Bit by a bug...a fishing bug

I got bitten by the kayak fishing bug, and am learning to like some things I figured I never would. After trying several times to fish from my "Artic", then having my pirogue blow the bottom laminations (see earlier post), I decided to get a Sit on Top. Of course, I looked for one that was as much like a sea kayak as possible - an "LPB" (Long Pointy Boat) as some of the skin boat folks call them.

I ended up with a used Wilderness Systems' Tarpon 160i. It's definitely long/pointy, but I was still afraid it would be like riding a cork, as my other experiences with SoTs were like that.

It isn't. It tracks very well, has pretty good speed, and once I get an appropriately longer paddle than my Werner Camano, will be da bomb for fishing.

It was already set up for fishing, even with some things I probably won't use, like fish finder mounts.

Here are a couple of pictures that were sent by the guy I got it from (he bought a Hobie Pedal drive boat).

I'll have to see if it becomes my 'go to' boat for just messing about - the "Artic" still fits that bill, since it's light, fast, and easy to unload.

Paddling spot - headwaters of Lake Blackshear

 My latest spot for a quick paddle is on the top end of Lake Blackshear, near Drayton, GA. It's not as "birdy" this time of year as I expect it is in the spring and early summer, but there are wading birds and ducks, plus tons of turtles. Here's a Google earth image.

Flint River south of the Hwy 27 Bridge

The arrow points to a launch called "Camper's Haven".  There's a little store + bar and grill there, and I believe the launch itself is owned by someone else.  You drop your $2 launch fee in the box and take off.  The concrete ramp is both steep enough and shallow enough to launch from there.

Notice the sloughs on both sides of the big S curve?  They are relatively deep, full of fish, turtles and birds. Just south of here is where the former state record alligator was taken, so I know there are big and small gators around.  Traffic on the river isn't bad, and I don't stay in the channel much.  The current's pretty slow too, so ferrying across is effortless.

I need to fish more here and see what I can turn up.  General map coordinates from Google: 32.044605,-83.963835.

My now deceased Pirogue - "Boueux"

In a post from February of 2011, I was trying to decide whether to build a pirogue to fish from or a kayak for longer touring.  By the end of August of 2012, I'd made up my mind and started a pirogue, to be named "Boueux", which means muddy in French and sounds kinda like "Boo".  Here's the one photo I remembered to take:

The plan was for a 14-1/2 foot long, 24 inch beam boat.

I got the main body glued up and to the point of glassing it when my mom had her stroke.  That put my weekends on hold, so the boat sat under plastic in the yard all winter and most of the spring.

This past summer, I started sanding and fairing.  The boat building instructor at the Apalachicola Maritime Museum convinced me that I didn't need to glass it, especially since I hadn't used marine ply.

I sanded and sealed, puttied and faired, and had her looking pretty good:



This photo is 'done', just before painting the gunwales and inside of the hull.  I'd finally gotten it dried in, fully painted, and was ready for a weekend trial when we had a couple of weeks of non-stop rain, then three days of unusually hot sun.

Well, the laminations in the plywood couldn't handle that.  They decided to blow out the bottom.

Guess I will paddle my kayaks after all.  Lesson learned:  If you're going to be a shade tree boat builder, get the wood soaked with epoxy or whatever finish as early as possible, OR...get a workshop.

I think I'll name my Tarpon 160i "Boueux Deux"

Pirogue or skin boat?

Still musing on whether to build a pirogue or a skin boat once the weather settles down enough to let me get outside and work.

Black 'yote

I drove up north of Ellaville, GA on US 19 late this evening, looking for the road to a friend's where I've been invited to come and hunt.

On the way back, just north of where GA 26 crosses, a black something crossed the divided highway in front of me and jumped the guardrail. I was pretty sure it was canine, but it looked odd, so I slammed on the brakes and crossed the road to see it.  I stood on the big 8x8 guardrail supports and looked, and as it got to the edge of the trees, it stopped and looked at me.  A pretty big, solid black coyote.  I've seen lots of very large coyotes in the south.  This one wasn't all that big, but was clearly a coyote and not a dog.  Thing is, it was solid black.  I've never seen one, other than in pictures (http://bit.ly/d8W5ug) has a few Georgia 'yote pics, especially some from the Georgia Outdoor News forums.

It only stared at me for a few seconds, then a car went by and it slipped into the treeline.  When it was out of sight, I howled at it, and got a bark in response.

