Putting Grampa to work!

 

I started a new project about 2 weeks ago and Grampa helped me complete it.  This is a picture of him and my new table saw.  Some of the lumber was too long for me to handle and Grampa kept it propped up so I could feed the lumber through the saw.  He was VERY helpful!   I love my new DeWalt saw and it will be added to my list of products that I endorse......for whatever that's worth.

This used to be an opening to our back deck.  It looks like a door opening because that's what it was.  At this point I had already framed in the opening and added plywood sides and back panels.  This part of the project was extremely frustrating because my framing job was less than perfect, causing everything else to be less than perfect.  Theresa was VERY NERVOUS.

This shows the first coat of white primer on the plywood.  I had to use drywall mud to smooth out the outside edges of the door frame where I removed the door moulding.  It's always a dusty mess when I mud a wall and then sand it smooth.  I like playing with the mud but I hate the dust!

In this photo we have added a coat of the finish paint and we are fitting  the opening with mounting brackets and shelves. Grampa helped a lot with the painting and cutting of shelves.

 

Here is the finished unit.  We just wraped it up tonight!  We filled it with a few frames and other things just to get a feel for how it will look. I'm sure Theresa will add some Christmas decorations to dress it up.  Grampa and I added moulding to the floor, trimmed out the shelving unit and put a final coat of paint on everything. 

Fist bump!!  Put a fork in this project and call it DONE!!

Thanks Grampa for all of your help.  There's no shortage of new projects on the horizon!

Stripers on Lake Murray

 A nice striper from Lake Murray!  They are very agressive in the fall.  They attack top water baits!

 These two were in the cooler!  Stripers are good to eat if cleaned properly.  I release most of the fish that I catch but felt like I needed some fresh striper for the next fish fry.

 

 He's not as happy as I am.  Although that is my favorite hat and it blew off the other day.  LOST!

 This is the largest one that I caught this fall.  These guys put up a great fight and they are really fun on light tackle as shown in the picture.

 

 Here's another one.  Just showing the length by placing next to my combo.  It's hard to take interesting pictures when you're by yourself.

 In contrast, this is one of the smallest fish from the weekend.  Notice the puzzled look on my face?  Wasn't sure if I was getting both of us in the picture or not.

 

 Setting sun on Lake Murray.

 

 A different night but another beautiful sunset.

And finally, a full moon that came up just and the sunset above was fading away.  Hope you all have enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed catching the fish.

Perfect Fall Fishing on the Broad River

 

Today, September 30th was an excellent fishing day on the Broad River.  I am adding this post mostly so I can document the day and hopefully reproduce the experience in years to come.

We had a full moon last night.  The sky was mostly cloudy with just a slight breeze in the air.  Temps were projected to be in the low 70's for the high.  The water was flowing, but not as fast as I usually experience.  We haven't had much rain over the past couple weeks.  Temps have been generally cool for September compared to normal. 

 This was the second fish of the day.  Caught this one just as I rounded the big island and hit the first set of rapids.  Cought him in the middle of the river, working a top water lure with the current.

 Same fish front view.  This thing attacked my lure fairly close to the kayak.  I thought I was going to lose him in the swift current.  Next time I need to load up with heavier line, just in case.

 Another great view from the front.  Smallmouth bass are as mean as they look!  They were hungry!

 Third fish of the day.  This one also hit a top water lure.  Caught on the top side of the rapids.

 I was fired up.  I have never caught two smallmouth bass this size on the same day. 

 Pulled up to this rock where I normally have a snack and a drink.  I call it "J" rock because it's shaped like a J.  Makes sense doesn't it?

 In total I caught 8 smallmouth bass and about 7 largemouth bass.  Almost all of them were good sized.  It was the best day I ever had fishing for bass.  

 

 Then I started throwing a jerk-bait near and behind fallen timber on the sides of the river.  I landed several large mouth bass.  This was the largest one for sure.  Notice the size of the mouth on this thing?  It's a pretty long fish compared to my shoe but also notice the width.  A nice fat bass!

 This is the slope that I had to pull my boat up to pack up and go home.  It's hard to tell from the picture but it's pretty steep.  Hopefully I have a few more years of being able to do this.  I need to keep working out.........or get wheels for my yak.

 Same largemouth as the previous picture.  Again notice how nice and fat, the white belly and the large mouth compared to the fish in the first picture. I almost lost this fish to an underwater stump.

 Another smallmouth bass.  I love the dark greenish brown color on these fish.

 

Last shot of the yak at J Rock.  I fished from noon until about 5pm.  I never saw another person during the trip.  As far as I am concerned, I like it that way and I hope it stays that way!  This was by far one of the best fishing days of my life.  I probably landed about 15 fish.  But the size and quality of the fish were far better than I had ever caught on this river or any body of water.  All were let go.

Thank God for such a beautiful day and fishing experience! 

 

 

Fishing the Umpqua River in Oregon

 Earlier this week we fished a couple stretches of the Umpqua River in Elkton, Oregon.  We used fishing guides that have fished this river for years and knew how to put us in areas that increased our odds for success.  We stayed at the Big K Ranch in Elkton.  Great place!  Highly recommended!

 We fished for two days.  I caught about 50 fish the first day and about 70 the second day.  This was the biggest fish I caught during the trip.  It weighed somewhere between 2.5 to 3.0 pounds.  It was FUN!

 Another smallmouth bass.  We were using Berkley PowerBait and jigging slowly off the bottom.

Smaller fish on day 1.  Another smallmouth Bass.  They are great fighters!!

 

The morning fog on day 2.  Temps hit 70's during the day.  The water was still warm.

 We only saw a couple bald eagles on day 2. The Osprey were all over the river area.

