It's the Terrible at Fishing Radio show on Cold Country Radio.
Here's your fishing expert and host, Michael Rafino.
Welcome back to Terrible at Fishing everybody.
We are having a really good week.
I am feeling better.
So my RSV is subsided, which is great.
My frostbite seems to be doing a little bit better.
My fingers are almost back to normal color, but still dead as a door nail on the tips.
It's really hard to type.
It really is.
My fingers really should know what to do by now, all these years.
But they seem to be missing stuff.
I really need your fingertips.
Well, we have finished a 32 year storm, which is awesome.
We have good ice at our local lake.
So still you could get out there and I do some great ice fishing.
And speaking about ice fishing, remember last week we talked about my event on Saturday,
which was the Lake of the Woods Terrible at Fishing, Ice Fishing Derby.
And we had 75 people or so show up for the Derby.
And we had a lot more than that.
We're actually having fun out on the lake.
And even though I couldn't get out on the ice with you guys, I had a great time watching
your reactions.
The children bringing the fish up to me.
Their smiles.
Their stories.
And I'll tell you that that really is why I do what I do.
My favorite thing to do is to give stuff to people.
I mean, I just have a good, I just enjoy it.
I had a lot of prizes that I donated.
And you know, I even had an ice fishing tent.
And the neat thing about the ice fishing tent is that it was one of many, many prizes.
And that went to the person, the person with the biggest fish was a fisherman named Jesse.
And he had a, who's he?
I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm sorry.
Looking through all the fish.
And yeah, Jesse.
And he got to choose any prize he wanted.
And he had a beautiful rainbow trout.
His son had a pretty rainbow trout, by the way.
But he had the bigger one.
And he, he chose one of my prizes that I made, not the tent, but a cribbage board that I
had made and painted.
It's a custom, I love making cribbage boards.
His son Remington really had the prettiest fish.
His son had the prettiest fish and beautiful rainbow trout.
Great magenta color on it.
And Remington, he did, I mean, him and his dad, they, they won a couple prizes.
And of course, you know, you know, making sure everybody gets what they want.
We had several sockeye salmon, or a kokane salmon, three of them caught.
And we had a German brown trout caught, lots of perch, of course.
And our biggest perch was nine inches, which is a big perch for Lake of the Woods.
We had quite a few between eight and nine inches.
Most of them were pretty fat because they were females and they were, they were, you
know, full of eggs, which is great getting them out of the lake before they lay their
eggs because you really just want to thin that, that out.
But we had a lot of eight to nine inch perch caught, lots of them.
And Jesse and Remington, they, they caught over, they caught 40 fish in total.
So we had some, we had a young fisher girl, Sawyer, she wants some stuff and David wants
some stuff and, and we just, you know, we just had a really, really nice time.
I think the biggest, let me see, the biggest kokane salmon, there it is.
That's, that's a pretty one though, but it wasn't the biggest.
I didn't write down everybody's winnings.
I just, I used my app, my fish techie app, and it does AI weighing and measuring and
stuff like that.
And I love that because I had all these fish.
I just take this little ball that you, that it uses as a scale and then I put it next
to the fish, take a picture and it goes ahead and figures out all the dimensions, you know,
the girth, the length and the weight.
And since I did that to all fish, it was all fair and, and yeah, it's about 96% accurate.
So, but when you're doing so many, this is really, really nice.
I really like this fish techie app.
The app itself is free, but you got to buy these two little balls and they're called
proof balls and you can get them on Amazon.
You see, what's it called?
It's called proof ball.
That's what it's called by fit fly techie.
Let's go figure it's fly techie is the company that makes the balls, fish techie is the app.
But wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
And we had such a good time and had a young, young man here.
He looked like he was about 12 and he, he took the tent and perfect because he could stand
up in the tent.
It's a one man tent or two kids and it was a nice little tent.
Again, it was one of those things that I had and I was happy to give away and support the
whole thing.
And we had such a good time visiting with a lot of people.
There was a group of women called, they were wilding and I ain't never heard of it either,
but they were trying to get in touch with the wild side and they went snowshoeing.
It's a big group out of Grant's Pass in that area.
And they got wild, they got girls over there that need to get wild evidently.
But there were a bunch of sweet ladies and fun.
Obviously they were very funny.
And one of them's on a show coming up, Naked and Afraid, one of the leaders.
So evidently she's already got her wild side.
I asked her, I asked her, so why are you on that show?
And she goes, oh, they just asked.
I go, oh.
And I looked at her and I says, you know, I remember college back in the early 80s.
It seemed harder.
So they asked you, you want to get Naked and Afraid?
And you said, yeah, sure, why not?
So anyway, she's evidently on that show this week.
Her name was Sky, I think, but that's not her name on the show.
