The Fishing and Boating Category
Firearm for a river camping trip
A buddy of mine and I are planning a 100+ mile 3 – 4 day river camping trip. On this trip we will be going into some pretty remote areas. After we put our boats in the river, there are no boat launches for probably 50+ miles. The location is East Texas on the Sabine river.
I would like to bring either a rifle or shotgun for personal protection. Black bears are known to be in the area where we are going, as well as everything from coyotes to wild hogs.
I am more concerned about running into a rabid raccoon, then having problems with a black bear, but you never know.
The options are:
River trip part 4
This update was supposed to be in 2 parts. The first part was supposed to be doing some maintenance to the boat, such as fixing some broken rivets. The second part was supposed to be taking the boat out on the river to make sure is running ok, and to to use a GPS to see how fast the boat can travel down the river.
Well, the boat never made it to the river.
The front of the boat has a deck that is held in place with rivets. Over the years of walking on the deck the rivets have slowly pulled lose or broken.
Replacing the rivets
Use a drill bit the size of the rivet, drill through the middle of the rivet, the head should come loose.
Use a punch or drift pen to drive out the middle of the rivet.
If the rivet does not want to drive out, use the drill to drill it out.
Insert new rivet into the hole.
Use a rivet gun to secure the rivet.
River trip part 3
When planning a trip like a 100+ mile river / camping trip, its important to test your gear. Part of the testing phase is making sure your boat is in good running order. The purpose of todays trip was to test the boat to make sure it was in good running order.
A few weeks ago I put the boat in for repairs. During a recent camping trip a bolt fell out of the gear shifting lever, the water pump impeller has never been changed, and the spark plugs were looking a little old, the oil in the lower unit had never been changed and there was a short in the starter button.
Trip to the shop
I brought the boat to a local boat repair place. the service guy was told what I wanted, I even had him go out to the boat and take a look at something I wanted fixed.
River trip part 2
For those of you that have not read River Trip Part 1, please do so. After talking to my buddy about the boat launches I went and looked at on my first trip, he sent me an email with what was supposed to be a boat launch just south of the dam on Toledo Bend dam.
The plan for Sunday was for my wife and I to make a trip to Toledo Bend dam. There are two roads on each side of the river on the south side of the dam where the Sabine river starts. The goal is to see if there a feasible boat launch.
What I found on the trip on each side of the river were steep banks, and no real boat launch. There is a place where a pipeline crosses the river. On the Texas side of the river, it looks like bags of cement were placed on the bank to stop erosion. The bank is so steep that it would be dangerous to carry a boat and boat down the bank.
Comparing the banks at the Toledo Bend dam to the other boat launches:
From my house, its plus or minus a few miles, its 50 miles from my house to the dam at Toledo Bend
The banks dam are very, very steep. I would consider the banks so steep that it would be unsafe to a boat and motor down the bank.
River Trip Part 1
For around 14 years or so, a couple of my buddies and I have been talking about making a river trip from the northern part of the Sabine river, all the way to the Orange / Bridge city area. If everything goes according to plan, we will be making the trip sometime in 2012. The trip is currently in the planning phase – we talking about what boats we want to bring, where we are going to launch the boats at, who is going to be going on the trip,,, just stuff like that.
There are two boat launches in the Bon Wier Texas / Merryville Louisiana area that we are looking at using. On Sunday January 15, 2012 my wife and I made a trip to the boat launches to see if it was feasible to launch at either one.
Sunday morning started off bright and when my wife and I crawled out of bed around 8:45am. After getting our shower and having some breakfast, it was finally time to get one the road. We stopped at a local corner store to picked up some snacks, bought a sunday paper for the coupons, then it was to wal-mart to get some gas. If you use the wal-mart gift card, you save 3 cents a gallon on gasoline. A few days before hand, my wife put $40 on a gift card. When we stopped at the super wal-mart in Jasper I put the whole $40 in my truck.
After gassing up, and getting some snacks, it was finally time to get on the road. My wife and I left Jasper heading west on HWY 190 towards Newton. At Newton, we passed over HWY 87, then turned south on HWY 190.
3 day fishing camping trip
During a long term SHTF / teotwawki survival situation, fishing will be an important way to gather food. One of the goals of this fishing / camping trip is to practice our SHTF / teotwawki fishing skills. another goal of this trip is to make observations about issues that people might run into.
There are a lot of people out there who plan on bugging out to the wilderness after the food and water run out at their home. Part of the SHTF survival plans are along the lines of “when we run out of food, we will have to go to the food”. This usually includes grabbing the bug out bag and bug out to a wilderness location where they survival can hunt, fish and gather wild foods.
One issue, the person rarely gets past the planning phase. In order to have a balanced SHTF / teotwawki survival plan, people should also test those plans. The only way to test the plans is to get away from the computer and do something. Being an armchair survivalist is not enough. Make your plans, test your plans, analyze the results from the test, make improvements on those observations.
