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| 14 7/8" Third Place Large Mouth hooked with 2lb. test line through the ice. |
Grouse
Hollow Journal for February 6, 2014 by Greg Koelker
Well,
I guess we had what amounts to the sort of January thaw we could
expect THIS winter last week - like one day in total. I guess that
one warmish day could explain why some animals that normally sleep
all winter were out and about. I guess that's why I got a call from
Ellen asking me what I thought she should do with Scout. Ellen and
Scout are not creatures who hibernate in the winter; my “girls”
go on a walk up our ridge, often on snowshoes every day. Last
Wednesday it was so nice out that El decided to deviate from their
usual trek and check the Oak Stand and food plot field for deer and
turkey sign. On these hikes, Scout loves bounding about sticking her
head into every little hole in the snow, sniffing every pile of
“sign,” and chasing squirrels and birds. To our knowledge, in
her over eight years, Scout has never attempted an assault on a skunk
- believe me, from what we now know, that would have been hard to
conceal from us. Anyway, at the Oak Stand gate, Scout saw something
and took off after it. El said she just thought it must be a
squirrel-as-usual. Ellen added that she saw the squirrel's tail and
wondered why it didn't just run up a tree. Then she realized with a
bit of horror - and a second too late to call off Scout's charge -
that the “squirrel” had a white stripe down its back. Scout
bounded in on the surprised, and no doubt half-awake and cranky,
skunk and got a head-on Hellfire-missile-sized dose of shock and awe
polecat style. Scout acted like she had been hit by Johnny Jolly,
Clay Mathews, and Brad Jones all-at-once at the line of scrimmage,
and immediately started yelping and whining, and shoving her head
into snow to relieve the agony of de-scent. She rolled and rolled in
the snow. Unbelievably, after that, Scout tried a second assault on
Pep'e le Pew! Ellen was able to call her off, but the damage was
done.
Anyway,
back to the phone call. I suggested El go home and check the web for
some solution or other we could use to cleanse our erstwhile - and
now incredibly odiferous - canine companion. I called the usually
helpful DNR helpline. The guy said that was a new one for him, but
he googled it and gave me a recipe for cleaning up skunk odor. El
called with a recipe - pretty much the same one the DNR guy said -
that included peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap. I stopped at ACE
hardware on my way home and was shown some Animal Odor/Stink powder
and I got a couple pints of peroxide at Walmart. We don't have a
heated garage or anywhere we could think of to give Scout a bath, and
it was going to be really cold that night, so I decided to try the
dry powder Mr. Stink to avoid a frozen dog in the morning. I put on
some old shop clothes and a pair of rubber gloves and opened the can.
Scout did not care for the stuff at all, but after a ten minute
wrestling match, I got her pretty well dusted down. I put some in
her kennel bedding too. I gave her another dose the next day, but
she was still banned from her kitchen rug for the duration, at least
until she started stinking like a dog again anyway.
After
having Scout get up wind of me on a walk the next day, I finally
called a couple dog groomers on Scout's behalf. The pet grooming
business must be good, because when they heard what my problem was,
they were suddenly booked up until at least Valentine's Day or
thereabouts. One lady recommended the Ship Shape Dog Wash in
Crossing Meadows shopping mall, and she recommended something called
Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor remover. Ellen and I drove out there,
like 18 miles, and bought the cleaner. The dog wash was warm, It
has a raised stainless steel tub with a sprayer and dryer hose and
place to set what you want coming out in the water, like rinse,
tearless shampoo, hair conditioner (I'm not kidding), flea and tick
wash, etc. We donned our rain gear (they had plastic aprons hanging
on the wall, but we didn't notice them until we were done.) and then
had to wrestle Scout up the steps into the tank. We really motivated
after that close contact by the way. Anyway, I plugged a $10 in the
slot and we started. I don't know when we have belly laughed so much
in recent times. I sprayed Ellen and she sprayed me - both
accidental shootings of course. Scout did everything she could
muster to escape, but she was finally resigned to her fate. We
lathered and rinsed and repeated and then washed her with the
tearless shampoo. The dryer sort of helped, but the towels we
brought were a good idea. El remarked that it was too bad the dog
wash doesn't have a video camera set up to record the process like
they do when one goes whitewater rafting and such, and then they try
to sell you a picture. I think I would have bought that. Scout got
to ride home in the cab with us. The dog wash and Skunk Odor remover
proved to be “the bomb” (as El's brother Bill likes to say) on
the problem. We heard later that Viroqua has a dog wash too. We
learned something and had fun doing it. Scout got back in the
kitchen, and in a twist on Mark Twain's quote about picking a cat up
by the tail, if you charge a skunk head on, you learn things you
cannot learn any other way. Let us hope Scout was paying attention.
Until
next time, get out - Vince and I fished at the Jiggn' Jamboree on
Stoddard Bay on Saturday. The ice is really thick so we didn't drill
many holes. Vince pulled in a nice largemouth bass, that was maybe
an inch too short to satisfy the law, and then we caught some
bluegills. He got a dandy 9-incher. I hooked something big and got
the fishes head started up the hole (keep in mind the ice hope is
like a 2-foot tunnel fraught with edges to get hooked on). Vince
knelt down and snagged the bass onto the ice with his fingers. I
borrowed a tape from a guy nearby and the fish was almost 15 inches,
so I had something register at the contest. The weather was crazy
with flurries, sunshine, breeze and wind, and low gray skies.
Anyway, Vince had a perch and a bluegill in the top three spots on
the board moments before the weigh-in closed. I had that bass.
Unfortunately, both of Vinny's fish were edged out. My bass was
third and I got a cash prize! The last time I won fish prize at a
fisheree, I was probably ten years old and down on Bertram Lake. I
hooked a huge crappie. My dad had to chop - with a spud - the hole a
little bigger for me to get it out on the ice. I think I won a
6-pack of beer back then. Enjoy.
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