I guess that they're using her real name.
But anyway, she's from our area.
But we had a really nice time.
The marina made breakfast pizza.
Oh, man.
This breakfast pizza is like a quiche and it's so, so good.
And then you had this broccoli cheddar soup.
It was really good.
I mean, on a cold day like that, you just want soup and sandwich.
He was serving soup and sandwiches.
And that's the nice thing about Aaron at the Lake of the Woods marina.
It's really the best eatery, I think, in at Lake of the Woods.
I mean, one of the best pizzas you'll ever eat.
And on events, he will surprise you with things like breakfast pizza.
And it's really, really good.
The day was beautiful.
It really was beautiful.
I mean, I know the storm came in later in the day, but it was after the event.
And Sunday, it was sort of like a free-for-all derby without me.
And people still had a great time winning prizes that Lake of the Woods donated on that day.
But it was just a beautiful day with people and with the community.
This was a free event, a community event that we put on.
And it was, it's one of three derbies a year, fishing stuff, you know.
And the next one's going to be the first week in June for the kids.
And that's probably the best day of the year, that Saturday.
And then we have one in September, which is a big derby.
And all these derbies are free.
Now the one in June for the kids, it's a catch and cook.
So they catch it.
We have the Boy Scouts volunteer and they clean the fish.
And we have grills set up for the fish to get cooked and the kids can eat it.
And it's just, and these are big trout, big trout.
You know, these are trophy sized trout.
And so they're having, I mean, the kids get to see from water to plate.
And it's just a great time to see the kids light up like that.
I've been pretty busy with making baits and making, I have discovered games in my creation.
And using my artistic skills to make unique games.
I'm just having a good old time making cribbage boards.
I know.
Cribbage.
You probably, you know, the young ones out there probably don't even know what cribbage
is.
But cribbage is basically a race using points you get from cards.
And you deal out cards and you get points for pairs and for runs and stuff like that.
And then you got this little race track on the cribbage board with pegs.
And you race those pegs all the way to the 121.
And you can make multiple laps if you want.
But just a lot of fun actually.
And it's very quick, very fast paced, very competitive.
Ask anybody who's played cribbage.
They've been playing cribbage for decades upon decades upon decades.
And it's still one of their favorite games.
I know.
And I'm just having a good old time making these cribbage boards.
I know.
It's a simple things in life.
I even made myself my own scrabble board because we didn't own scrabble in our family.
I don't know why because I like scrabble.
So I made a scrabble board.
A big foot one.
You know, big foot is one of our favorite mascots locally.
Everybody loves big foot.
I mean, even if you believe, don't believe in big foot.
You love the mythology and the possibilities of big foot.
I mean, just enough.
Let's say he's out there.
Just for argument's sake.
Let's just say he's out there.
He's the best hide and seeker ever.
And we know he's friendly.
Yeah.
He's a friendly guy.
Because I've never heard of anybody killed by big foot.
So there you go.
He's a big, friendly dude or dudette.
We're not impartial.
Or we are impartial.
We're not partial.
That's what I meant.
So I've been making a lot of big foot stuff because, you know, big foot's fun.
Now, you know, there's many people that believe they've seen big foot.
You know, just because you haven't seen doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I've never seen an elk.
I know.
You guys are saying, Mike, they're all over the place.
I don't think so.
Because if they were all over the place and as much as I'm outside, I would have seen one
by now.
But I ain't never seen an elk.
I went to squim Washington.
My in-laws lived.
And they said, oh, we got lots of elk.
I said, great.
So I went up there, spent a week.
Got on a porch, looked.
Never saw an elk.
I'm pretty sure big foot's pet isn't elk.
I'm pretty sure because I ain't never seen either one of them.
But everybody says they exist.
I know.
They say, well, you know, here's pictures of it.
Look, there's pictures.
I know.
Yeah, there's pictures of big foot too.
But you know what?
I ain't never seen them.
It doesn't mean they don't exist.
I'm just saying that in front of this Italian, they don't make an appearance at all.
Evidently, they got a white butt.
I don't know why.
And I asked my buddy.
I said, well, isn't that a white tailed deer?
He goes, no, no.
That's the tail.
Elk have white butts.
I said, oh.
And one day I came home and this big mule deer was in my front yard.
And I was like, oh my gosh, that's got to be an elk.
So I took pictures of it and it was a mule deer.
Mule deers are rather bulky.
And I thought it was an elk.
I don't know.
So I'm still learning, still waiting to see my very first elk and big foot.
In the meantime, it's not like I doubt everybody, but I do enjoy the thought of believing in
them.
All right.
Well, I'm going to let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk more about
the events of Klamath Falls.
Out in the backwoods under the stars.
I turned in the radio from my old car.
