WARM AND BALMY AT EL FISHING MUSICIAN HQ

While much of the nation suffers subzero temperatures and all that goes with them, it's 68 and balmy here at the World HQ of El Fishing Musician.

That couldn't be worse for my ambitions of fishing for the rainbow trout our Texas parks service stocks every year in ponds, lakes and rivers. It's been my experience that when the air temp is above 51 degrees, the fishing is "skinny". The colder the better, and if a little rain or sleet is hitting the top of the water, well then I've found so are the fish. Even though these fish are hatchery raised in Texas, that dna must kick in when it gets chilly because stocked rainbows are far more active when it's sort of uncomfortable for the fisherman.

This year I've had plans come up that pre-empted fishing on the rare couple of weekends when it's been significantly colder than 51 degrees before sunrise.

Unfortunately, the other callings of life like my job, our kids, etc have kept me from sneaking off REALLY early one morning during the workweek when it's been REALLY chilly for my part of Texas, like in the very low thirties. Seems like we hit the really cold temps from Tuesday through Friday, then springtime weather on the weekends.

Seems like as soon as Friday comes, it warms up to springtime weather, except with high humidity. Then it gets back cold again on Tuesday. A vicious cycle, I tell you.

We've done some outside painting in this warmer weather, and have an addition that's almost through and the fellow doing that work gets much more done during warmer temps. Obviously, many in the nation would love to have my problems weather wise, and I can't say I'd want to trade places with any of the folks I was reading about today in Vermont or Maine who are dealing with way sub-zero temps and biting winds.

So I'm not really complaining. We'll go do some shooting perhaps at the gun club, but of course it won't be a real trip to the range because we'll have to ration what we target practice and skeet shoot with. Although I have not observed a run on shotgun shells in my area, that doesn't mean it won't happen. But I did load up on some target fodder last week when I found some rimfire and centerfire ammo at Academy, enough to take us shooting this weekend.

I've also got a couple of boxes of Magtech .44 magnum from Lucky Gunner to shoot and I want to do a box of those at targets sighting in guns for that ammo and then head out to my friend Cowboy's Family ranch of roughly 300 acres and do some hog harvesting with the other box after we're sighted in on this ammo.

I've arranged to borrow a chronograph from my LGS owner, who is a real nice fella. He's got a couple of used ones for sale and I really do want to check out one or both of them since they are both priced under $100. They've been in the store quite a while, and probably would have sold already if his customers were not emptying his shelves of guns and ammo and magazines. 

So if I use the chronograph,  I can do the Magtech review up right, as my countrified relatives might say, with "pichures and figures".

I've never really tasted the difference between farm hogs and feral hogs of a certain smaller size. A little gamier tasting, perhaps, because no chemicals are added and no plastic packaging or metal/plastic machinery touches the meat. Just the steel knives and butcher paper of the processing plant. I'm afraid to think,  most of the time, about how much of our prepared and store bought food is made, so we'll move on.