Fishing Rhino

For real? The fishing season is now officially over. I admire your perseverance. As the last person to "leave the room", don't forget to turn out the lights. Wake me up when the winter is over. I'm leaving here in the middle of April for the warmer weather of Alabama and Tennessee, which means, "Pickwick Time". Happy New Year, and may next year bring even better fishing than last year.

Green Pumpkin with purple and gold flakes. Watermelon with black and red flakes had been my favorite color, and it still is for senkos. But for the rage tail products I prefer the green pumpkin with purple and gold flakes. I do keep a few packs of watermelon w/blk and red, but for the most part I stick to the green pumpkin with purple and gold flakes.

You may get away with that in Alabama, but not MA. When you get your inspection sticker they check the exhaust. No catalytic converter no sticker. Actually, it's worse than that. You do get an inspection sticker, one that says in bold graphics, "REJECTED". You have seven days to correct the problem, or you can lose your plates. Chips suck, plain and simple. Our daughter and son-in-law got a new 2000 Ford Super Duty Diesel. Being a good ol' boy from GA, your neighboring state, he had a superchip or some such thing installed. It worked fine for a couple of years, then it began dying on the road. When it did, they'd have to pull over to the side of the road, shut it off, and let it sit for a couple of hours. Then they could go on their way. Over time, the condition got worse. Finally, they had to have it towed to a Ford dealer. They popped the hood, checked the ECM and found the chip. Guess what? The chip voided the warranty and it cost them several hundred dollars to get the engine fixed. That was several years ago. The truck hasn't skipped a beat since. Those aftermarket chip makers are not smarter than the manufacturer. A manufacturer builds an engine to operate within certain limits. You can easily exceed those limits by adding superchargers, turbo chargers, blowers, and high performance chips. They can boost the horsepower by more than one hundred horsepower. The problem is that the engines are designed to handle X horsepower. Exceed that at your peril. Our son-in-law put a supercharger on his half ton pickup. He put his foot in it one time too many, and grenaded the engine. All those aftermarket add-ons don't care if you blow up an engine. It's not their problem. Auto makers have to guarantee their product, and they will not build an engine that has more power than the components are designed to handle.

No comment.

I've never replaced a catalytic converter on any of my trucks that had them. One I traded at 120,000 miles and the other at 135.000 miles. Neither offered you a discount? I'm assuming you went to a new car dealership. Otherwise the issue of a warranty would not have come up. Here's some interesting info. Converters do not wear out and should last forever. Or until they develop a rot hole. The only "functional" part of a converter is a ceramic open-ended honeycomb with a platinum-palladium coating. It functions by converting any bonded nitrogen and oxygen molecules that come into contact with the hot plstinum-palladium into nitrogen and oxygen seperated. The freed oxygen is then caught by the passing CO to creat CO2 and the passing unburned HC molecules to "combust" into CO2 and H2O (ideally). The only two modes of failure are coating of the ceramic with deposits from excessive oil consumption, which prevents the molecules from touching the platinum-palladium and stops the converter from performing, and physical destruction (crumbling) of the ceramic, which can block the flow of the exhaust. Crumbling of the ceramic is rare in today's converters. If you had crumbled honeycomb restricting your exhaust your performance dropp would be dramatic. So, if you're not burning excessive oil and the ceramic is not crumbled, the converter is everlasting. The sulpher smell is irrelevant. If it were me looking for the source of little less power and slightly lower gas mileage on an engine with that mileage I'd start with a compression check. If the compression were good I'd probably want to get a scope and look at the ignition traces to see that the amplitude and form were good. If those were good I'd look to fuel pressure and finally the injectors.

I forgot one other suggestion. Golfers' rain gloves. They aren't fingerless, but you can handle that with a pair of scissors, and you can trim only those you need to tie knots, thumb and forefinger. http://www.amazon.com/FootJoy-WinterSof-Golf-Gloves-Pair/dp/B00NLOOGDY/ref=pd_sim_200_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41ExMq5Qs2L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR160%2C160_&refRID=00P9VWQTGQ2VXRK6ENEC

Tackle Warehouse Elite tungsten shaky head is about as close to mushroom that I know of. Also Vike which is the same item, different brand. If there is a difference, I cannot see it. Just over a buck per each. Available in 3/16th and 1/4 ounce weights. 3/16th has a 4/0 hook, the 1/4 ounce has a 5/0 hook. The Vike comes in a two pack, and the Elite in a three pack if memory serves.

It was something a little birdie told me.

That shows that you are not as twisted as slonezp or I. Hang around for a while longer and you'll reach our level of corruption/contamination. It's inevitable, and incurable.

Just one boat? I would think there would be fleets of them. There used to be an old wood skiff on the Westport River which went by the moniker of "The Vaseline Queen".

Nice looking unit. May it provide you with years of trouble free service, and many happy memories.

