I can’t express enough what a great person Denise is.  She is outgoing and friendly.  She is Susie homemaker, June Cleaver and the outdoors women that I want to be. I think she packed her whole kitchen and brought it with.  She was well prepared and ready to fish. 

I on the other hand have yet more to learn… 

Denise brought a frozen homemade lasagna so all we had to do was heat it up.  I wouldn’t think of cooking ahead of time. 

Denise had a dessert made for every night.  She made beer bread, blueberry bread, brownies, and rootbeer floats.  I brought peaches from a can. 

Denise was up early with coffee, breakfast and her husband’s clothes ready.  Mark was showered and ready before I could see straight and all Mark got was a bag of snacks to go. 

Denise watched the guys cut up fish and asked to help.  I sat with my feet up in the sun with a beer thinking this chick isn’t cutting up nothing. 

Denise would offer to make her husband’s plate every night.  I then felt obligated to offer to make Marks plate.  After I asked, he looked at me strangely and we both laughed. 

Denise would take her fish off her own hook.  I tried once and failed.

Denise didn’t mind fishing by the snake tree.  I sat complaining that the snake will jump on me and swear I heard it crunching on a fish.

Denise could fish by brush and limbs with ease.  After losing many bobbers, I fished in open waters only.

Denise would get the net when her husband had a big fish and help scoop it out of the water.  I had the net in hand to protect myself from a snake and no one was getting my net. 

Denise would close her eyes at night and dream of the big catch.  I would close my eyes and either see a bobber bouncing in the water or my bed was swaying like the boat.  I will save the evening episode of Mo, Larry, Curly story for another day.   

Denise caught the most crappie.  I caught none!

Denise would touch her crappie for a pose.

My fish wasn’t coming close to these fingers.

 Thanks Troy and Denise for a great fishing week…Mark sure is missing his evening dessert.  

I would think that most men or women who fish have grown up fishing.  If they are like my husband they have everything they need in their handy bag that holds their 135 tackle boxes yet only 1 very small tackle box will be used on their entire trip.   Being new to fishing I am slowly learning all there is to know and what I need…

• Don’t worry about your hair.  The first 2 days I got up early, washed and dried my hair and in an hour it looked like a birds nest blown out of a tree.  Just put a clip in it. 
• Learn to put all the thingymajiggers on your line yourself.  The tie, the orange ball, the bobber, that grey thing and the hook.  It isn’t very hard to do and it will save your husband precious fishing time.
• I did take a very small fish off the hook with my sweatshirt thanks to Arthur’s tip.  But after staring at him and saying I’m so sorry little fishy that was the last of it for me.  Just have your husband do it. 
• Don’t wear socks and shoes with shorts.   You will never get the tan to blend.
• Bring your own tackle box.  You will want all those fancy tools like our fishing friends, Troy and Denise.  The twist your line gadget and clippers.  Trying to bite the fishing line with your teeth will hurt. 
• Learn the head nod.  When boats drive by 80% of the men on their boats will give you the head nod instead of waving.  I was busy putting my bobber on my line when I got the head nod and in turn I forgot about the head nod and dropped my bobber and waved.  I had to start all over putting all my stuff back on my line. 
• Don’t bend over in front of your husband while he is fishing.  He will drop a fish on your head and the other fishermen will give you a dirty look from your scream that scared their fish away.
• Don’t fish near limbs or brush.  You will get your line stuck and lose your bobber.  Fishermen/fisherwomen do not like losing their bobbers.  If you lose your bobber you may just have to put your hand in the water to get it out and you don’t want to have to do that after you just saw a snake in the water. 
• My last and most important tip - Please don’t EVER give away your precious fishing spot.  You never ever befriend other fishermen/fisherwomen and tell them where you caught your fish or what you really caught.  Your husband will have to wake you at 3:00 a.m. to get you on the water before someone else takes his spot.   

I hope these tips will save you the time and effort it took me to figure them all out.  And some extra sleep.

Thanks to all of my guest bloggers from last week.  I am so very thankful for all of your wonderful posts while I was away. 

We are back from our fishing vacation and back to reality. We had a wonderful time, caught lots and lots of fish and got lots and lots of sun.  I will be posting more about our trip this week but here are a few photos.  We were on the water from 5:30 a.m. until about 6:00 p.m. everyday. 

Morning Sunrise

 Evening Sunsets

 And I’m still cleaning out the worm guts under my fingernails from my bait.

Have a great day!

