B
bahiatrader
Guest
I wonder if I’m becoming addicted to the TV. My first memories of fishing are from my dad carrying me on his shoulders in a clear mountain stream while I caught Eastern Brook trout on a Heddon Umpqua Chief split bamboo fly rod. We had a stream running through our property where I caught native cut-throat trout up to 13” long. It was a tributary to a small river where I caught sea run cut-throats up to 22” in length.
I started fishing the Pacific Ocean when I was 11. When I was 17 I bought a heavy old 14’ plywood boat with a 7 ½ hp. Evinrude motor that must have weighed 100 lb. I often had that old swamp hog of a boat out on the Pacific fishing for salmon and bottom fish when small craft warnings were up. I was once escorted back across the bar by a Coast Guard cutter. They told me off of a loudspeaker that if they caught me out there again I would pay the fuel costs to escort me back. They never caught me again.I’ve fished everywhere I lived and many places where I didn’t. I fished the Atlantic from Maine to Florida, The Potomac river, and a few streams and ponds in Virginia when I was stationed at Quantico, VA with the USMC. I fished the South China Sea when the USMC had me in Southeast Asia during the 60s. In the late 1960s my wife and I toured the Western US with a travel trailer for a year and ½ . I fished for everything I could wherever we went. Sometimes I caught fish. Sometimes I got skunked, but I always had fun. Preferentially I’m a floy angler. My dad was a fly rod snob and considered fly angling to be the only “artful” way to catch fish. I’m a little more practical. I tend to lean towards light tackle, but I’ll use anything that works.
In the late 80s my wife Tammy and I semi-retired to Laughlin, NV on the Colorado River where we had the river and a couple of large lakes, Lake Mohave and Lake Havasu to fish. The Sea of Cortez was a natural for me since it was within driving distance. After hiring a guide or charter the first time out, I fished El Mar de Cortez with my own boat every time I could. I kept a travel trailer at Rocky Point, got weekly rates from a hotel in San Carlos, and just camped at Kino Bay. One summer I stayed on the Sea of Cortez for a month and a half without coming home. I came home for a week, Tammy and I went back to fish for another week. Fishing The Sea of Cortez has been the high point in my life for a number of years.
Lately I’ve been something of an semi-invalid. I’m ultimately that way from catching tick fever while on a fishing trip. I don’t walk much anymore except out to my electric scooter to take the dog for his morning run, from our living room where the computer is to the bedroom where we have the TV. Once in a while I’ll walk about 50 yd. to a shade tree when I’m training the dog. I go to the Jacuzzi and pol a few times a week for a massage and leg exercises. Most of my day is spent in front of the computer or TV. It’s a real bummer!
I have five email accounts and I monitor a couple of forums daily and spend most of my time playing live poker. I even get tired of that once in a while, so I watch some TV. I’m not much of a TV guy, but I recently found a network on our satellite TV that allows me to do all of the vicarious fishing I want. It’s called the World Fishing Network. (WFN) Our DVR allows me to record two programs while watching another. I have it set to record all of the programs on WFN I want, like Saltwater Fishing and Big Water Fishing. WFN has all of the different kinds of fishing I’ve done and some I haven’t. I have enough of them stacked up already I can do all of the vicarious fishing I want.
When we lived in Central Oregon I had three vocations or avocations. During the summer I was a General contractor doing residential and commercial work. Because our winters were sometimes bitterly cold I’d lay the crew off in September. They’d mostly collect unemployment until we started up again in the Spring. I was also half owner of an outfitter guide service, so I hunted big game and predators in the fall. Some of my clients had fishing charters, so I reciprocated. Some of the Pacific Halibut I caught were as wide as a door. In the winter I trapped Bobcat, Lynx and coyotes. Bobcat and lynx are easy to catch, but you’ve got to be pretty tricky to get a coyote to step on a trap. I also found a program called North American Trapper. I have the DVR set to record all of those.
This brings us to the main reason for putting all of this diatribe on this forum. I have a bunch of ocean fishing gear I’d like to give someone who will use it. Nobody around here deep sea fishes, so it would be hard to get rid of in a yard or garage sale. I may get to go to the ocean one more time, but that is in question. If someone who would use it would like to drive to Laughlin, I’d like to give it all away, keeping a couple of rods for “just in case”. There’s a lot of it too. Attached is a pic of one bunch of rods and reels I took to The sea of Cortez for a two week fishing trip. I’ve got a lot more including tackle boxes with lures, weights and hooks. It’s yours for the taking. The heaviest I think is a medium size Penn with about 300 yd. of 160 lb. braid line. Most of my line is yellow Power Pro. Sorry, I couldn’t get the pic attached.it’s all quality stuff though
