Category: Nature

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Archaic Fishing Knots?

450 words, 2 minutes read time.

As a freshwater angler, there aren’t really a lot of fishing knots that need to be known. The general formula is to balance tying ease, friction, and shear force distribution; so that you don’t spend forever fiddling with stiff line but still end up with something that will hold but not snap under pressure. To achieve this end, there’s a million damn knots out there in the community’s collective. And no, I don’t want to argue about them.

But I couldn’t find the one that I had been taught to use some 30 years ago. I’m guessing that some knots just fall out of favor. Modern fishing line can take more punishment than what I grew up with, so that probably allows for easier knots by sacrificing on shear force resistance. The knot I was taught to use was like a double passthrough version of the clinch knot, but in reality more like a modified noose. And it’s also entirely likely that I unintentionally modified the knot I was taught because I was too proud to ask for help more than once. (That, and I also remember needing a refresher and my dumb uncle told me to just tie a series of overhand knots. The knot failed as soon as I hooked a fish.)

In any case, I wanted to know the name of the knot I had been using, and it took me forever to find online, but it does in fact exist. I finally have a name for it: The Swivel Braid Knot. Which should not be confused with the Braid to Swivel Knot, or the Offshore Swivel Knot. I told you there were millions of these things.

So to document it before I forget what it’s called, I’m posting it here. And to give credit to the visual reference that helped me with identification, here’s the link. Although amusingly enough, the link is broken. The forum doesn’t appear to exist anymore. So again, it must indeed be an archaic knot:

I’m guessing by the name that it’s designed to resist torque, so that the swivel turns instead of twisting the line. Whatever its intent, you can see the bold claim for its use in the above image.

I rarely use it anymore unless I’m intentionally going after big fish with bigger lures, because it does indeed seem very strong compared to most knots. But mostly I use the Palomar Knot for shore fishing. It’s super easy to tie and to teach, and never had one fail on me.

But now, at least for posterity’s sake, I know the name of the classic knot that Dad may or may not have taught me sometime around 1995. Closure.

–Simon

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Squirrel Sports

Squirrels are great. They offer endless entertainment. They bicker amongst themselves until one falls out of a tree, which is always hilarious. Clumsy squirrels also take spontaneous flights to the ground. Absent-minded squirrels turn into dog chew toys. Public land squirrels end up on my stove top being pan fried. And now, gluttonous squirrels shall be vaulted from a centrifuge.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004ZB4U?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

I haven’t seen it in action yet, but I’m looking forward to it. In the meantime, there’s lots of sparrow watching.

–Simon

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Havahart? Not likely.

Not when the integrity of my garden is at stake.

For weeks I’ve been watching this bastard groundhog mosey out of his cozy borough beneath my deck and take his thrice-daily constitutional into my garden and eat that which I’ve sowed.

Not noticeably an herbacious connoisseur, he ate everything from sunflowers to tomato plants. Every animal it seems must at some point sample a tomato plant, a plant that can’t taste very good. But they try it anyway and cause damage to my most prized vegetable, just to taunt me I think.

Please stop destroying the plants

Unfortunately for them, while I might be a typical Disney-reared suburbanite, I’m also an experienced hunter with a mere respect and appreciation for wildlife. I don’t worship them as a FernGully fairy. It was time for lethal intervention. (And the fairies were more concerned about the trees anyway.)

Unfortunately, the statutes of my dear city of residence state:

672.09   DISCHARGING FIREARMS.

   (a)   No person shall discharge any cannon, pistol or other firearm, of any kind whatsoever, or any air rifle, pellet gun, gas gun, BB gun or other similar object within the City. This section shall not prohibit the firing of a military salute or the firing of weapons by men of the nation’s Armed Forces acting under military authority and shall not apply to law enforcement officers in the proper enforcement of the law; or to any person in the proper exercise of the right of defense; or to any person who has applied for and received special permission from the Manager to fire a cannon, pistol or other firearm, or air rifle, pellet gun, gas gun, BB gun or other similar object within the City.

(Ord. 50-71. Passed 7-12-71; Ord. 03-16. Passed 3-21-16; Ord. 04-16. Passed 4-18-16; Ord. 24-19. Passed 12-2-19; Ord. 23-20. Passed 11-2-20.)

   (b)   Whoever violates this section is guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree.

