It has been warm enough to do stuff outside like fish and hunt for a month and a half, maybe longer if we count the want to days. Ever since that initial warming I have had a heck of a time. I did do a few things outdoors and caught a few fish, but really should have done more. I just didn’t feel like it.

This spring my blood pressure decided to go up and after that my heart rate started staying well over one hundred. Then I had the flu which didn’t help the blood pressure or heart rate at all. Then I pulled a muscle in my back and pinching a nerve. Now this is after not even seeing one sick day during the entire fall and winter seasons. During the entire time of my heart bypass surgery I never even thought of dying, but this flu deal put that thought in my mind.

Looking back now I should have known that the flu wouldn’t kill me as according to the old folks, I was too sick to die. I would have had to get better to die. I did tell my wife that death did cross my mind. The pain I get running down my legs with the pinched nerve is near enough to make one eat a bullet. If you take a pain killer strong enough to help, you can’t function, so I do the best I can. I finally went to the doctor after two weeks of suffering. He asked why I waited so long, and I told him that most common ailments I could kick on my own, but I did need some help this time.

I didn’t have the swine flu and am thankful for that. The doctor asked me if I had the swine flu and I told him no, that I was still eating plenty of pork chops and ribs, however. I was and still am, but that has nothing to do with the swine flu. Folks have quit eating pork and the price has dropped enough that if you are raising hogs for the market, it might advise you to wait until the price goes up so that you will make a profit before you sell. Hang on in there with eating the pork. It has nothing to do with whether you catch the swine flu or not. Eating after someone with the swine flu might give it to you, but not just eating pork.

With more stable weather on the way I expect all the stuff that is wrong with me to go away and all the sickness in the area to follow suit, and believe you me I would wear a suit fishing if it would help. Turkey season is gone and that leaves nothing but fishing for us to do in our spare time. There wasn’t much spare time over Mother’s Day weekend because our mothers had to be looked after. Our entire family got together, which is something that seldom happens, but this time it did.

Not a lot of people will fish on Mother’s Day and those that have to travel don’t even get to fish on Saturday. But this time enough folks did fish and the several days before Mother’s Day were excellent. A lot of panfish were caught before, on and after the full moon, but not as many as I thought there would be. There were plenty and looking back some of the fish may have bedded in deeper water and were not found. That would have put millions of more panfish fry into the lake to grow up and get big. Some of them anyway. A lot are lost the first few weeks and really the first six months or so until the rest learn that the bigger fish are not always their protector.

We look to the major moons for the panfish to bed and they may bed better at that time. But during the last few years I have heard of folks catching fish bedding on the quarter moons or no moon, and practically anytime that they can go, especially during the first half of the year. So again the very best time to go fishing is when you can. We have had some rain and maybe enough to keep things going. I am looking forward to an excellent year. One where I have to come in early because I am already at my limit and that is after I have released another limit back into the water. Some folks can’t do that, but I don’t like cleaning fish. Marcus does and gets all the extras. I would just as soon throw all the fish back and most times do.