I knew they existed (this article discusses them), but had never seen one.  As I was leaving the house, I was thinking I should have grabbed my camera, but I decided that my cell phone camera was enough.  It wasn't; all I got is blurry trees.  Yeah, I'm sure it's a 'yote, not a dog, even though there are black dogs on the property a half mile up the hill.  If you've seen - or more importantly heard - coyotes in the southeast, you know one when you see and hear it clearly.

Way cool.

LFG -- no, not a WoW group, a Greenlander...

I mention in an earlier post that I spent about three months last summer (2009) looking for a boat to build.

She would have to be very sharp and pointy, particularly Greenland-like in form, but not an extremely long boat that tracks like a rail, because all too often I need to be able to turn in tight places, like the back waters in our local Lake Blackshear, or when a marsh stream runs out and it's either back up 100 yards or get out, sink in three feet of mud and pick it up to turn it around.
I still have recurring dreams of a skin boat, and am starting to be convinced that one might survive in the oyster beds and pokey-stick laden water I paddle, but not just yet, so I'll stick with wood/glass/epoxy composite for now.
Asking all over everywhere - several paddling lists/message boards, mainly - I got plenty of recommendations, looked at a lot of sites and pictures.  After all this research, I finally decided on the Esk14, by Selway-Fisher, a design firm in Wiltshire, UK. I really love the lines of this boat, and stitch-n-glue (stitch and tape in the UK) is an easy, strong design that can take some punishment as long as it isn't a huge tree limb falling on it.
 
Life, lack of workspace and my impatience to get out of my LL Bean "Manatee" (Old Town Loon re-branded) made me postpone work on this boat.  Now it's back on my mind.
 
My current thoughts:
 
The width is still about right, but I may add 6" or so by stretching the stations out by an inch each.
 
The hatches on this boat are particularly small, and there is lost storage space in the bow and stern because of fixed/sealed flotation chambers.  Because US regs don't require them, and I don't want them, I won't put these fixed chambers in, so will lose the structural support of these two bulkheads.  To make up for it, I'll use deck beams of some kind; probably laminated and/or sawed out.  On the stern deck, it'll either be flattened out and put in a big hatch or do without bulkheads altogether and use float bags - need to think about this more.
 
I think I'll paint it a bright red-orange, after reading an article on color selection as it applies to visibility at sea in Adventure Kayak magazine.   Even if orange, I gotta tattoo it some way though.

My (previous) current boat.

I spent three months of the summer of '09 looking for a kayak design.  After picking one (as outlined in this article), and ordering the plans, the reality of being barn/shop/garageless set in, so I picked up a Wilderness Systems Alto from someone on Craigslist.  Looks just like the one in the bottom of the image below, only a good bit lighter colored, probably from age..

There wasn't a cover for the day hatch, and getting one from Perception/WS wasn't an option at the time, so I replaced it with a clear Beckson hatch of the same size - to get the best fit, I just replaced the whole thing, including the housing.  I didn't replace the little bag that made it a "day hatch" (a/k/a "cat bag"), though I thought about it.

After the first day paddling, I ripped out the backrest and rather cheesy seat cover.  Way too high and slippy.  I used a hunk of polyethelene barrel cut so size and shaped with a heat gun to make an adjustable backband that will let me do a layback.  This keeps my back from being a huge problem when I paddle for long distances. 

To solve anticipated hatch leaking, I made a "spray skirt" of sorts for the hatch from coated nylon; I will probably order a neoprene one from TopKayaker or similar.

She paddles great in lakes and tight situations. As noted in the paddling.net reviews, she has a lot of rocker for a boat this length, and a tendency to weathercock in an even light breeze.  I may put a skeg or real rudder on her some day.

I've paddled her in blackwater, marsh, and semi-open ocean, over some pretty tough oyster bars and through some tough, windy weather with small breakers - bad enough the folks on the dock were telling us to get off the water when I landed.  For these uses, I would recommend this line (Piccolo, Shaman, Alto).  I don't see doing much extended touring in her without a rudder or skeg; it's too inefficient in any significant wind.

(Update: Sept. 2013)  Funny - Catching up on this blog after a long time. I had liked the Alto when I first got it, paddled it for about a year, and picked up a shorter, but more "greenland like" boat, also made of polyethylene. I have never figured out the manufacturer, and there's no HIN, but it does say "Artic" (spelling it as it is printed).  This became my favorite banging around boat now, and has been for two years.