~ after all, what is a chapter (?) and I think we are one... without a chat thread?

Fittingly, I launch this thread on New Years Eve of 2014. It is a day of looking back - and looking forward. One of the memories I will never forget was just after a bunch of us got sworn in at the MEPS center in downtown San Diego.

They couldn't get us all booked on planes to take us to our various boot camps, so they put us all up in the Grosvenor Inn for the night after we had all taken the oath of enlistment, and there we were rolling down the roads through town in my old familiar San Diego in this big hotel shuttle van when I suddenly realised what song it was on the radio that was being played - it was THIS ONE:


In the middle of all the babble that was going on, I hollered out "HOLY CRAP! LISTEN TO THIS..." and the whole van got quiet just in time to hear:

"MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I DONE???"



Everyone in the shuttle busted up laughing.


Here are the two main walls in my living room today, it seems I need to take down one of my old white hats, bleach it, and put it in the wash. I apologize about that. Opposite it is a display of the tools of one of my oldest and most enjoyable pastimes. Soon I hope to get back to that, but my mission for the next several weeks involves a lot of efforts that will occupy my time and pay until my home is safe from falling trees. It will happen, I will make my "BASE" secure.




To all of you, present and past service, on this day I SALUTE YOU!

May all our dreams come true, may our futures be secure, may the coming year be marked with outstanding progress in all of our efforts and concerns.

And may no one DARE to say we did not do our share!


BZ

~Wolfie

 

Went to boot at RTC/NTC San Diego, Dutch. I don't remember what year they closed it up. My daughter went to Great Lakes.


OK, here is a part of my "past time" on a trip to Diamond Lake last year when the kids and grandkids were home on leave.......There were 5 more poles in the boat.

 

A boat is something I have wanted for a long time, and you will maybe laugh about this - but in my mind I see a thing like the "BONKA BOATS" from the Phillipine Islands. A canoe hull, with outriggers and a motorcycle engine.

I have though over the years about all of the places I have been where catching fish is a necessary way to gather food, and the Phillipino boats are an adaptation of both old and new technology. Light, small, stable, and excellent fishing platforms. They can go almost anywhere, and are very fuel efficient.

Something like a hobie cat, but with an engine instead of a sail.

I wonder if they could be made in the USA by a progressive company with an eye towards adaptive methods such as foam filled fiberglass hulls and pontoons, and shaft drive electric start engines like the ones used in four wheelers and modern motorbikes.

I see a lot of batteries in the picture - I was also thinking about solar cells to charge batteries back up on a catamaran or pontoon boat, with an electric primary drive system.

If you think about it - power could be harvested while sitting out catching fish. The sun itself could replace gasoline (petrol) as the means to motor around a lake. Most pontoon boats have a roof that could be used to mount the solar cells

 

Don't know about the Bonka Boats Dutch. It seems like every country had their version of that or something similar. Kind of like the Jeepneys. If they were here, they'd be called something else.

 

I'll prolly wind up with a wore out john boat, and a set of paddles.

But I live about two miles away from Glenn Springs Lake in TN, so it is maddening to only fish from the shore...

I really want a grumman canoe as a starter boat.


The water whispers under the hull
Droplets trinkle from the paddle
Smoothly gliding along the shore
Watching for anything under the glass clean surface

An overhanging tree -
Bass for sure beneath
Out in the deep end - bound to be cats
The wind sets ripples across the lake

A deer suddenly crashes through the woods
The bank is close enough to see tracks in the mud
Turtles hover in the shallows
Broken trees show in the water

A hunter of Bass - moving slowly
Looking for that perfect place
As in the old tymes looking at everything
And at what the fish might eat

The CRAFT of fishing
Fooling fishes
Looking for where they might be
And offering to them what they eat...

But the quiet is the thing
A hoot owl sounds, far away
Shadows off the trees in the morning
The sun is still not up today

Alone in the morning - water lapping
Drifting, seeking, in harmony
Adventuring in natures world
That is where I long to be


Yeah... That's a dream I mean to have come true

 

Just one small piece of advice - I had a Grumman aluminum canoe. I'd advise to stay away from aluminum. It is the noisiest darn thing you'll ever use. Got rid of mine and bought a fiberglass; best move I ever made; quiet, warmer and same weight.

