Ahha...

A quick note to Angela.

She's our niece and I invited her to post to the blog whenever she feels the urge. She and her family are living in Colorado (as you can probably see from her post). When she was just a little tyke she couldn't say her name... she'd call herself "Ahha" so I've called her "Ahha" ever since hearing her say it way back when.

Angela, thanks for the post! As mentioned in my comments to your post I'm tickled to death you're able to.

Come on back and keep posting whenever you feel like posting.

Now if we can only get grandpa to start posting here.

Later Kiddo!

The boat...

...it works. It finds fish!

This one here's not the biggest fish in the lake. Not nearly the biggest fish Andrew hooked that day but it was the one that we took home. It was his first fish and it swallowed the bait and hook so it wasn't going to survive.

It ended up being just a smidgen over 10 inches long. A nice little rainbow that put up a pretty good fight. I got the crap beat out of me while he pulled the tip of the pole up. It was pretty funny to watch, I'd imagine.

Jackie got a huge kick out of it. Andrew would lower the tip of the pole and then crank on the reel. I'd tell him to get the tip up and keep reeling. He'd whip the tip up... not once, not twice but five or six times in a row... beating me up with it as I stood behind him "helping" him land the fish.

What a day.

A bit later we moved to another area of the lake and got into a jackpot of trout. I couldn't get the worms on the hooks fast enough. One time in particular I'd baited my hook, left it dangle over the side while I baited Andrew's. A fish came to the surface and took my hook right next to the boat.

I cast Andrew's line out for him, grabbed my pole and released the 8 incher that happened to take the hook. I no sooner got the fish released when Andrew's pole bent hard. He had a NICE fish on this time.

Remembering the beating I took before I just sat down behind him and told him to keep the tip of the pole up and keep reeling the fish towards the boat. He was doing great at first. The fish rolled once... a nice fish! When Andrew saw the size of it he got real excited and kind of forgot about that "keep the tip of the pole up" thing I'd been reminding him about. Oh yeah, he forgot about cranking the reel too... a critical part of landing a fish.

No problem though, he was playing a very good fish and was enjoying the heck out of it... in his own way.

We watched him and offered advice. Finally, the fish rolled again and the hook popped out about ten feet from the boat. Either way, Andrew was ecstatic! You'd thought he'd battled Moby Dick! It was a large fish, much larger than the 10+ incher we had on the stringer but then again, you're going to have to take our words for it, eh?

About an hour later the weather took a turn for the worse. The clouds began to build, the wind kicked it up a couple of notches and the rain began to fall.

I fired up the motor and headed back to the launch... in all it was a great day!

Yah fun, impromptu, relaxing, humorous... a great day.

As a side note, I've been focusing some energies on another blog and haven't paid much attention to this one lately. The other blog is complete so now I'm back. Thanks for the emails. Everything's okay here... I was just a bit pre-occupied.

Hi from Colorado!

Hi, I was finally able to get on here! Yeah! Thank you Uncle Dennis for staying with it, and not giving up! We here in sunny Colorado are all doing well.

Katie will be a freshman next year! Wow how fast they grow up. This is her and a couple of her friends in front of our house going to her 8th grade dance a few weeks ago.

Andy is living on his own with 2 other friends, and is of course loving it. It took awhile, but he is starting to appreciate at least some of the little things Mom and Dad did for him, like feed him and buy milk!

I realize it's not fun getting old, and why some old fogies are just that- old fogies. I have arthritis in my hands, and my body is just well... lets just say, it's feeling it's age. I also have daily epiphanies, that cause me to know why adults said things, like: "Oh well, your still young" when I was in my 20s and 30s. Funny how your kids getting older ages and enlightens you.

We do have a new addition to our family. We have adopted a little black dachshund that somebody had used as a baby factory before she was a year old, and literally threw away. When she was found, she was very, very sick. She was nursed back to health by a vet who could not keep her. A friend told us about her, and she is now a happy, safe secure little girl. She is 2 1/2 years old, and very sweet. She gets along with everybody. We have named her Peeko.

