Finally made it back to the site!

Hey everybody! Haven't been on here in a while due to life getting in the way but this place is booming more than ever! 20 foot boat builds, charity and giveaway stuff, and now SHIRTS?! I have missed this place almost as much as i've missed fishing weather! Long story short, i had to do a wildlife internship this summer for my degree (wildlife ecology and management) which put me in the middle of nowhere in a small camper from may to august. I had to drive 20 mins to sit in a mcdonalds for internet... but on the plus side, i had a small pond in the yard, 3 larger lakes (200-650 acres), and 3 major rivers (St. Francis, L'anguille, and the mississippi) all within 30 mins of driving! Couldn't fish the first couple of months i was there due to flooding, I even saw a full size pontoon boat going across a bean field but it was about 8 feet underwater! I did get to take my boat out a few times, caught a few fish, had a 6-8 foot gator follow me for a while, and found out that i need to have my carb cleaned or a bigger boat :mrgreen: ! Since i got back ive been juggling 2 jobs (back down to one now), trying to finish up with school (graduated in december!) and now trying to find a full time job... Just wanted to stop back in to say hi! Here's a few pics...

My humble abode

Bass i caught late one afternoon

Pontoon in the bean field bookin it!

One of the lakes early in the morning

Saw a few dozen of these guys!

Worked alot with these little guys

Another one...

This one had upwards of 15 rattles! You can see them towards the bottom of the pic

My pride and joy minus the back seat on Bear Creek lake

Beautiful day!

Made a friend

A great place to finish out the day!


And now a few from my other job this fall (banding birds)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Me and a pair of Tufted titmice

Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted... we had a pair but they're strong so i only took a pic like this with one)

Pair of carolina chickadees

Downy woodpecker

Downy woodpecker drilling the crap out of my hands!


In my spare time, i build a 2 smokers that looks like shotgun shells!


Looking forward to participating again and meeting all the new guys!

welcome back man! I was wondering what happened to you. Glad your back for sure!

Great pictures, looks like a great experience. The smoker looks killer! Get settled in and then let me know more about that.

welcome back, congrats on graduating and all and your internship. How did you catch those birds for the pics?? Traps ??? Cool pics too.

Thanks guys and ill get on that smoker thread soon jim! Basically we used nets to catch the birds... this summer i would hike all day and we would use an electronic caller in known territories for migrating swainson's warblers (the bird i mainly worked with all summer). When they would hear the call they would get defensive and start flying around us to find the bird they were hearing. If it didnt have bands already on its legs we would set up a net around 15 foot long by 8 foot tall and put the caller on the ground below it... they'd get curious and fly in. then we could take the bird out and band it and release. This is known as target netting. This fall i worked at an ongoing banding "station" which is similar but there's no caller, multiple nets, and the nets opened at dawn and closed about noon, monitored the entire time. Sometimes we would get up to almost 40 birds a morning and almost caught a deer once!

Welcome back, and great pics.

That is a phenomenal experience!

Long story short, i had to do a wildlife internship this summer. . .

Come On Now, Had To Do ? I Think You Were Very Lucky And GOT To Do A Wildlife Internship That Any Of Us TinBoaters Would Have Loved To Tagged Along On. :lol:

Congrats On Graduations, & Good Luck On The Job Search Now.

Now ya caught me in a lie! I did love it but it was required... and i got paid doing my internship while the guys at my normal job held my position all summer for me!

Welcome back.....glad you're back. We missed you while you were gone. Not to repeat, but that smoker does look great. I love the picture of the woodpecker drilling your hand. When they say a picture is worth a thousand words....that one fits perfectly.

Now, the Timber rattlers Crotalus horridus......(yes, snakes are another passion of mine)....what were you doing with them? Anything cool, or just trying to avoid them?

The timber rattlers i was mainly trying to avoid but walking around in the woods all day really didn't help! Out of the 5 people i worked with over the summer i had the uncanny ability to find EVERY single venomous snake! Most of the rattlers and copperheads were within 2 feet of my feet before i saw them, some were under my foot but i never actually stepped on them! All in all we saw around 20 rattlers, 5 or 6 copperheads, and 3 cottonmouths along with a ton of non-venomous snakes... surprisingly i never had one strike at me and only one rattled. they would just be coiled up and i would use a stick to uncoil them and they would either freeze in whatever position i put them in or slowly slither away. I even tied my phone to the end of a stick with the video recorder on and took some close up footage! i was hoping it would try to strike at it but no dice...