I forgot to mention

I got so into my fish stories I forgot the broken rod (thanks Kevin for the reminder)

The rod I built for this trip broke on the first fish. I didn't even get the hook completely set. I contacted Dancraft to get the manufacturer's contact info to get a replacement mid section but Dan said he had some spare parts and would send me one. That's good customer service.

Here is what happened. Micheal and I got to the river and started looking for fish. There were a pair of salmon side by side about 25ft downstream from me. The one on the right was just a bit forward of the other which made it nice since I am right handed. I pulled off some line and drifted to the fish. The fish took it. I moved my arm to set the hook and heard a crack like the sound made by stepping on a stick. I saw the top two sections of my rod fall to the water and my fish shake the hook off.

The rod really didn't take any stress. There wasn't even a fight with the fish. Of course, the first thought in my mind was ,"Michael's rod is built on the same blank". Needless to say I was fairly anxious while Michael fought his first few fish but his rod did just fine even when bent over on some tough fish in fast water.

Fortunately, I will only have to re wrap 3 guides on the midsection to get he rod back in shape. Dan said he didn't think I would have to do much if anything in the way if fitting on the ferrules to replace that midsection. That's good it will make the replacement easy.

More fish pics

More pics of Mark, Michael and me with Chinooks.


It seems to be the typical reaction of people to want o fish in the same hole as the guy catching fish. Sometimes you just can't find a stretch of crick that has fish and no people there trying to catch them. Saturday and Sunday were not too bad as you can tell by the pics. Monday however, was a different story. We only had half a day Monday to fish so we went to a section of river that ran through town so we had more fishing time and less driving time. Mark and I had settled in to a good hole of water (where I caught he steelhead actually) . It was a short section about knee deep, 40 ft long with a riffle at each end. Visibility was good and it held its fair share of fish. There was a line of fish about four to five deep across each riffle and there were several cruising around the deeper hole. Mark and I pulled about a half dozen fish out of there in about a half hours time. So here we are drifting our fly to the fish we called and PLOP PLOP we look up to see that the two guys who had been fishing just downstream from us had crossed the riffle and were now right across from us interrupting our drift with their flies.

We turn around and climb the bank and took a break. We took a little walk and circled around and got back in where they had originally been. There were quite a few fish there too. In typical Mark form he loudly ask me, " SOOO Ray, how many cast do you think it will take for me to hook one of these? What 3...4 ...maybe 5?" I kid you not, the first drift was perfect right to a 18-20lb Chinook's mouth. That fish started thrashing the water started splashing and one of the intruders upstream was so struck by the scene that he lost his footing and SPLASH butt first right in the water. It was absolutely classic. For sure one of the highlights of my trip.

Just as a thought.................. Youngsters are made to take Hunter safety courses before getting their hunting license. My daughter recently took the class to get her hunting license and its a good program. Not only do they teach safety but ethics and sportsmanship on top of it. I am the last one to want another law or rule on the books. But if people don't take some initiative to teach their kids to be respectful and courteous on the water it won't surprise me some day to see water safety and ethics classes being required before one can get a fishing license as well.

I am not at all opposed to sharing the water with people. As popular as sport fishing has become it is inevitable now days to run onto other fisherman on the water. Practice good sportsmanship, give your fellow fisherman some room and try to stay out of his casting lane to make it possible to successfully share a hole of water.

May you all have tight lines. We enjoyed several this past weekend.

Ray

Fish Pics

The boys and I took our annual pilgrimage north this past weekend to take advantage of the Lake Michigan salmon run. The water was a little higher, faster and murkier than it has been the past few years we were up there. We still caught several fish. Egg sucking leach patterns were the pick fly of the weekend for us. The favored colors were purple , black, and tan. I did catch a few on Saturday with a flo pink but that didn't last long.

I think we were still on the early end of it this year. There were very few dead ones along the banks and the fish were averaging a bit smaller than they have in the years we hit the run dead smack in its prime. Needless to say we had a lot of fun anyway. The nice thing about the timing is these fish were fresh out of the lake and full on fight.

The first pic is of my dad with a nice Chinook. Pic two is me with a nice fresh Chinook. I don't know what happened here in pic three. I guess the fish decided to flop when I took the hook out of his lip right at the time Michael snapped the camera. You couldn't have planned this pic if you tried. Pic four is Michael with a nice Chinook. The last pic here is Mark and me with a tag team. Mark with a Chinook and me with a nice Steelhead (that was fun). I had spotted a few other Steelhead this trip. However, by time I spotted them they were on to me and that was the end of it.

I was wanting to round out a grand slam this year but it did not happen. I got the Salmon and the steelhead but the big brown trout eluded me this year. To make it worse, just up stream from Micheal and me was a jerk who hooked a very nice Brown that would have gone several pounds. This was a 28"-30" fish with solid girth. The guy catches a fish to be prized and what does he do? With his chest puffed out with pride, he drags it up on the gravel bar, steps on it to take the hook out and to release it he kicks it back in the water. What a total PUTZ!!!!!!!!!!!

Mark was closer than the rest of us were so he took the fish and worked with it to get it revived and moving on its own again. We can only hope it lived but after the way it was treated the odds are against it. I considered walking down stream (with what vacation cash I had in my pocket) to talk to those burly Russian guys fishing with the surf poles and grappling hooks to see if I could get the guy treated the same as he treated the fish. Ya ...... beat half to death and tossed in the water. What can I say, a conscience can be quite inconvenient sometimes.

Hang on more to come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ol' Bessy got sick

Well Blue Bessy had a Bearingectomy over the past couple evenings. I am glad to report she is recovering nicely.

Mark and I decided to get on the stick and finish up our salmon rods for an upcoming fishing trip. Mark was turning his rod handle and the ol' girl started slowing down and heating up. I have suspected her bearings were going out for a while now. They finally gave out on Mark. Fortunately, my local Car Quest had the bearings and a puller to get the old ones out.

I had never used this type of puller before. I guess I should realize how lucky I was to grow up in Dad's shop and have REAL tools. The $20 puller worked but as you can see from the pic three hands and a couple monkeys are required to make it function properly.

Once we pulled the old bearings out we looked them over. Not really a lot of noticeable wear on the bearings but the cup races were visibly wore. I am sure the bearings were wore it was just hard to see. The old bearings had an installation date scribed on their backside 12/12/50. 58 years is a long time to ask out of any bearing. My dad said dating the installation was common on a lot of American Made machinery and in a lot of machine shops doing replacements. These obviously were the original bearings since that is about when the lathe would have been made.

The new bearings are in and the headstock is back together now. I am letting the silicone gasket sealer cure out overnight before refilling the oil reservoirs. Tomorrow evening I should get everything back up and running so we can get back on those rods.