 

Here you go............





Now if that seems to be just a little too fancy for you, here's an alternative:

 

I have an eleven foot sevylor I used to go fishing with in Norfolk, but if the blonde comes with it - I'll have that...


***snikkkerrrezzz****


But ONE FISH HOOK HOLE , and you got a problem...

*I kept a ziplock bag with a roll of duct tape in the boat at all times


She looks like she tastes like light brown sugar...

I better be careful so this thread doesn't get locked.

 

We had a small rubber raft we used to pack in on horses when we still did that sort of thing. On one trip into the High Cascades, we blew the raft up and paddled out into the lake that still had some ice on one end and patches of snow around it. I noticed that the raft was getting a little soft. In checking out the situation, I noticed bubbles coming up from under the raft. My wife, standing on shore, was laughing her a^s off when we hit the shore line. She said she had never seen paddles moving so fast nor had she seen a raft "up on plane" before!


I have been toying with the idea of getting one of the Sevylor "Hunters" series or a similar inflatable. We have a creek that runs through the family farm/homestead and I think something like that would be ideal. Canoe would work too I suppose, but the Sevylor would be cheaper and much more portable.

 

I was thinking about "Option 3" -

The TUBE FLOATS that seem to be taking the fishing world by storm:



There seem to be all kinds of them, and on a hot day I think they would be a blast to cruise around a lake in, seated half in the water.
One that I saw a few minutes ago online even had a trolling motor on the back of it.

 

Those are rather popular with quite a few people. Especially the yuppie and "1" car single folks. Kayaks are quite popular around here too.


There are a group of fly fisherman (retired folks) that travel the High Cascade Lakes all summer long that uses those float tubes. Several of them have electric trolling motors and tow the ones that don't.


I felt sorry for an older fellow on a float tube and towed him a couple of miles back to a boat ramp where he parked his car last year. He pushed too far. Battery for his trolling motor was used up, a breeze came up and he couldn't beat the wind drift with paddles. He was headed for the wrong end of the lake, so we helped him out.


Another popular one around here is similar to an inner tube with attached "waders". Diving fins are worn and 2 leg power propels them. No place for an electric motor set up.

My observations have been that they were rather neat for a one person operation, BUT are very susceptible to the slightest breeze.

 

When I reconned Glenn Springs Lake, one of the downers was that they don't have a trail or a park road around the perimeter. I still haven't found the road that goes around to some houses and farm fields on the far side of the place either, but I often see people on four wheeler bikes zipping across the dam.

The thought here is that if the wind blew me all the way to the dam, a portable like that could be folded up, stuffed in a pack, and I could hike out.

I have known people who built their own boats, and Hobie Cats before, with glass over wood. It isn't much different from building an old fashioned model plane, just bigger.

Pontoons can be made starting with a frame, then planked over with thin veneer, and finally glassed with fiberglass or polyurethane resin. Poly resin would actually be kind of trick - because it's clear, but there are lots of different colors of dye that can be mixed in. I could actually mold a clear panel in the bottom for looking down into the water (if it's not muddy) or to set a spotlight or lantern on top of to attract fish at night.

Glenn Springs closes at local sundown, but there are other lakes and places I'll eventually look at.

I wish I didn't have so much on my plate at the moment, it's a thing I have always wanted to launch as a project. Whatever I eventually put together, I think I want it to fit in the bed of a pickup truck so that trailering is not needed. The Suzuki machine I'm pulling together is not capable though, so I thought about a light hitch suitable for a utility trailer behind it.

In fishing, like hotrodding, it seems like there is always some way to do something!

 

So if you guys disappear for a few days, are we to assume you went fishing?

 

Well......it's duck hunting season here right now, but that doesn't mean I would not pass up a mallard for a good steelhead or Chinook!

 

In my case, it prolly means I wore myself out chopping up trees, and fell into my rack totally insensible...



Two days later...



~ Trees hate me, but I hate 'em back so we're even!

The only thing slowing the process down is rainfall, you should see the mess out in the back lot...