Oh, country radio on Friday night.
Terrible at fishing, but it feels just right.
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The Terrible at Fishing Radio Show.
Michael's got the secrets around you know.
You can't lie, your cast just find Gold Country Radio.
Alright, welcome back to Terrible at Fishing everybody.
Now that I'm feeling better, I'm getting outside again.
You get cabin crazy, don't you?
You get stir crazy and you just got to get out.
So I went to, I took my daughter to her class, her school and then afterwards, you know,
we stopped by Cook Woods and Cook Woods is an exotic woods dealer, wood dealer here in
town.
It's at the end of Shasta Way and it is the best smelling store or it's not really a store.
It's more of a warehouse where a lot of wood is but it smells great.
Ugh, all the aromas of all these different woods and it's gorgeous wood.
He has exotic woods, right?
He has normal woods and he has exotic woods.
So and I'm poor so I can't afford you know a lot of his wood.
So I always go to the other warehouse where he's got scrap woods and then you know they're
in big cardboard bins.
And I discovered a new wood and when I go look at wood, I you know, it's sometimes it speaks
to me.
It tells me what it wants me to do with it.
I know it sounds weird but that's what happens with an artist.
It actually tells you what the possibility is and in our mind we see it.
More like when I bought my 69 Dodge Charger was a piece of junk.
My wife thought it was the ugliest car in the world but I saw in my mind what a finished
product was.
So even as ugly as it was, you know, it was beautiful to me and when I finished it she
finally got to see how gorgeous a 69 Dodge Charger is.
So I found this piece of wood, this type of wood and it's called Osage Orange.
Osage Orange.
And Osage Orange Wood is in that yellow real deep yellow tone.
It's gorgeous.
I've never seen a wood like this.
I mean I've seen lots of wood.
You're used to wood, right?
But the Osage Orange is kind of deep yellow and a beautiful grain to it.
It's beautiful.
And Osage Wood, Osage Orange Wood is known for being really, really dense and hard.
So it was used for, it's also called bow wood.
The indigenous tribes used it to make bows.
It's very rare.
It's not a common wood and it comes from an orange tree, the Osage Orange tree.
And the tree is native to the Great Plains region of North America.
It's got a beautiful red bark on it and it's just gorgeous.
So this piece was in one of the bins and the color hit me like, I mean like a rock.
And I knew exactly when I saw what I wanted to do with this.
And I do wood burning and so I wanted to put a tiger because the richness of the yellow
on this and then the beauty of the grain both imitated the body of a tiger.
So I burned a tiger's head staring directly at you.
And then, you know, the one thing about art is whenever I create art, I focus a lot on
the eyes.
And so I painted these eyes in order to make them really stand out.
And it turned out absolutely, well, it's stunning.
Now, I'm a little partial since I created it.
But the grain looks like stripes on the tiger in the wood.
The yellow, I mean, it's just the tiger, right?
I mean, you want orange and it can and Osage Orange can be orange, but this is a very yellow
piece.
And then of course the live edges on this piece just accentuated.
On the back of it, I put, you know, the details of what Osage Orange wood is, you know, and
what this piece of wood is.
And it turned out, you know, one thing you'll find I'm very passionate about everything.
When it comes to fishing, I'm passionate at fishing.
When I do art or when I create, I'm just very passionate about these things.
And when I write, if you ever read one of my books, you will get a feel from the writing.
It's not just antiquated information.
There's a lot of me, a lot of my personality put in my literature.
And I've got eight books on the market, just FYI.
And one's a bestseller and the rest of them, I just didn't name them right.
You know, you got to really name them right to really find those, the mark, you know,
tap into those markets.
But nonetheless, I am just thrilled to death with this Osage Orange wood and something
I've never heard of before, something that struck me like a ton of bricks.
And when I finished it, it just turned out so.
And then it changes with light.
Those the grain will actually disappear and then reappear depending on the angle of light
that you have put upon us.
Really is a fantastic, whoever buys it is just going to, you know, put it on, you know, it's
only seven by eight inches, but it turned out so beautiful.
You can just put it on your desk and just look at that and just have it look.
I mean, it's just beautiful.
Maybe I won't sell it.
I don't know.
It's just so, so pretty, so pretty.
And I wish I could, you know, I don't have a CNC machine to make, you know, cribbage boards
out of wood, but maybe one day we'll get a CNC machine.
But that is, I'm looking at it right now and this is just an amazing, you know, piece that
anybody would be happy.
So enough of me bragging about my latest endeavor on art.
Now I did get some, about 20 blanks of the four and a half inch square bills.
And these are big giant baits.
And I mean, for a square bill, I've never seen a bigger square bill.
These things are going to be fantastic this summer.
So we'll get to painting those and have a fun with those.
