Nothing substantial.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]No water in Arizona. All the lakes are mirages. And when I tried to hunt for nightcrawlers all I found were "sand worms". Since it is the bloom time of year, however, I did get to see some Arizona tulips.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Glad to be back, even if we did have to drive in hurricane force winds last Thursday. But they were tail winds. Still didn't offset the gas prices from California.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Now I gotta get the ol' tube prepped for spring fishing...if spring ever makes it to Utah. Global warming. Yeah, right.[/#0000ff]
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That sand worm is ready to rock and roll! Hope that was a telephoto shot.
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Great pics! And I hope you were not as close to that rattler as the pic suggests.
Glad you had a good time.
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yeah the snake haters! My gosh I have fished plenty of times in rattler country. We called them "coontails" and that was what the locals called them.
Some common sense will prevent a snake bite.
I once got brave and picked up a gopher snake off the side of the road. Never bit me! I let it go. I should never bother any snake no matter how "harmless" they may be.
I hope to hit Lake Havasu this year in July....damn the heat!
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TubeDude wrote:[/quote]
[cool][#0000ff][/#0000ff] Never had a rattler exhibit any aggressiveness. Just about every one we have ever seen has been trying to get from one place to another...or just soakin' up some rays on a cold morning. Almost always try to get away rather than attacking.[/b][/quote]
Yeah, I've been around quite a few of them as well. Surprised a few too. (Grew up in So Cal) Never had one get aggressive either. But if ya wanna see a fat guy go three feet in the air and do a pirouette....
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You were just mentioning flathead catfish, and there you are driving right by Arizona's second most prized flathead catfish waters with out a Bluegill for bait and your Heavy Catfish rod? I am almost disappointed. [sly] . It's not the snakes down there it is the scorpions you got to be weary of. By the way The flatheads are just just finishing the spawn. Would have been a great trip! Especially on the Salt River.
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[cool][#0000ff]TWANG! My heartstrings vibrate whenever I think of flatheads. Spent a lot of fun times attached to those big aggressive kitties. Caught them out of Roosevelt, Apache and Canyon on the Salt River. And Horseshoe and Bartlett on the Verde. One of my favorite tubing spots was the big scour hole below Horseshoe...on the Verde. The pic below is a flattie taken there on a jig and 6# line while fishing for crappies. Took a while to persuade him to crawl into my net.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Sadly, that trip was an "obligation" trip with little time and no tackle for fishing.[/#0000ff]
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Glad to hear your back. Sure love to visit those areas, the wife and I went to San Diego for deep sea fish'n and then to the 29 Palms area of Desert Center go Golf and ride ATV's last March. Good times! Well now that you are back maybe you can find where the fish are biting. The water has remaind cold and the fishes lips seem to be stuck together. Joe and I have been to Willard twice and Mantua twice with little to show for it. Cant seem to get two sunny days in a row, or per week latley. Looking forward to your future posts.[cool]
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[cool][#0000ff]Thinking about sneaking in a trip to a couple of spots on Utah Lake Friday. Willard is definitely in my crosshairs for next week...if Mama Nature can get back on her meds.[/#0000ff]
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I spent a lot of time In the exact same places in AZ. I found the Kitties were almost always "accidentally" caught when we were crappie fishing... These were down on the Colorado.
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[cool][#0000ff]Goldfish or bluegills?[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Dragged a few monsters out of the hole below Laguna Dam. Lots of flatties up and down that river if you can find the right spot.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Talk about rattlers. The banks along the Colorado have a lot of those Mojave rattlers. Bad business. They CAN be aggressive and more dangerous than the diamondbacks. Fishing out on a spit of gravel below Palo Verde wier one night we had to keep using a long stick to pitch rattlers out into the current when they crawled out to join us in the light. My fishing buddy stepped out the back of the camper one night...and his foot pinned the head of a big nasty rattler. Emptied his pistol full of snake loads into it and got so sick he couldn't stand up for an hour.[/#0000ff]
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Actually Tilapia and or Carp are the much preferred baits. Blue gill work, But a 1 1/2 pound 12-14 inch carp is the "Golden Bait". My buddy "Crush" had a website devoted to Arizona Flatheads for awhile. The Salt River and it's associated reservoirs, the Verde, and the Colorado have all seen my hooks. Tempe Town lake has even yielded the occasional Teener Flattie as well. I have always wanted to use one of those "sand worms" for bait, but they are trouble to put on a hook! Besides every body knows those desert crawfish [:/] (scorpions) are better bait then sand worms.
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[#000050]Pat, good to see some pictures from that Country. I had an occasion to build a Hospital expansion in Globe a long time back and enjoyed driving up past Roosevelt Lake and down the river back to Phoenix.[/#000050]
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[#000050]Pretty Country..[/#000050]
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[cool][#0000ff]Thanks.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A lot of folks who have never been to that part of Arizona still think "desert is desert". But when you get a chance to experience it throughout a whole year of changes you really develop an appreciation for the beauty.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]We used to always drive up through Globe and Miami in the fall to pick up some fresh roasted chiles. Man, the aroma of those things toasting was enough to make ya drool. Many happy rellenos.[/#0000ff]
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[quote TubeDude][cool]
[#0000ff]No water in Arizona. All the lakes are mirages. [/#0000ff][#000000][/quote][/#000000]
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for a few pics. We moved slowly and non-threateningly. He did form a semi coil when the vibrations and motion of our nearness registered with him. But he never did bother to rattle and did not appear too miffed or aggressive.[/#0000ff]
rattlers it also provided a bunch of drowned scorpions for the channel cats. Just about every cat I caught for a while had "sand shrimp" in their tummies.[/#0000ff]