Yes, I am a Slug

[Riley Smith]

So the heat has continued here on this coast and to add to it, no rain has fallen in almost a month now I think. Today there were some showers in the area and we heard thunder but not a drop fell on Wolf Ridge. It was mostly west, off toward the river at Escatawpa. I'm sure Seaman's Cove got a shower. It always does when it thunders there. Always. Daytime highs have been in the 90s and last far into the evening. The UV index has been off the charts. Melanoma weather is what I call it. I avoid too much exposure to the sun this time of year.
 The big yellow and black swallow-tailed butterflies are still here, along with a bevy of hummingbirds. I enjoy the little fellows dogfighting and zooming about, while the giant swallow-tails just glide like the song of a singer. With no rain, I've see exactly TWO naked ladies heralding the fall. I suppose they're waiting on one drop of moisture before they put on their show. The cypress vines are also dying and the red flowers the hummers love are going to become scarce soon. It's like nature (and me) are holding our breaths, waiting on the cool and a little breeze out of the north. There has been a consistent NE breeze at dawn and it has been tolerable, but by 10 am it is already getting to hot for this old guy.
 I've considered another go at the fish under the lights. I had also considered a brill-net outing to see if we could catch some shrimp, but so far I haven't located the net. It must have been swallowed by the mists of time or something, because I quit using bait a long time ago. I'll have to admit that there is nothing like seeing the shrimp under a cork jumping to escape hungry jaws. You know things are fixin' to get reel then
 A net saves a whole lot of money with shrimp at today's prices. It also allows one to catch bull minnows and small mullet, both of which are excellent bait. And menhaden too, although I like the later season, larger fish when I fish them. There are certain places that are conducive to catching enough shrimp for food too. That's kind of fun, sitting around throwing the net after baiting a place up with rabbit food, and what my intent with the net was. A beer is usually involved because throwing a big net can become work and it is supposed to be fun.  So far I can't convince my better half to bring herself and her pistol with me, just in case. I feel real safe when she's around and has her purse. She told me she didn't want to wind up like Calvin and Charlie, being poked by aliens after THEY went fishing at night 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascagoula_incident

[Riley Smith]

...And the kids like to be present throwing the net too, digging around in the wriggling mass once you score. You have to teach them how, because EVERYTHING ( but a menhaden)has a means of inflicting pain. Being stabbed by the tail spine on a big white shrimp is no joke. Those big white shrimp are gathering I know, so there's reason for finding the net.
 They get big enough that the word shrimp doesn't quite describe those big ole "cobs". As in describing a the diameter of a cob of corn, which is pretty accurate for a big, white hopper, to use the other name I know for them. Two words ingrained here if you know the lingo and are keyed into this life. A really big white shrimp can jump almost 20 ft in the blink of an eye. They have huge antenna feeling the murky waters, and a have a florescent green accent on their fins. Really, they're not as good table fare as the brown shrimp, but so fun to catch. I do love to grill 'em too!
 I'll not soon forget that night a friend and I hit a bonanza. Once I threw the net and the edge of it landed next to a BIG one. It launched itself with that tremendous tail, and became a missile, and with two more flicks, was gone in the darkness. Big honking shrimp!

[Riley Smith]

No net. I highly suspect some scallywag named Michael Pierce got it . He's a nephew and liked to fish and stay at the old house. A lot like me. With various and sundry fishing supplies, so I'm sure it got mixed in the bunch. At any rate, there's no net to THROW. I'll most likely write it off and may not even replace it, since I haven't used it in 4-5 yrs, although I will say that it sure is fun to catch shrimp! And most years, it's in October.

The perfect weather took a dive, but that was GOOD, because it had gone almost all of September w/o raining. If it doesn't rain in Mississippi every few days it becomes miserable. And the fire hazard jumps exponentially. Yes, I keep a good hose ready because I know how far off the VFD is. Thank goodness for every drop! I assume that rain truly signals fall, and ended the drought.I had proclaimed I had survived another Mississippi summer, I was beginning to doubt because it wouldn't END! 

 Yep, a rain for the Naked Ladies to show us their stuff on the lawns, and hopefully some cooler weather. And some boat time too! Cruising the Coast, the big car show is happening soon and that's always something to see. Most of the time we just go and sit on a corner along the beach highway in one of the towns along the coast and watch the American Iron roll. I get great shots of hundreds of old hot rods too! Last year we had a Shelby Cobra from La. pull near us and I decided right then that was the baddest car I'd ever laid my eyes on. There are at least 1000 '57 Chevys every year. Many are not even signed up for the event, they're just locals riding around. Yeah, great stuff!

[Frank B.]

Lots of memories brought back. My folks had a place on Old Fort Bayou in Ocean Springs and I spent a number of nights on their pier casting for shrimp and whatever.  Helped to take a can of dogfood and punch a few holes in it  and suspend it from the pier for a few hours before dark to draw them up.  Pier had a light and that also helped.

I was still living on the coast when those two got snatched by the mother ship crew, big deal at the time.

My Bil usually goes to Cruising the Coast, he is a flathead Ford nut, has several but usually takes a 49 Mercury, kind of a rare one that had a landau top.  Lives just west of Houston, Don't know if he is going this year. 

Ramble at will, stimulates pictures in my mind that I've seen in real time. Life has gotten too complicated to move back although I often think about it.

[Riley Smith]

I think of moving away as age progresses. Somewhere cooler. I already live above the coast and only visit when I feel like it. Which hasn't been very much in the heat, although I was there today to retrieve the tractor that had a flat. And yes, it was hot, although I can now operate in the middle of the day. Do I want to operate in the middle of the day ? Emphatic no. But I CAN since it is a couple of degrees cooler.

And being as I was there, after a cool down session on the porch, I couldn't help but grab the rod and go make a cast with the spoon. That was a good choice because the water is almost perfect for fishing it. Clear enough to see the flash a long way but still not CLEAR. I was an idiot I know, out in the noon-day sun, but the water has that pretty green color it gets this time of the year, and the sky is SO blue. As it was low tide, I didn't expect to catch anything. It was more a walk to look down the shore, but as fate would have it, I get a little bump and then reeled in a tiny gaff-top. And as those familiar know, the little ones will get you and it did, in the left index finger. Blood poured and it hurt.

 I'm glad it wasn't a hard head, as I remember getting finned one time in Bayou Cumbest just as I released the little scoundrel and it was like a fire in my hand after about 5 minutes. Hurt all the way up to my shoulder from the poison. I finally rigged up specifically FOR catfish, with a bit of shrimp and a hook, and caught another one. I rubbed the wound on it's belly and got almost instant relief. Yep, believe it or not they carry the antidote with the slime.

I had worked on the picture below and marked out the different things the lines in the water tell me. Alas, something went haywire and I couldn't get it small enough to post, so I figured I'd just post the undoctored pic with the note that all those lines in the water mean things and it's good to know WHAT they mean. In reference to the newbie sailor we've been trying to teach something.

The boat is the Crab Man, who is probably Vietnamese, on the outside in the Sound. They run the pots on that West River arm, and you can follow the unmarked channel by the arrangement of the pots most of the time. It was sort of inspiration for the catboat because it operates much the same, in the shallow water with plenty of load carrying ability.

You cannot view this attachment.

[Riley Smith]

PS...there is a UFO in that picture. Right above the motor. Dunno what it is exactly, but what I DO know is that it is floating on the fata morgana that forms between Horn Island and the shore. I see it all the time when the atmospheric conditions get right and it's pretty cool. It's easy to take those impressionistic style pictures when it's there. Yeah, looks like the pogy boats are way above the horizon on occasion...