 This is just to prove that I am an honest angler.  Some of the fish that I caught were shrimps!  I should have fed this little guy to the Osprey but I decided to let him go. 

 This is the boat that we floated in on day 2.  Sits high in the water and is easy to manuever.

This is typical of the scenery that we saw floating down the river.  Lots of Douglas Fir trees, maples, and others.  The wild blackberries were very tastey.

Day 2 smallmouth.  My thumb was torn up from lipping 100+ fish as in the picture above.

Well, that's about enough pictues of me and a fish.  Hope I didn't bore anyone too much.

Osprey in Oregon

This post is in honor of my Mother in Law that passed away this morning.  Theresa's mom, Wynnie, was a great lady that I had the honor of knowing and loving.  We had many great family times together and I for one, will miss the fun and laughter that we shared.  You're in a better place now Wynnie.  Fly with the birds!!

On a recent fishing trip to Elkton Oregon we had the opportunity to see a lot of Osprey in action.  I took a few pictures and luckily some of my fishing partners had better quality cameras than mine.  It's amazing what the camera catches that the human eye does not.  Some of the dives that you will see below happened so quickly that I couldn't see what REALLY happened.

I hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I enjoyed watching these skilled divers in person.  Feel free to copy any of these pictures if you like them.  I can also send you hi-resolution images if you want them.  Just send me a note if you're interested.
 

 This bird was hovering overhead while we were fishing the Umqua river that runs through Elkton Oregon.  The Osprey has about a 5 to 6 foot wingspan and weighs about 4lbs. Osprey live and thrive all over the world.





This bird just snatched a good small mouth bass for lunch.  Oh well, that's how the food chain works.

 

Here's another bird just coming out of the water with a fish.  Yes, I have to admit that we "fed" these birds fish.  They were watching us closely from the tree tops and when we threw back a wounded fish, they were ready to dive-bomb for lunch.



Same bird as above just as she hit the water.  Notice how she has her wings folded up and out of the water?  The Osprey is also known as a Seahawk.




From swimming to flying in a matter of seconds.



Diving deep to grab a fish.  What a beautiful bird!!



Same bird coming out of the water with a fish



And finally fully out of the water!   These birds are amazing!

Well, I hope you enjoyed these pictures as much as I have.  Nature never ceases to grab my attention and I always crave more.  In a few days I'll post some pictures from the fishing trip.  The fishing was almost as good as the "show" that mother nature put on.  I thank God for such a wonderful world! 

We'll miss you Wynn!!  

Bad Moon a Risin'

This is a pretty random post.  Usually I try to stick with one topic but I'm going to be all over the place on this one.  I hope you find something interesting in this mess.

As some of you know "Bad Moon a Risin" by CCR is one of my favorite songs to play on the guitar.  Well, here's the story behind the headline:

Last Saturday night we went out on the lake with some friends to see a sunset as well as a full moon. As expected, the sunset was a typical beautiful sunset on Lake Murray.  According to scientists, not me, we were also about to witness the brightest moon of the year......a Super Moon. 

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Well, super it was!  This picture (Thanks Leslie, I stole it from your facebook page) doesn't do the moon justice.  It was extremely bright and it lit up the lake.  After hanging out on the lake until about 9pm, and noticing lightning in the distance, It was time to drop our friends off at their docks.  As we were about to head for home, away from the coming storm we heard a stranded boater honking his horn.  We couldn't leave this boater and his family stranded in a lightning storm, so we tied his boat up to ours and began to haul him to a marina.  About halfway to the marina, all hell broke loose.  Lightning everywhere, wind and pouring rain. Important note: Pontoon boats don't go very fast and they really go slow when towing another boat. The temps dropped and we were getting REALLY cold.  Thank God for Jim, who actually knew the general area where we were going and for Leslie who had a GPS on her phone that helped us navigate in the dark. (the bright moon was long gone at this point). Luckily we got the stranded boaters to the marina and the story ended on a good note.

Speaking of our good friends Jim and Leslie.....here they are visiting with Nick about 10 days before he left for Afghanistan

Big sister, little brother, kinda. Wish Tina and Megan could have been here!

And of course, proud mamma!

Speaking of proud mamma, this is a picture from yesterday morning.  I got mad at Theresa and told her to swim home!  Just kidding! Theresa is training for a mini triathalon.  I am very proud of her efforts to run, bike and swim.  I will be the official photographer during the actual event.    ......future blog material, I'm sure!

This is another picture from yesterday morning.  The floor of the back deck needed a new coat of sealant.  The Olympic stain that I used before just wasn't doing the job.  I washed the deck the night before (moved the couch and chairs into the back yard....."you know you're a redneck if you have a couch in your back yard")

The steps on the left have one coat of the new stain.  The boards on the right are what the old stain looked like after 1 year. Faded, dry and cracking.   I will add Olympic stain to the list of products I don't endorse.

I took this picture about 20 minutes ago. The deck is now stained and sealed.  It came out a bit on the redish side, but the boards themselves have a red tint and the stain had a red tint.  So guess what.....the deck looks red!

Anyway, the South Carolina sun will have that red faded into pink in no time.

Here's another angle on the deck.  It's not so red from this viewpoint.  The white tape is across the entry to keep my wonderful black lab, HUNTER, from getting paw prints all over the freshly finished deck.  He's afraid of white flags and believe it or not, this little trick worked!  .....so far.

Well friends, that's it for now. 

As I mentioned on my last post, I will begin to share some political thoughts on this and future blogs.  For today, I'm about blogged out so I will keep it simple.  My new slogan is this; OMG! = Obama Must Go!

  Feel free to share that thought with anyone.  Please.