Written by:  Rex 

This is usually told to the younger kids around the campfire for fun at the famous Christmas Place.
Years ago, Trent came into the camp and told about some very large and very strange footprints he had found near his deer stand. We went to look at them and sure enough they were huge with big sharp claws for it’s toes. We knew that some strange and horrible creature had entered our woods and that we had to be careful.
Soon after that, we started finding these tracks all over our place. They found them along old roads, in the mud on the edge of the lake and anyplace you might imagine that you could find foot tracks.
Everyone but the very bravest hunters were scared of the horrible creature and everyone was now afraid to go in the woods by themselves. They even found the giant tracks around the camp house where the monster had been watching at night. The terrifying apelike monster with it’s long fangs seemed to be waiting for just the right victim!
Trent finally vowed that he would get to the bottom of this mystery and put the beast on the hanging pole!
Trent started traveling around the property looking for the horrible monster.
One day he was easing along a narrow creek and he suddenly heard footsteps heading his way.
He moved over and hid in the bushes.
In the clearing in front of him he saw Rex come out of the woods and step down into the sandy creek bottom. He stopped right in front of him, carefully looked all around and opened up his backpack. He took out the biggest set of monster shoes you can imagine, slipped them over his boots and started walking up and down in the soft sand while laughing the whole time.
Rex had made up the trick, fooled everyone, and was wearing the fake monster feet.

Rex - Deer Camp Blog

Written by:  Arthur

Jody didn’t know what she was getting herself into when she politely asked me to guest blog for her last week. I love Jody’s blog and read it on a daily basis, because I think she just has a way of making normal everyday events very funny. I think all of you know her sense of humor and I think that is what draws most of us to read her blog. Hopefully she has a sense of humor when she reads this post!

I have read a few different posts where Jody has talked about her inherent fear of taking a fish off the hook. I know this fear was partially caused by a somewhat traumatic experience with a fish as a young child. I think many kids have been shy of taking fish off the hook after getting “poked” (those are Jody’s words) like she did, but I want all of you young ‘uns to know that there is hope. With my wife being the motivation for this post, I have come up with a few ways that you ladies out there can make taking a fish off the hook a little less traumatic, or maybe even get you out of taking it off the hook altogether.

1. You can try using the power that you women have over guys. This is a family blog, so I’m not going to go into the details, but I think all of you ladies know what I’m talking about when I say “The Power”. The wife threatened me with that a couple of times when I wouldn’t remove a fish for her.
2. Another option is begging. Usually a guy is a sucker for a sad face, and once you ladies use the sad face option on us we are more than likely going to remove the fish for you free of charge.
3. If option no. 2 didn’t work, and option 1 has failed as well, you can always go with good old fashioned whining. Nothing can ruin a fishing trip faster than having to listen to your wife whine about how much she doesn’t want to take the fish off the hook. Us guys are more apt to help you lovely ladies if we get a good dose of whining for awhile.
4. Option no. 4 would be to try and get a young boy who is in the boat to do it for you. Of course he might bait the hook for you as well. This option doesn’t work very well around my family because I think the young boys are more afraid of worms and fish then the ladies are. It is an option to try though if there is a young boy available to you at the time.
5. Last, but not least, is my favorite option of all. If options 1-4 have completely failed and you must take the fish off yourself, try the sleeve option. This is where you pull your sleeve, whether short or long, down over your hand before commencing to take off the fish. This provides a “layer of protection” to prevent “poking” and is an option for a completely desperate woman in a boat who must take off a fish because her husband is now immune to options 1-4. It also provides some quality entertainment for the men in the boat as well.

Hopefully all of these tips will help the ladies out there who suffer from the dreaded “Taking the Fish off the hook without getting poked” syndrome. I know my wife has used them all to her advantage, but she is officially now at option no. 5.

I hope you have a great vacation Jody and I hope you know that I am only picking. All of you ladies are welcome to come fishing with me anytime. The wife can then show you her pattended sleeve move as well.

Arthur - Simply Outdoors

Written: by Blessed

First – Thanks Jody for having me be a guest blogger while you are out playing with worms and catching fish this week, I’m honored!

If you’ve been reading this blog for very long you know that in addition to telling us great stories Jody asks a bunch of questions so I thought what would be more appropriate than asking a question in my guest blog post for her?  So here it is:

Anyone who hunts (or lives with a hunter) knows that you can and probably will accumulate a lot of gear very quickly - especially if you hunt a variety of things.  There are clothes, hats, gloves, flashlights, GPS units, 2-way radios, decoys, trail markers, pouches, backpacks, cover scents, calls, safety harnesses, field dressing supplies and I think you get the point.  We hunt deer, turkey, waterfowl, upland birds, rabbits, squirrels, doves and anything else we get the opportunity to hunt.  Then there is all the fishing gear - catfish, trout, spoonbill, bass, crappie, bluegill, and … it gets overwhelming. 

Jody has told me before that she is very organized person.  I’m not.  I try to be and in my work I am but when it comes to the house I want to be organized and I try to be organized but it didn’t start out organized and I’m still struggling to get it organized.  Things are a lot better now than they were 8 years ago when I first got married!  My solution for organizing our hunting and fishing gear - oops, almost forgot - the camping equipment too, is a large plastic shelf that I picked up at a local home improvement store a couple of years ago.  I set it up in the garage then I bought 6 plastic totes that would just fit on 3 of the 4 shelves.  The fourth shelf is home to all of our canvas, collapsible camping chairs.  I wrote on the outside of the tote what was to go inside the tote and then went through the house and started putting things away. 

