South Texas Fishing

Radio is still taking a beating here. Because of my limited capability, I find myself dodging the radio.

We have been doing some fishing, however, mostly in the Laguna Madre, Spanish for Mother Lagoon. A friend from Mannford, Jim, and his wife, Sue, are down here from Mannford and Jim brought his boat. According to Jim, who reads incessantly, the Laguna Madre is one of the most prolific fisheries in the United States. Jim, Luther Potts, and I have taken three fishing trips.

On our first trip out, we anchored on the edge of a channel and caught a bunch of whitings, or southern kingfish. These are somewhat reminiscent of sand bass in that they are very prolific, there is no limit on them, and they are very good to eat. We were fishing with frozen squid and shrimp and the whiting would only hit the squid, not the shrimp. I did find out that whiting have very sharp little teeth deep down in their throats - don't stick your fingers down there.

On our second trip out, the wind was blowing too hard to go out into the Laguna Madre so we went to Arroyo City and put the boat in there. It was about a seven mile run to the mouth of the arroyo so we made it. When we got out there, the waves were much too high to stay so we came back in and fished the arroyo. We caught nothing but "hard head" catfish, which I've been assured are absolutely no good to eat! Finally we gave up and, on the way back up the arroyo to the dock, I caught a glimpse of something in the water as we went by. In fact, we almost ran over it with the boat! I yelled at Jim to turn around because I thought we had almost hit a swimming deer. When we turned around and went back, we found a mangy, scraggly coyote desperately trying to get across the arroyo! That was our big excitement for the day.

The third time out, we decided to try the jettys out at Boca Chita. Again, the wind was howling but we were able to get into a sheltered spot. Our bad luck continued as each of us caught one small whiting and I caught a ray. Discretion being the wise choice, I cut the line to avoid the ray's barbed tail!

Jim and Sue have to return to Oklahoma this week so I think our fishing trips are over. We sure had a lot of fun, though, and I WILL bring a fishing rod next year!

OMISS Nets

In September, 2009, shortly after I got my General License, I was roaming around the hf bands, not really having a lot of success in talking to faraway places when I stumbled across a net where people got on a list and, when their turn came, they could call one or two other people on the list.

The net was called the OMISS Net, short for Old Man International Sideband Society. My first day on the net, I made six contacts including people in Georgia, New York, and the Isle of Man! I was really impressed. By March, 2010, I had received my Worked All States Award without even really trying hard. Two years later, I have over 1400 contacts on OMISS in every state and several foreign countries.

Some people question why you would want to participate in a net where all you do is exchange signal reports, and it does sound a bit odd, I admit. However, after two years, many of the people on this net have become like family and it is very reassuring to turn on the radio and hear their voices. I've had the good fortune to meet many of them at Dayton and other places and I even run an occasional net when we are in town.

If you are a ham radio operator and get a chance, check out our website at www.omiss.net and find out more about us. We are nearing 8000 members and growing rapidly.

Funerals and Nets

Louise and I went to a funeral today in Siloam Springs. Her sister's oldest daughter, Arlene, died last week at the tender age of 56. It's interesting that, although it is a very somber occasion, you still get to catch up on what all the relatives are doing.

I'm becoming very apprehensive about the TARC net Thursday night. I have agreed to run the net and I do not have a clue! It will probably last about 15 minutes and then I'll be done forever. You know, I've been through two tornadoes and a hurricane and I'm still nervous about this. Do we thrive on adrenaline or what? Why do we volunteer to do these things? Oh, well (as Stan would say) life goes on.

My biggest goal this week is to get the fifth wheel "radio ready" to go to South Texas. I've got to get both antennas mounted, hooked up and the screwdriver antenna power hooked up. Also, I'm gonna go to Tom's (KE5NCP) house and see his antenna setup.

Success at Last!

Well, I finally got the tower project completed and the tower is standing upright. Now I can move on to other tasks. I can't believe the difference this height makes in my radio signals. In fact, I committed a faux pax as soon as I got the tower up. I ran in and turned the radio to 146.91, the Broken Arrow repeater, and made an almost instant contact.

As it turns out, the guy was in Nashville, TN, which was amazing on 2 meters. I knew I wasn't supposed to be working him off the repeater but I couldn't get loose without coming across like an a**hole. Eventually, I got off though. My apologies to all the guys listening to the 146.91 repeater.

We had a very enjoyable visit with Dorinda, our daughter-in-law, and hated to see her go back to Atlanta today. She and our son will be back for Christmas, however, so we can stand it till then.

I don't have a lot planned for this coming week. I'm gonna work on the fifth wheel trailer a little bit, getting it ready to go to South Texas in January.

Hunting Results

Well, we've been black powder hunting for three days now and haven't done any good at all. I did see two does on Saturday morning but they were off in the bush and I didn't take a shot at them. Saturday was the best day, weatherwise, with a temp of about 38F, a light frost, and NO wind. This morning there was so much wind that you could hardly stay in the tree.

We're gonna go again in the morning and then take a break Wednesday.

I've still got to get busy and get that tower up in the air. Maybe I can work on that next week. How's that for procrastination?