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Buying some more survival gear
This past weekend my wife and I made a trip to Bridge City Texas to visit with my parents. While we were in Bridge City, my wife and I spent the night at La Quinta Inn & Suites, which is where the old Sparkle Paradise used to be. The hotel is in a perfect location. Not only does it back up to a pond for your fishing enjoyment, but the twin bridges are viewable from the hotel for a picturesque nighttime scene.
My wife and I arrived at La Quinta, at which time I realized that I did not think about bringing anything to fish with. So off to wal-mart we went. I have been wanting to pick up an open face reel, so I bought a Shakespeare E-Z Cast Low Profile Baitcast Reel with 6 foot rod and a couple of lures. As luck would have it, I did not catch anything but a bunch of mosquito bites.
Saturday morning my wife and I got up, went by mom and dads house for a little bit, said out hellos and then went to Academy Sports and Outdoors in Port Arthur. At Academy I bought some circle hooks, some 60 pound nylon coated wire for making homemade leaders, some #4 circle hooks, 6 boxes 223 monarch ammo, 2 boxes 7.62×39 monarch ammo and a box of Remington 150 grain 308 for deer hunting.
After making a stop to buy some survival gear, my wife and I went to Tinsel Town in Beaumont for the 12:15 showing of Captain America. I thought the movie was pretty good. Maybe not an A+ movie, but not a C rating either. We sat through the credits to get a peak at the Avengers, all I have to say is “wow”.
Lets talk about multitools
Multitools are one of my favorite tools to keep around the house, bug out bag, gun cleaning kit and tackle box. The thing about multitools, they have a great service to weight ratio. They weigh almost nothing, but are cram-packed full of useful tools – knife, file, scissors, saw, screwdrivers,,,,, just all kinds of useful stuff. Another thing that I like about multitools, is that they come in a wide range of sizes and prices.
The wide range of prices, sizes and features is what makes multitools so cool. If you want to buy a cheap multitool for your gun cleaning kit, there is probably one out there for you, if you want a small multitool for your tackle box, there is one out that will probably fit your needs.
While I was looking through my multitool setup, I realized that I had them arranged in 3 levels – primary, secondary, and tertiary.
My primary multitool is a Gerber – I dont even remeber what model it is, its about 10 years old, has a knife, file, saw, scissors, and has a good pair of pliers built in. This this the tool that I bring on my hiking, camping and backpacking trips. When I need a multitool, this is the one that I usually go to.
Secondary multitool is one that I keep around, somewhere close at hand. Lets say that my gerber is in a backpack, this is the tool that I go to. Its some generic no real brand name multitool and probably cost less the $20. Regardless of the low cost, it still has some tools that can be handy when in a pinch.
Only 3 months until hunting season
Only 3 more months until rifle season starts – August, September and October. Rifle season in my part of Texas starts at sunrise on the first Saturday of November.
Hunting season is my favorite time of year. Not because I get to go out to the woods and shoot something, but because I get to be in nature without burning up with this Texas heat. The weather turns off cool, the deer start moving, the bugs slack up on their blood sucking. Being outside in December is much more enjoyable then being outside in July or August.
Another thing that I enjoy about hunting season is being outside with my kids. When we are walking to the deer stand, or even sitting in the stand, the wind will start blowing, the birds are flying around looking for something to eat. The sun starts to set, the sky turns beautiful colors, the leaves on the trees are a golden color and as the setting sun streaks through the clouds, its a beauty beyond description.
July 20 2011 workout
For the first time in a couple of months I did a workout. To be honest, I am ashamed that I have let myself get so out of shape. When I was in my late teens and all the way through my 20s, physical fitness was important to me. I never was bulked up, but…
On the topic of fishing
While playing around in youtube, I decided to put together a few playlist. One of the playlist is about fishing and here it is.
To advance to the next video in the play list, click the next button in the bottom left hand corner.
