Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Grunt Bait Proven..
Years Ago while I was a little boy growing up in the Panhandle I got to know folks who were Professional Grunt Baiters...whereby you drive a stake into the ground and rub a piece of steel on it to make Worms come the surface where you bag 'em and tag 'em for fishing.
Now its official, It's proven how it works and it happened in Liberty County with the help of some local "Pros".
The secret of worm grunting, a mysterious technique used by fishermen to tempt worms to the surface, has been unearthed.Worm grunting is popular in the United States - they even hold grunting festivals - and involves driving a wooden stake into the ground and rubbing it repeatedly with a length of steel.To most people such behaviour might be regarded as, at best, eccentric but to fishermen it is a tried and tested means of providing enough bait to keep them going for hours.A biologist intrigued by the practice has now established that the apparently suicidal behaviour of the worms in coming to the surface, where they are easy prey, is driven by a desperate desire to escape their deadliest of enemies - moles.Moles are such voratious eaters of earthworms that the invertebrates would rather risk being caught by a bird or dried up by the sun than come within range of one.Dr Ken Catania, of Vanderbilt University in the US, found that the vibrations created in the soil by rubbing steel on the stake mimicked those made by moles digging through the soil.Fishermen had happily made use of the practice, known variously as worm grunting, tickling, snoring or charming depending on where it is done, but didn’t know why it worked.His conclusion, reached after a series of experiments in the Apalachicola National Forest, in Florida, confirmed a remark made by Charles Darwin in his 1881 book The Formation of Vegetable Mould.“It has often been said that if the ground is beaten or otherwise made to tremble, worms believe that they are pursued by a mole and leave their burrows,” he wrote.Dr Catania, reported his findings in the online journal PLoS ONE, after carrying out a series of experiments in Apalachicola National Forest in Florida where eastern American moles, Scalopus aquaticus linnaeus, are plentiful.He said: “Eastern moles don’t come to the surface when they are foraging, so fleeing to the surface provides the worms both immediate safety and the most efficient means for getting away from them.“The moles are quite noisy. Often you can hear the sounds of a mole digging in the wild from a few feet away.”The finding supports observation of gulls and wood turtles which have suggested the animals knew that by slapping their feet on the ground they would bring worms within reach.He found, with the help of veteran worm grunters Gary and Audrey Revell, that hundreds of earthworms came to the surface within 12 metres of the stake.“This makes it possible for an experienced worm grunter to collect thousands of worms in a day,” he added.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/10/secrets-of-worm.html
Yours in the Bond
Now its official, It's proven how it works and it happened in Liberty County with the help of some local "Pros".
The secret of worm grunting, a mysterious technique used by fishermen to tempt worms to the surface, has been unearthed.Worm grunting is popular in the United States - they even hold grunting festivals - and involves driving a wooden stake into the ground and rubbing it repeatedly with a length of steel.To most people such behaviour might be regarded as, at best, eccentric but to fishermen it is a tried and tested means of providing enough bait to keep them going for hours.A biologist intrigued by the practice has now established that the apparently suicidal behaviour of the worms in coming to the surface, where they are easy prey, is driven by a desperate desire to escape their deadliest of enemies - moles.Moles are such voratious eaters of earthworms that the invertebrates would rather risk being caught by a bird or dried up by the sun than come within range of one.Dr Ken Catania, of Vanderbilt University in the US, found that the vibrations created in the soil by rubbing steel on the stake mimicked those made by moles digging through the soil.Fishermen had happily made use of the practice, known variously as worm grunting, tickling, snoring or charming depending on where it is done, but didn’t know why it worked.His conclusion, reached after a series of experiments in the Apalachicola National Forest, in Florida, confirmed a remark made by Charles Darwin in his 1881 book The Formation of Vegetable Mould.“It has often been said that if the ground is beaten or otherwise made to tremble, worms believe that they are pursued by a mole and leave their burrows,” he wrote.Dr Catania, reported his findings in the online journal PLoS ONE, after carrying out a series of experiments in Apalachicola National Forest in Florida where eastern American moles, Scalopus aquaticus linnaeus, are plentiful.He said: “Eastern moles don’t come to the surface when they are foraging, so fleeing to the surface provides the worms both immediate safety and the most efficient means for getting away from them.“The moles are quite noisy. Often you can hear the sounds of a mole digging in the wild from a few feet away.”The finding supports observation of gulls and wood turtles which have suggested the animals knew that by slapping their feet on the ground they would bring worms within reach.He found, with the help of veteran worm grunters Gary and Audrey Revell, that hundreds of earthworms came to the surface within 12 metres of the stake.“This makes it possible for an experienced worm grunter to collect thousands of worms in a day,” he added.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/environment/2008/10/secrets-of-worm.html
Yours in the Bond
Monday, October 27, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wounded Hero...Please Pray
A old friend of mine from my hometown of Blountstown...Col Edwards of the United States Marine Corp. serving in Afghanistan was wounded in action this past week while leading his troops in a Mountainous region.