Sunday, December 25th (Christmas), for Christmas I bought two of my sons a Coleman sleeping bag each, a sleeping pad, and a fleece sleeping bag. They needed a sleeping bag for our upcoming camping trip, so why not give them a sleeping bag for Christmas.
Monday, December 26th was gear load out day. I spent just about all day going over my pack, going over the boat, making sure the lights on the boat worked, hooked the boat trailer to the truck, organizing my food bag,,, just getting everything ready to go.
For Christmas my mom and dad gave me an Optimus Terra Solo. My personal belief is that you test your gear before you take it on a trip. To test my new Terra Solo, I setup my single burner Coleman stove on the stove in my kitchen. Then I cooked myself a serving of noodles, just like I would on a camping trip.
The noodles I made for catfishing along with my tacklebox were rounded up.
All of the gear was put in the living room next to the front door so it could be loaded in the truck and boat the following morning.
Teotwawki fishing gear
The past 2 days have been spent working on my truck, and working on some jug lines for an upcoming camping trip. When I started thinking about how much time and effort I put into getting the juglines ready, I was a little set back.
After talking to my wife, I probably put 6 – 8 hours into redoing, and working on the juglines. The lines had not been used since June 2011. I changed the lines out, added some PVC pipe to the noodles and replaced the J-hooks with circle hooks. When I started cutting the PVC pipe, I was using a hacksaw. After cutting a few pipe, I dug the skilsaw out and started using the saw instead of the hacksaw.
For the sake of discussion lets say this happened after a SHTF / teotwawki event. I would have had to use a hacksaw to cut the PVC pipe. But then again, its doubtful I would have had any PVC laying around. To make the noodles for this weekend I used some 3/4 inch PVC I had in the shed.
Without PVC pipe I would have threaded the line through the middle of the noodle.
Related forum thread – Fishing With Juglines
How to make noodles to catch catfish
In this article we are going to be looking at making noodles to catch catfish. This type of rig may not be legal in all areas, so check the local laws before you do anything.
Buy some noodles from the local china-mart. The noodles might be seasonal, and should be found in the swimming pool supplies. So far I have only found the noodles in 2 colors – blue and pink.
Cut noodle into 8 inch lengths
Get some 3/4 inch PVC pipe, caps and some PVC glue
Cut PCV pipe into 9 1/2 – 9 3/4 inch long sections. 9 3/4 seems to work better then 9 1/2.
Glue cap on 1 end of pipe
Insert PVC pipe into noodle until cap comes into contact with noodle
Drill a 1/4 – 5/16 inch hole in the end of the pipe sticking out past the end of the PVC pipe
On the topic of fishing
If you are looking for peace and quiet, few things can compare to fishing. Casting a lure or bait out into the water, and letting it sit, is about as close to nature that one can get.
Last weekend my wife and I went to Dam B to do some fishing. As I was casting off the bank, and bass followed my lure up to the bank and grabbed it just before it was supposed to go out of the water. It was so peaceful and natural, as the bass swam up to the lure and grabbed it. I wonder how many times that has been replayed over the past thousands of years.
The bass was pulled up, the hook was removed and the bass was released no worse for the wear. Maybe it will be a little wiser from its experience, but then again, maybe not.
If there is one thing that I like about fishing (besides catching something), it has to be being close to nature. When the boat is launched, and I head out on the water, there is a certain peace and clam that is over the water.
The water is pure, it knows no violence, it knows no anger, greed, envy, jealously, or hatred. The water is a friend to everyone, as it treats everyone the same.
Stockpiling SHTF fishing gear
One of the things about keeping a stockpile of survival gear, is knowing what you have. After you know what you have, then you can make changes. You do not want to stockpile too much of one thing and not enough of another.
With tackle box and catfish bucket in hand, its time to take inventory of my fishing supplies.
1 tackle box
1 5 gallon bucket
2 spools 300 feet 330 pound tensile strength trotline string
1 spool 580 feet 235 pound tensile strength trotline string
1 package (8 qty) eagle claw lazer sharp 4/0 all purpose hooks
1 box ((25 qty) mustard circle hooks 11/0
1 spool 30 feet nylon coated wire 60 pound test
1 package (15 qty) zoom tiny brush hog watermelon red
1 package (12 qty) eagle claw 3/0 safety snaps with barrel swivel
1 package (12 qty) zoom baby brush hog green pumpkin pearl
1 package (8 qty) zoom brush hog plum-apple
1 package (5 qty) vicious 4 inch jerky shad
2 packages (20 qty) zoom u-tale pumpkin chartreuse
1 package (8 qty) zoom brush hog watermelon red
1 package (10 qty zoom 5 inch lizard june bug
1 package (9 qty) zoom monster 10 1/2 bullfrog
1 package (9 qty) zoom 6 inch lizard cotton candy chart.
1 package (12 qty) zoom baby brush hog pumpkin spice
1 package (qty unknown) culprit classic worm
3 bags various artificial worms
1 bag (8 qty) bobbers aka corks
1 tape measure – for measuring fish length
3 spinner baits
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