Fishing is something that I was raised around as far back as I can remember. when I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, I remember my mom and dad taking my brother and I fishing around the local ponds. When we moved to Bridge City, my dad bought a boat to take us out on Sabine Lake between Bridge City and Port Arthur.
Now that I am grown and have kids of my own, I have tried to keep that family tradition going by taking my kids fishing.
Phases of life
When I was in school, the teachers talked about the phases of life – such as birth, growth, decline and death. I only wish it were that simple. Over the past few years I have come to realize that there are lots of phases in life, and a lot of them revolve around family. The…
Obama shows how much he cares about freedom
If you really want to know how much president obama cares about freedom, just take a look at how the Dalai Lama has been treated by obama. Obama did not meet with the Dalai Lama until “after” obama made a trip to China. Obama did not meet with the Dalai Lama in the oval office.…
Weak points in survival plans
A couple of weeks ago a buddy of mine and his wife dropped by my house for a little while. As most conversations do, we turned towards the topic of survivalism, and trying to find weak points in a survival plan.
Lets say there is some kind of long term SHTF survival situation, a new disease breaks out, long term civil unrest, climate change; besides insurance (no insult intended towards my buddy), I think the weak points for just about everyone will be are medical needs, safe drinking water and food production.
Medicine – Lets take my wife for example, she developed high blood pressure, and has been on high blood pressure maintenance medicine for almost 20 years. Running out of medicine could have a negative impact on her long term health. Then there are the people on heart medicine, anti-depressants,,,,,, just a whole slough of meds.
Safe drinking water – life as we know it can not exist without safe drinking water, and that is all there is to it. Water borne infections can kill off communities with little or no advance warning. One of the number one killers in the world today is unsafe drinking water.
Now for a video about buying canned goods.
Food bag for a bug out bag
For years, and I mean for years I have kept a food bag in my bug out / camping bag. For the most part the food bag contains a single burner stove for a bug out bag, pot for cooking, eating utensils, lighter and matches for the stove and for building a camp fire, hand sanitizer,,,, and other odds and ends.
The purpose of a Bug Out Bag is if you and your family have to leave home in an emergency, the bag provides a few days of supplies for each person. Lets say there is a chemical leak near your house and your family has to evacuate. Everyone grabs their bag, and heads to a shelter or friends house.
My main bug out bag use to be a large ALICE pack. But a year ago I bought a large MOLLE pack with internal sleep system, which is currently my main bag. To add a little more room to the pack, 2 sustainment pouches were added.
Lets talk about this food bag in a little more detail.
The main bag is made of a brown cloth, has a drawstring at the top, when empty laying flat on a table, the bag measures 18 inches tall, 15 inches wide and has a 7X9 rectangle bottom. In a bag this size, someone should easily be able to carry at least 3 days worth of dehydrated food.
Stockpiling trotline supplies
Yesterday evening I started working on some trotlines to be put out Friday evening. The first thing that I realized was how much supplies its going to take to deploy 2 trotlines about 150 long.
The line being used for the main beam comes in spools 300 feet long, and has a tensile strength rating of 330 pounds. When you start running a line across a slew, 100 – 150 feet can go pretty quick. One trotline I saw awhile back must have been close to 200 feet long.
Lets talk about running the main beam line of a trotline. With the spools having 300 of line, your probably going to need 3, 4, 5 or even 6 spools of line for a SHTF stockpile. This of course depends on how many trotlines your going to be running. Some of the slews that I fish in are probably 75 – 100 feet wide. With 300 feet per spool, I would only be able to run 2 or 3 lines across a slew. If I was running a trotline across the main river, 300 feet would probably only get me 1 trip across the river.
About every 6 – 8 feet on the main beam I tied a loop knot. In the loop knot I put a barrel swivel. The first 8 – 10 feet of line is for tying around a tree. From the first loop knot to the end of the line, I probably put about a dozen swivels on the trot line. To put this into perspective, for each 300 foot spool of main line, your going to need about 2 dozen heavy duty swivels.
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