I had to go to Blue Grass today to release a raccoon that I caught in my HavaHeart Live Animal Trap last night. He was raiding my bird feeders eating lbs of the black sunflower seeds that I put in several flat trays for the birds to eat. I almost caught him the other night and was going to try to shoot him with a pellet gun but he got away too fast. So I reset the trap and added some thawed out frozen sardines that I had been saving in the freezer for just this occasion. Two years ago I caught another raccoon in the trap using those freshly opened can of sardines. That raccoon was not happy but this recent capture was a lot calmer. I let him sleep a while out in the yard still inside the cage while I ate breakfast and did my morning routine and got dressed. By 10:30 am I was ready to take him and put him inside the cage in the back of my truck bed and take him over to blue grass F&W area for release back into the wild.
That was the easy part. He went straight into the water at the South end of Blue Grass Pit. The first one I released at the North end of Bluegrass Pit and he went into the water and swam from the south side of the new concrete launch ramp to the North Side and vanished into the bushes and grass. They should be able to find plenty of cray fish and dead fish to eat out there and have a better life than living in my subdivision. And the birds can have more food for themselves.
The second raccoon I caught had tripped the sensor on my 500 Watt Quartz Security light on the back porch by his movements around the bird feeders. So I was up until 3:00 am the other night trying to see if he would come back to the trap after I put some sardines trails leading into the cage. But no luck. I didn't get much sleep that night at all. And I got a very important phone call the next morning at 8:00 AM the next day. I didn't make it to the phone in time to answer the call but the problem I had called FoxPro about has resolved itself now. I bought a new FoxPro game caller and it didn't work so I took it back to the store and exchanged it for a new one. Therefore I didn't need to talk to the FoxPro Tech anymore. So I just apologized to them for not answering the phone that morning when their tech called me. I hate when I call someone and get a answering machine and have to wait for them to call me back the next day or even two days later. I forget that I called them and some times I 'm not prepared to answer the phone when they call back. I call that playing Telephone tag with someone. And it's a game I don't like to play.
Anyway when I was there I noticed that even on a day like today it was crowded and that was only the main parking lot at the South end of Blue Grass pit. I didn't check the North end's parking lot but it gets busy too.
One thing that I did like was last year the new properly manager sprayed the shoreline of several of the smaller pits to try to eradicate some of the tall weeds that grow around the edge of these pits. Now they also have some group cut down the dead weeds to make a better shore line fishing area. So now the people that park their lawn chairs on the concrete launch ramps and block the path for boats trying to launch and recover can go fish in the gassy area and stay out of the way of the boat ramp. It's a boat ramp not a fishing ramp. Although it would be nice if IDNR would build some fishing piers that jut out into the water for people to fish off of but away from the launch ramp. Maybe then they would get a clue and get out of the way when a boat trailer shows up with a boat to launch. Some people hog the ramp three times a week at min and are always in the way. I almost want to tell them to get out of the way but they move when they notice I'm backing the boat back down the ramp. Still I have to watch out that they don't get run over and that distracts my attention away from things that I need to focus on. Things like making sure that the safety chain is disconnected before I back down and stop real fast thinking that the boat will just slide off the trailer and into the water with only the 70 ft rope attached to it's bow to keep it from getting away. And then right where I plan on pulling the boat to shore ... You guessed it ... That's where she moved her **** lawn chair. I use the rope to tie the front of the rope to the rails on the Handicapped launch platform while I take the truck and trailer to park it. So the lawn chair is right in the way every time. I should not have to worry about running over people on the launch ramp when launching my boat every time. And this is at Otter Pit where it's much less crowded except for these two shoreline fishergirls that think that they are the only one's that use the launch ramp.
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Originally Posted by BigBruce