It isn’t a perfect system and I’ve had to modify my original “contents” list but it works for us and my husband is able to find things without me now so that is good.  By the way, our totes are labeled:  Deer; Waterfowl; Hats & Gloves; Turkey; Extra Clothes; Totes, Bags & Pillows - we still have stuff in our closets but that is mostly the clothes we wear and our ammunition and it’s much more manageable. 

What about you?  I want to hear how you organize your gear.

Blessed - A Blessed Crazy Life

Written by: Kristine

When Jody first asked me if I would write a guest post for her blog I really didn’t have much of an idea about a topic. Generally ideas for topics find me, usually at 3 a.m. while I’m trying to sleep. The posts where I try too hard to find something about which to write are the posts I generally like the least.

Today I was trolling for inspiration among the archives of this blog. I was reading about Mark getting poison oak and Jody’s funny idea about telling Bambi to run, and tales of numerous trips to Cabela’s and laughing and often nodding my head in mingled agreement and remembrance. I am, after all, the daughter of a hunter and a fisherman. The chaos that hunting and fishing seasons can cause is very familiar to me.

What struck me most about Jody and her blog is this: she gets it. She understands that hunting can be an obsession and that it makes Mark part of who he is, the man she loves. She understands that a man who goes hunting leaves plenty of space for his wife to cuddle up with a good movie and a glass of wine, and that time spent apart makes time spent together that much more precious. It is just a bonus that Jody also gets her points across in a very humorous way.

I’m not a hunter (yet), but if I were one I would want my husband, if he didn’t hunt, to be as understanding as Jody appears to be (I am aware there are things she may not tell us). I’m not a wife (yet), but if I am ever one, I hope that I’ll remember the lessons that Jody has taught here and let my husband be who he is, and love that person, grunt thingymajigger (or its equivalent) and all.

If he gives me poison oak, however, all bets are off.

Krisitne - Gun Safety Innovations & Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Dear Readers:

Next week, April 21 - 25, my hunter and I will be in Kentucky fishing.  While I’m away I’m am thrilled to have some very special guest bloggers. 

My guest bloggers are: 

Kristine - Gun Safety Innovations & Outdoor Bloggers Summit

Blessed - A Blessed Crazy Life

Arthur -  Simply Outdoors

Rex - Deer Camp Blog

My guest bloggers would love your comments and feedback. 

My niece Ashley will be updating my site and making sure you are all behaving while I’m away.  Boys, please refrain from hitting on her unless you’re single, have a house on the beach, and will cut up her steak for her.

Thank you to all of my guest bloggers, my readers, to Ash, and my housesitter Ken.

P.S. - To my family - seeing that I’m away and you won’t be hearing from me everyday and I won’t be able to hear your drama, go ahead and leave your comments here. One of my guest bloggers might be able to help you.

Thanks everyone and have a great week!

I’m so sorry Robin, your guy was voted out.

This Saturday we are leaving for our yearly fishing trip to Barkley Lake, Kentucky.  This will be our fourth year to Barkley and my fourth year of fishing.  Each year I bravely tell myself I’m going to take the fish off the hook but when it comes down to it there is a part of me that is haunted by my first fishing experience with my Dad and my fear comes rushing back… 

When I was younger my Dad would go fishing a lot and take my brothers.  I don’t remember him ever asking us girls to go until I was about 12 or so.  I have no memory of where we went or who was there but I had caught my first fish.  I was so excited.  I carried my pole and line, being sure not to touch the fish, over to my Dad and asked if he could please take it off the hook.  Being all fatherly and wanting me to learn for myself, he nicely explained that I could take the fish off the hook myself.  Looking down at this slimy thing and then looking back up at my Dad with a puzzled look, I don’t remember that being the deal when I agreed to go fishing.  I don’t remember agreeing to even put a worm on the hook let alone take a fish off the hook.  I’m a girl and we don’t do that.  

We argued back and forth and that argument went nowhere.  He wasn’t going to help and he explained I needed to learn to do it myself.  It’s just a little fish and it isn’t going to hurt me.  He continued to calmly ask me to take the fish off the hook.  I squirmed and squirmed like the worm on my hook until I heard “Jody, take the *&^%^&& (the D word) fish off the hook!”  I quickly grabbed the fish to take it off the hook and yes sir, full hand straight on fish and the fish poked me. 

I screamed and screamed and remember saying “That fish poked me!  I am never going fishing with you again. EVER!”  And I didn’t.  I never went fishing again with him or anyone else.

Until I met my husband.

This is my Mom and Dad fishing at our canal at the river.  As you can see I am not in this picture because I refuse to fish with HIM!

Have a great day all!