I hope all is well with everybody back "home". I will try to post more on here now that I can get on!

We love you all!
Angelina

From one boat...

...to another.

We sold our 20 foot Bayliner Capri (cuddy) and bought a 15 foot Livingston.

We just weren't using the Bayliner as much as we'd hoped. It wasn't really fishing friendly given the cuddy cabin, sloped windshield and low cockpit canvas so we sold it.

It took a day and a half to sell on Craig's List. We bought the Livingston from a guy who posted it on Craig's List too.

The guy who bought our Bayliner got a good deal and we got a good deal with the Livingston. There's no doubt we're going to get far more fishing action out of the Livingston than we did with the Bayliner.

It's easier for people to get in and out of, easier to launch and retrailer, can be fished out of from all sides, has canvas so we can get out of the weather if we want, has a nice 35 hp Tohatsu outboard, can be launched in smaller lakes and can be towed just about anywhere.

Yup, we're going to have a lot more fun with this boat.

The nephew, wife, son, Dad, daughter in law, grandkids, daughter... friends and family... we're all going to use it! We're all going to be having fun!

The last time we took the Bayliner out we went to Black Lake, west of Olympia, WA. and ran around on the lake for a couple of hours just blowing out the winter blues. It was a bit windy when we came to shore to trailer the boat. We had a heckuva time fighting the wind and getting it on the trailer straight. Eventually, my son and I got it on the trailer but we got pretty wet doing it. So I decided then that it's time to get one that we can launch and retrailer in the lakes with relatively little effort and also get one that we could get in and out of at the lakes without having to porpoise our way through a windshield and under handrails.

Hence the dual hulled, stable as all get out, catamaran style Livingston. One of the best fishing platforms made.

I have some things to do to it yet. You know, install pole holders, a fish finder, seats, steering console, throttle and shift levers, etc. But that's part of the fun of having a boat... setting it up the way you want it set up.

The guy who sold us the boat is one helluva nice guy... his whole family is. They live in Bremerton, WA, about 60 miles north of Olympia and he builds boats for a living. Big boats. Boats for the Coast Guard and tenders for the Navy. So he knows something about boats. When we went to look at it and then to pick it up we felt like we'd known their family for years after we left. They're just genuinely nice people. The trip and visit alone was worth it.

He got the Livingston a couple of years ago and was restoring it. He'd also pull his kids around on innertubes on the lakes in the area and in Puget Sound.

The Livingston spent it's first 11 years as a lifeboat on a commercial ferry so we're guessing it probably didn't touch the water more than a couple of hours while in the ferry service. At least, I don't recall any ferries sinking in Puget Sound or anything that happened to the ferries that necessitated launching the lifeboats in the past 20 years, let alone 50 years.

After he got the boat he cleaned it up, painted the stripe on the sides and painted the inside with top of the line marine paint. He installed grip rails, installed the three quarter canvas that he had from another Livingston he owned, threw in two brand new padded swivel seats, a center stearing console and cables, trailer bumper guides and a ton of other goodies when we bought it. He told me he wasn't all that familiar with the "Tohatsu" brand motor but said he got a good deal on it so he bought it after he got the boat. It ran great when I picked it up.

So, how could we refuse. Besides, we bought it for far less than what we sold the Bayliner for and the extra money helped us out with some of our other little bills.

As soon as I get some free time we're going to go fishing! I'll grab Dad, Andrew and anyone else who wants to go and we'll go drown some worms.

Later!

A quick note...

...to let you know I'm pretty busy lately and haven't been able to post as frequently as I prefer to.

I've been travelling all over the state getting ready for the "season" and am busy closing out certain winter and spring projects. I've also decided to start a new blog elsewhere and have been working on that off and on.

I'm not closing out this one, just building another one for fun and games.

Enjoy the summer, it's not here yet but it sure feels like it is.