He was struck in the head even with his helmet on. He is now in US, and responding..Keep him and his family in your prayers...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Happy Birthday Hooters!!!!!!
As I always celebrate all things Florida I want to give a shout out to a Fine Dining establishment that hails from Clearwater.....Hooters...or Hootiers (a fine French rest. as I tell my wife when she looks at the Credit Card Bill).
This Outstanding Artistic Commercial done by God Fearing Southern Girls who are just doing the Lords work Feeding the masses with Greasy Chicken Wings and Celery Strips celebrates the day...stop on by on the 25th of each month and this year and congratulate them.
Yours in the Bond.
This Outstanding Artistic Commercial done by God Fearing Southern Girls who are just doing the Lords work Feeding the masses with Greasy Chicken Wings and Celery Strips celebrates the day...stop on by on the 25th of each month and this year and congratulate them.
Yours in the Bond.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Fla. Voters Offered Free Beer
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- If a chance to help choose the next president of the United States isn't enough to get some voters to the polls, maybe a free beer is.
The HandleBar in Pensacola is offering a free beer to anyone who votes.
Customers must trade their "I Voted" stickers for the free drinks.
The offer is good for early voters and those who vote on Nov. 4.
This is the third year that the HandleBar has offered free beers to voters.
Yours in the Bond
The HandleBar in Pensacola is offering a free beer to anyone who votes.
Customers must trade their "I Voted" stickers for the free drinks.
The offer is good for early voters and those who vote on Nov. 4.
This is the third year that the HandleBar has offered free beers to voters.
Yours in the Bond
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
So long, suckers. Millionaire hedge fund boss thanks 'idiot' traders and retires at 37
The boss of a successful US hedge fund has quit the industry with an
extraordinary farewell letter dismissing his rivals as over-privileged "idiots"
and thanking "stupid" traders for making him rich.
Andrew Lahde's $80m Los Angeles-based firm Lahde Capital Management in Los Angeles made a huge return last year by betting against subprime mortgages.
Yesterday the 37-year-old told his clients that he had hated the business and had only been in it for the money. And after declaring he would no longer manage money for other people, because he had enough of his own, Lahde said that instead he intended to repair his stress-damaged health; he made it clear he would not miss the financial world.
"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school,
Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These
people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or
supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and
Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.
"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless
America." Lahde became one of the biggest names in the investment industry
when one of his funds produced a return of 866% last year, largely by
forecasting the US home loans industry would collapse.
In his farewell letter, which concluded with an appeal for the legalisation of marijuana, Lahde said he was happy with his rewards and did not envy those who had made even more money.
"I will let others try to amass nine, 10 or 11 figure net worths.
Meanwhile, their lives suck," he wrote, citing a life of back-to-back business
appointments relieved only by a two-week annual holiday in which financiers are
still "glued to their Blackberries".
Lahde's retirement came amid an implosion among the hedge fund industry - some 350 of the funds have liquidated this year, according to Hedge Fund Research.
His final words of advice?
"Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life"
Andrew Clark in New York
The Guardian,
Saturday October 18 2008Yours in the Bond
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Famous Floridian...Fruitcake Lady
This was the "Fruit Cake Lady" from Jay Leno fame. She died a few yrs back over north of Tampa and was a Instant hit as a Floridian. She in fact was Truman Capote's Cousin and was in the movie "to Kill a Mockingbird"...Great Lady.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