(Ord. 59-74. Passed 7-15-74.)

https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/centerville/latest/centerville_oh/0-0-0-9843

I wouldn’t want to be guilty of a misdemeanor of the fourth degree! The punishments are actually fairly draconian:

Fourth-degree misdemeanors carry a maximum sentence of 30 days’ jail time and a $250 fine.

https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/ohio-misdemeanor-crimes-class-and-sentences.htm

I’d probably just have to do some community service, but still. Geez.

So I totally didn’t try to shoot it with a pellet gun.

I’m sad to see this also applies to bows. I can’t shoot a bow in my backyard. People are prudes.

Anyway, so after my non-existent attempts to shoot the groundhog failed to prove lethal, I resorted to trapping.

Awww, what a cute little nocturnal omnivorous scavenger. Not my quarry.

Of course, untargeted trapping can have undesirable results. But the possum was freed to continue raiding my compost.

Eventually, persistence and modified approaches yielded the desired results.

Look at that stupid bastard. He even has stupid-looking teeth on his stupid face. Bastard.

So endeth the groundhog saga. Freed from his mortal coil by means which totally didn’t involve a pellet gun, to raid the gardens of wherever dead rodents go in death.

Bastard.

–Simon

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Cottage 2024

Yes – the return to Albatross Lodge. This time it was early enough in the year that the basic landscaping needed tending to. I bought a hedge trimmer, but next year I think I’ll buy a flamethrower.

Nature will attack and assimilate given the chance. Or kill you.

Or just make you really itchy.

Also this year – prep work for the bathroom. Yay demo work. I’m getting pretty good at removing drywall though.

My weak modernized body requires more frequent cleansing, and lake baths just don’t cut it. It’s amazing how much oil a set of human skin generates. May a shower be in the future.

On a more recreational note, fishing!

And food.

That about sums up the highlights from a week in Wisconsin. It’s not exactly a fast-paced environment. Which makes it a good vacation spot.

Once there’s a shower.

–Simon

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Eternal Damnation

Karens, cockroaches, and blood parasites will survive the apocalypse. I know this because Fallout told me which bugs will mutate into low-XP enemies. And Hollywood showed me how I’ll die horribly. And Karens will always tell me what I’ve done wrong, and will always exist in some form. If there were a just and loving God, then the bugs would kill the Karens. But there obviously isn’t if the apocalypse were allowed to occur. That would be a vengeful and punishing God. The Old Testament told me that.

Fortunately I live in pre-apocalypse times, so the bugs are smaller. The Karens are more numerous, but I’ll take the tradeoff. Here’s my latest attempts at blood parasite mitigation:

Bacillus thuringiensis subspecies israelensis. I stumbled upon this recently. The concept is as follows: put a bucket of water somewhere, fill it with debris so it mimics the kind of stagnant pools that mosquitoes like to lay their eggs in, and inoculate it with a mosquito dunk, which is a block of dormant bacteria (species mentioned above) that infects and kills insects. The idea is to gradually decimate the local mosquito lineage as they reproduce, with the caveat that the trap should be the only pool of standing water available. Persistence is the key here.

For more immediate needs, I use a fogger. But the compounds it uses are sold very diluted and are more repellent than lethal, obviously targeted to the casual consumer. Instead, I purchased something that’s more of a commercial variant: a standard Pyrethrins/Piperonyl Butoxide mix, as is growing in popularity. As a bonus, it’s considered “safe” for agricultural purposes. The latter chemical disqualifies it from being organic certified, but it’s better in theory than much of the long-living spectracides. And I enjoy seeing cucumber beetles flee in terror. Finger of God indeed.

And lastly, in an attempt to capture adult mosquitos actively searching for blood, there’s the lactic acid-baited UV trap. The bait simulates the smell and CO2 emissions of a human, and upon getting too close the mosquito is pulled into the trap via a fan and held in a basket where it’s exposed to UV light, killing it. This captures a lot of moths as collateral damage, probably more drawn to the UV, but we don’t like those either.

I have it on a smart timer that comes on one hour before sunset, with the goal of starting capture during optimal hunting time, with a dawn shutoff.

Results so far have been encouraging, though gross.

Ewww

The verdict so far? Fewer mosquitoes, but they’re not gone entirely. I think I’d need to get my surrounding neighbors onboard, but I know that’s not going to happen. Regardless, I’ll settle for the net reduction, and hope the remnants are primarily biting the neighbors instead.

–Simon