So it's just a good time.
You know, I mean, the snow is melting.
You know, we're starting to see the ground again.
And you know, my hand is coming back and my lungs, well, lungs are lungs, but not as bad
as they were last week.
And then I've started to make these cribbage boards that everybody seems to enjoy.
And I've been learning cribbage because I didn't know how to play it.
And it's very competitive.
I know.
It's very competitive.
He played against somebody and in it, and it can get pretty hairy.
But the, you know, what my machines are doing, what I'm doing, mixing new colors, beautiful
vibrant colors for my baits.
Some of them are in the fluorescent range of colors.
And so we're going to do some really fun testing.
And then with my big baits, I'm put, I mean, with some of them, we'll have a collector's
box, but some of them will have these.
Have you ever seen on your people that put these really thick vinyl bags with Velcro
and they fold it over the shaft of their rod and then over and it covers their baits.
And it keeps the bait from catching on you on other things and tangling up on your other
rods.
Anyway, it's a great little thing.
I've always wanted some, but I never got any.
So I bought a lot of them.
And so some of my big baits are going to have this bag that you will use.
And you would appreciate it immensely because these run about five bucks, you know, just
a bag, really thick vinyl.
I mean, I use really sharp hooks and they don't poke through it.
Anyway, you just, instead of throwing away the packaging, you actually will use this
in order to keep your baits from hooking other things.
And it'll be really a nice thing for you to have.
If you don't have them, you probably should get them because I should have got them a
long time ago because I've got taken a lot of hooks out of my legs.
A lot of hooks.
And one day I'm going to show you, you know, I should make a video on my YouTube channel
on how to remove a hook.
I have done it a couple of times on video when I did hook myself.
And then I just, you know, somewhere on the, on my YouTube channel, I have thousands of
videos on my YouTube channel.
So if any of you ever wonder, you want to binge watch?
I've got playlists of lakes of Southeast Oregon.
I have a lot of Lake of the Woods ones because I'm there a lot.
And ice fishing ones.
I started a fly fishing one as I learned more about fly fishing.
And but my favorite, I've told you, is the not anymore playlist.
It is basically all videos are less than seven minutes and they teach you something about
fishing, about species, about different baits, about tying knots, about casting.
You know, my favorite, my favorite rod is a bait cast, you know, bait casting reel.
And once you go into bait casting, once you learn it, it is very, very difficult to go
back to spinning rods.
Now, spinning rods still have a place in my arsenal, but bait casting is really 90% of
my fishing.
It is, except for, you know, except for ice fishing.
Ice fishing, we use a different type of reel altogether.
We use an, I use an inline reel.
It looks like a fly fishing reel is what it looks like.
You know, it's just a spool basically.
But this one, this one's got actually gear ratio on it, three to one.
And it has, it frees up wonderfully to drop even a 1 1 1 8th of an ounce jig.
And it's something that all the others can't do.
And so when I go ice fishing, I actually have this, this inline ice fishing reel.
And it is really the best reel for ice fishing.
I would definitely go with a four, two or four pound test for your ice fishing because
you really want a light line.
You don't want the line to stop your drop of a very light jig.
Now, 1 1 8th of an ounce is a very, very light, is the lightest jig I've ever seen.
And a company called Mule, like the Mule, like a jackass Mule fishing.
Mule fishing makes those.
And I've never seen it available anywhere else.
But Ethan, the guy who, who designed it and he owns Mule fishing, I actually interviewed
him on my, my terrible fishing YouTube channel.
So it's a good video to watch with Ethan and why he calls it Mule fishing and where he
got his ideas from.
He's very much into finesse fishing.
So he loves crappie fishing, pan fishing and stuff like that.
But some of these are also made for bass and trout and stuff like that.
So I actually have, in my tackle bag, I always have Mule fishing gear in it, jigs and soft
plastics.
And I always go out with them.
So that tells you something about, in fact, Mule fishing, you think, except for one bait
by six cents, everything else I make.
So I make all my baits.
So my hard baits and my soft baits.
But go to my YouTube channel, Terrible at Fishing, and see what I've been up to.
And see some of these events that I keep talking about.
But I want to thank you guys for tuning in this week.
And I will see you guys out on the water or on the ice.
Or on my YouTube channel, you'll see me.
Anyway, you guys take care, tight lines to you all, and be safe out there.
As the ice warms up, it'll start to thin out.
So please, in the next couple of weeks, you got good ice fishing, but after that, please
be safe.
That was Terrible at Fishing, the radio show.
With fishing expert Michael Rafino.
Check out Terrible at Fishing on YouTube.
And tune in next week for the next episode and more great fishing tips.
Terrible at Fishing, Fridays at 7pm on Gold Country Radio.