Katrina and Gustav

With Hurricane Gustav on the way, people are heading up to higher land. My friend from Metairie is already up, along with his kids. We hung out with him for a while because I don't get to see him often. Also my family from St. Martin, New Orleans, and Slidell are coming up to stay with us.

For the past few weeks we have filled up tanks and checked the generator to be sure everything is in order in the event that it gets bad up here. The family is bringing a little food, but we have enough of a stockpile to hold over a small army for a few weeks. Ok, so now we have to check over everything to be sure. We have boat batteries charged and set up to charge cell phones, gas stocked up for the family, and plenty of food. That seems to be about it.

I noticed that everyone in Katrina Cottages and FEMA trailers are being evacuated. I find it kind of ironic that they are being forced to evacuate when the Katrina Cottages are supposed to be built to withstand a hurricane. It feels kind of like it did before Katrina hit and I was here waiting for them to arrive, thinking nothing would really happen.

When Katrina hit, the power went out, but we ate good. We weren't going to let any wild game spoil so we cleaned out the freezer. We had marinated duck breast, deer back-strap, shrimp, and a lot of other good food. We ended up having good meals and spending time with family that we normally don't spend.

I think Katrina changed us..... forever.

How Not to Cook Crabs

Here's a pretty funny video that shows you exactly how to cook crabs....not!

Cooking Crabs for the First Time

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Cheap Coastal Crabbing

If you live near salt or brackish water, an easy and inexpensive way to have fun is crabbing. I don't know how other states are, but here in Mississippi there are piers everywhere on the coast, great for dropping nets over the side.

For fifteen dollars you can get all the nets you need and they last for a couple of years. Chicken necks are the most common bait used and for a dollar or two you can get enough bait for a full day, or more, at a local grocery store. In Mississippi, the only license you need is a fishing license, which is only a few dollars.

The last crab trip I was on I saw all kinds of coastal birds, king rail, clapper rail, and some type of egret I have never seen. It was a fun trip, we met a few people, and didn't spend a whole bunch. Not only is it fun, it is extremely affordable and easy.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Simple Saltwater Fishing

As I pulled my shrimp up and let it drop down again...WHOOOOM!! I got hit hard, and I pulled right back. It was a pretty short fight, but I ended up with a small red. We all thought it was a white trout by the color of it then we saw the spot on his tail.

Just a few hours before, we had woken up to a very stormy-looking morning. We went to Denny's to get some breakfast while we waited to see if it would rain. It only sprinkled so we decided to go ahead and get out there. When we got there we saw that a boat was a little..... underwater. We were watching a shrimp boat sink with people trying to save it by pumping the water out. There was nothing we could do so we decided to stay out of the way. We launched a small jon boat and fished a jetty right off the shore with shrimp we bought from a dock nearby.

Once we were out there fishing it was great, cloud cover, gentle breeze everything you would want. There were fish swirling all around us and we caught several of them. My dad started yelling that he got a flounder. He started to pull it in and as it got close I saw a big thin stingray-ish tail swing up. He pulled it up and sure enough it was a stingray, that was not very happy about getting stuck. We cut the line before anyone was stabbed with his barb. I looked over and noticed the shrimp boat was back up straight, and everyone seemed to have calmed down a little. Then as I was watching I heard my uncle Lance start yelling that he got a big fish. I looked over and the rod was seriously bent over, then he pulled the fish in. It was a good eating-size black drum, with really pretty stripes (as you can see in the above picture).

After the excitement the fishing pretty much died. We decided it was time to go home, seeing as how we had been out for hours now. So we left our spot and headed the hundred yards back to the dock. I really liked this trip because you could do it with only a jig head and a few dollars worth of shrimp, and have a blast!! If you want, you can use a plastic cocahoe minnow under a popping cork, redfish and speckled trout will both hit it. It's a great trip that I enjoyed a lot and shows that even if you don't have a big boat or a box filled with special tackle you can still catch fish in saltwater.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Back in School

As I walked in the doors at my school it reminded me that my summer had been WWAAYY too short. The first day back I realized that one of my closest friends would not be back this year, he had moved to some new home-schooling thing. I also noticed another of my closest friends had a big ole earring, which was surprising to everyone. All of my friends seemed to look older, and more muscular. I thought it was strange I didn’t see more new kids.

I noticed that the school looked a little smaller, like it had gotten shorter. I hung out in the back of the library like I always do, with the same friends I have been hanging out with since forever ago. We talked about what we had done all summer, and I was not the only one that barely skated, only two out of our group skated a lot.

I went to first period, Spanish, and had a pretty good time. Spanish seems like a fun subject so far. The rest of my classes all seem fun too, especially geometry. It's a subject you have to imagine everything, because it’s hard to really show what infinity is. I'm not happy to be back in school, but I think it will be a fun year.

Ready to Bust Some Birds

I have been looking forward to dove season for a while, because last year I didn't get to hunt them. The year before we hunted a good bit and I did very well.

My dad and I hunted mostly but my grandfather came one time and had a blast. That particular hunt was a great one because we came back and grilled birds for Miss Karee and my grandparents, and just had a huge meal. I have pretty much only had fun experiences hunting doves, like one trip I decided to go GI Joe style and put soot all over my arms and face, and put leaves in my hat.

One trip we limited out and we always came home with at least a few, which added up pretty quick. This year my dad and I hope to do a good bit of hunting. Maybe get some new stories to tell, and build up the dove population in our freezer.

With dove hunting coming up, I'm getting pretty excited. I feel like this year will be a good year all around.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Here to Stay!

For the first 8 months or so it was kind of a trial basis, just to see if we had time to put stories up and to see if people would come to the site and read them. And it worked out, so we bought the domain name, and redesigned the site.

We gather more and more readers every day. In fact it's done so well, we now have real advertisers. We only wanted to get advertisers that we really like, like B'n'M Crappie poles and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.

I'm really happy to have B'n'M on the site because we have been using their rods for years, in fact, we probably 15 different rods from them, and a bunch of their reels, too. For crappie and bream fishing, you can't beat B'n'M. They have a cool site with fishing tips and their latest stuff.
http://www.bnmpoles.com/

I'm glad we have the Museum of Natural Science advertising with me because they always have cool exhibits. Every summer they have a huge snake program, which is always fun. They also have huge aquariums that are filled with all sorts of fish and turtles. In the back they have a swamp area that has alligators that is really cool. You could easily spend hours walking around and looking, even if you have been there a bunch of times like me. If you have never been, it is definitely worth the trip to Jackson. http://museum.mdwfp.com/

So check these guys out and keep coming to the site. We've got a lot of new stories coming up this year.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

End of Summer

Have you ever noticed that it seems like every time you wanna go fish it rains?? That's how it's been around here. My dad and I were going to go fish on the creek today but it rained, and is supposed to rain the rest of the day. That's how it's been every day I was not busy for two weeks.

To me it seems like I'm going to have trouble putting up new stories because summer is almost over, which means I'll be back in school and have to study. I mean, it's like I just got done with final exams, and now I'm about to go back?! But even though the summer seemed short, I fished a lot, met some great people and had a great time. Hopefully we'll get in a few more fishing trips before hunting season.

The good thing is that with summer coming to a close, I'm that much closer to October! And you know what that means.... cool weather and a fishing trip with Capt. Sonny Schindler in the marsh! My dad and I have been saving up money and were ready to go!

www.danahersoutdoors.com