Get a warm pair of gloves that just leaves the fingertips, and the first knuckle exposed. You want something that minimizes heat loss from your palm and the back of your hands. The summer sun gloves will not do when the weather turns cold. The warmer your hands, the warmer the exposed portions of your fingers will be. You might consider putting a pair of surgical type gloves under the heavy, warming gloves. That will keep your fingers dry, and will also allow you to tie knots. If you're not allergic to latex, that's what I'd use. They fit more snugly than the Nitrile or PVC gloves. If you smoke, give up smoking. It restricts blood circulation to the extremities. http://whyquit.com/whyquit/LinksJBlood.html

I've found that a really slow wacky worm will catch fish, and nice fish as well. The problem for me is that the bass, even up to five or six pounds amount to snagging a waterlogged boot, and dragging it to the boat. I also found that if I did not get a hit on the first three or four feet of the retrieve, the rest of the retrieve was pretty much useless. It seemed to me that the bait had to land on or near the fish's nose to get its attention, then, a very, very slow twitching retrieve would get hit, in the first three or four feet of the retrieve. After that, it was pretty much a waste of time. I just could not get excited over catching fish that had no fight, and when they tried to jump they had all they could do to get their nose out of the water. When you add in that should I swamp the canoe, I could be in serious trouble, I'm better off getting my chores done around the house, and leave the better weather days for fishing from April - October.

I'd be concerned about switching from bunks to rollers. The rollers make contact with only a small portion of the bottom, while bunks distribute the weight and the pressure over a much larger area. This makes it less likely that the hull will be distorted at the relatively small contact areas where the hull is supported by rollers.

Try gargling with an iodized warm salt water solution. Disclaimer, don't know if it's still available. The body needs iodine, and that's why they started putting it into salt. I think it's the thyroid that needs it. You can also try gargling with a plain warm salt water solution. It's also good for rinsing your mouth after having a tooth extraction, but you have to wait a bit so you don't flush the blood clot sealing the wound, and you have to swish it gently. You might find this article about iodine and the human body interesting. http://www.healthyreply.com/iodine-deficiency-symptoms-and-tips-for-getting-more-iodine-through-your-diet/

Realistically, you're not going to get a lot more for it now than you would with another 25K miles on it, assuming you continue to maintain it as you have in the past. Most of the original value is gone, and that went in the first couple of years. At some point, the law of diminishing returns takes over. You need tires. Then you need brakes. You need to replace the timing belt/chain whichever it has. You'll need ball joints, universal joints, seals and drive shafts (whatever they are called) in the front end. The problem isn't the maintenance to keep it up, it's the unexpected things that happen at the worst possible time, in the worst possible place that cause the most aggravation. The worst thing around here is the salt used on the roads to melt ice and snow. If you don't have a garage or car port, the sun and the elements take their toll. Maybe the best thing to do is to find out what the monthly payments would be with your truck as a trade in. Put that in a "truck club" (kinda like a Christmas Club at the bank) account each month, and pay for any repairs/maintenance out of that. It will give you an accurate account of which is the better economically. Do that for a year or two, or fifty thousand miles. Who knows? At the end of a couple of years you may have a substantial sum of cash to go with your trade in. If you have a vehicle excise tax, do not forget to factor that into your equation. Around here, the excise tax can be significant in the first two or three years. The older a vehicle, the lower the tax until you hit the bottom rung on the ladder. It never goes down after that. It's all based on the base sticker price of the car before options. I think the bottom line is ten percent of that number times the tax rate. The first year, it's ninety percent of the base price, times the tax rate, which can be over a thousand dollars. So, if you do have a diminishing excise vehicle tax, don't forget to put the savings of what a new truck would be into your Truck Club Account.

I believe in the Loch Ness Monster, and everything I see on the internet, with one exception. bigbill's avatar. I know some of us are gullible, but really? Come on now. If I thought that was real, I'd be hiding under my bed.

Sometimes? Heck, I was usually confused as a young guy. If only I could remember what being young felt like. What was I saying .................................uh, uh,

What does it look like when he pukes?

I'll bet if you look in one of his ears you can see daylight on the other side.

That's an 8-71 Detroit Diesel powering it.

I wonder if it would attract fish, or scare them away. It has a lot of different sounds and pulses.

It's hard to keep up with all the changes in the cell phone market. It appears the two year contracts will be a thing of the past. So will discounted phones or free upgrades that were available when you signed up for two years. I don't think you can buy a basic phone any more. It seems they are all smart phones. It depends on how much smarts you want your phone to have. Things are changing rapidly, and I had trouble sorting out the old system, let alone all the "deals" that are for a "limited time only". Sprint was running a bring your contract with another provider and they would sign you up for the same program at half price. Plus, they would pay any fees to terminate your existing contract. Then other providers made counter offers. Your best bet is to visit the various providers. There, you can ask them all sorts of questions, and decide what best fits your circumstance.

There is a resemblance.