Joe's Flies (A Small Part); "Joe! Git Wood!"

So, when Joe tell's us that he is tying flies while he is talking with the Woodrats, believe that he is!   His operating position is SURROUNDED with fly tying material.   His vise goes into position in seconds and materials are selected and placed handily within reach..

Here's some of the results. 


And... talking about getting wood.. (Joe was 14 years old before he found out that his name was not, "Git Wood".)

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Teamwork Works and Here's the TEAM

Joe and Diane Sallee at their "Cabin" overlooking the valley. 

Joe's Place (Diane's too!)

Had a wonderful visit with Joe, N7HMM, Chief Woodrat First Class, and his lovely wife Diane.   They treated us like royalty.  (Fresh zuchinni bread and delicious coffee and a loaf to take home!)  Here's a one of the photos of today with the Chief at the helm.   I have a plethora of photos to share, so, this is the first installment.  (Gardening, chickens, and woodgathering to follow soon.)  Maybe even a session on fly tying!

Enjoy...

Bev - Fly Fishing

Late August, 2010  ..  Bev fly fishing on Marble Creek, just starting to pick up the fly.

Coons

Looking out one of the windows overlooking the driveway, I saw four of these critters causually skipping toward the street.   Two of them went across the road and two went in the culvert across the end of my drive.  I slipped out the back door and blocked one end of the culvert the waited at the other end with my camera..   The other two came back, here's three of them.

Pike Minnow

Here's the "Catch"
Caught on hand-tied imitation "Grasshopper" (#8 hook) .

These fish are locally known as "Squawfish" however, in recent times, some of the N'west Tribes have objected to the use of the word "Squaw" noting it to be a sobriquet of unflattering nature initated by some of the early settlers and trappers. Now, many of the creeks and other landmarks, etc. have been renamed due to objections raised by the Tribes.
(Click on picture to enlarge.)

Pictures include me, my wife, Bev; and my great grandson, Liam.

Big Creek

A tributary of the St. Joe River
Friday, June 18, 2010

Water Strider

Here is an interesting little water bug.  I have always been fascinated by their means of locomotion. 

This photo was taken with a cheap 2 meg pocket camera with a taped on magnifying lens (Jury-Rigged) for a macro effect. 

You can easily see the indentation of the water surface where the bug's weight is distributed down each leg.  Notice that the area of detention for the hind-most legs is greater than the two forward sets.   These indentations provide plenty of grip or traction for the bug's ability to "stride" across the water surface. 

The Osprey Are Back!

It seems the Osprey show up about this time every year.  Their biological clock tells them it's time to straighten up the nests and get on with the mating routine.

This one seemed pretty curious about the one big eye looking at it.. 

Five Watter

Sunday, 3/14/10

Changed the tank circuit, still not much improvement but now almost a full watt output looks closer to 750 mW.

Chatted with W9USS, a local ham who lives here in town and is tolerant of my poor signal and my fist.

It turned into an eventful day though, I called CQ several times and finally heard someone return my call.

N6DIT  (Nice cw call.) Dennis, Mountain Ranch, CA was in a contest (WES).  Turned out to be SKCC..  #3283T 

N7OC Stan from Custer..  we know each other and had a great QSO. 

KE7DZ from Seabeck, WA answered my CQ.  I think he might be pretty close to Alan..  KA4DXP.   This contact was pretty solid and typical of the path between my site and the Seattle area for QRP contacts.

Five Watter

Couldn't wait to put the "Thing" on the air. Worked Bob, W9USS, my buddy who lives here in town. Haven't modified the tank coil or tried to correct the voltage sag so the output was about 1/2 watt. Bob checked the signal and gave it a clean bill of health.

So, one entry into the log book for the "Thing."

(Click on photo to enlarge)

Five Watter

Progressing . Wired the oscillator tube, put the 7100 crystal, keyed it by grounding the cold end of the 2.5 mh choke. The wave form looks good and the tone seemed clean while listening to it on the 830...
It lives!

Five Watter

Nibble, nibble, nibble... that's how to make a small hole larger. The flashing is cheap. If at first you don't succeed, throw it away and start over.

Five Watter

A view from the backside featuring the mounted meter, tuning capacitors the 12 uH tank coil wound on 1" OD ridgid PVC, the homebrew crystal holder complete with a crystal for 7.100, and one of the RF chokes.

Five Watter

Here's how the front panel is evolving. The shafts of the capacitors will be shortened. There are other holes to locate for the crystal socket, a power indicator lamp and a key jack. Maybe the key jack will go in the back....

Five Watter

Here is the schematic for the tube transmitter I'm preparing to build.
It was described in The QRP Quarterly magazine.

I have most of the components and an old chassis that might work but it will leave a lot of unused holes...

Please expand the photo of the schematic and take a look at the design and let me know if you see any discrepancies..

Dedicated

Frank, ever fish from one of these?

Took this photo last spring on the Couer d'Alene River with a 400 mm telephoto so he was quite a distance from me. Never seen him catch anything but he was hanging tough when I finally gave up.. (Remember, click for a closer view.)

Ready for Northern Pike

Some are fur and glitz and some are maribou and glitz.. (Glitz, meaning some flashy fiber and some red flosss. The hook is around a 2/0, not sure, the box is old and the size is gone. The finished leader is 5 to 6 inches and is from coated 30 lb wire. I read somewhere on the internet how to form the loops by heating the twisted wire with a propane lighter to fuse the coating together. Works like a charm. No more crimping for me!

Alder Fly Varient

When I get three more of these made, I'll name this one the "Dirty Dozen."

Home Brewed Knives

Frank, your knife design/making projects stimulated this post. Pictured here is the first knife project made by my nephew. The blade is from a leaf spring from a car. The black line you can see between the walnut handle and brass bolster is a teflon lining between the metal and wood parts. The rivets are threaded brass. At 1/4" thickness, it must have required hours of grinding. It has always amazed me at the precision Dennis has achieved using only hand-held grinding. (He uses a 1 inch belt grinder.) The leather case was made by one of Dennis' crafty friends. I used it to dress out one elk and it held its edge very well. I may start packing it when in wolf country. :)

Feb 4, 2010

Skunked! First time out for Mountain Whitefish.. Fished nympths in several different holes from Falls Creek to Calder.. No other fishermen on the river. (Hmmm, maybe they know something I don't ?

The river is at its lowest point for the winter and I'm thinking we need some fresh run-off from the feeder streams to kick-start these fish from hibernation?

There were some geese flying, looks like they were enjoying the sunshine. They have started pairing up and bickering among themselves. Perhaps spring is on the way?

St. Joe River, February 3, 2010

The ice flow is jamming the river at the mouth of Storm Creek. Usually, after a normal winter, these ice jams can be much larger and often require explosives to break them up. No such problems this year. The road you can see across the river is the old river road and the current road going across the concrete bridge is built on the old railroad grade from Marble Creek to Avery.

The last photo is looking upstream. It shows how the ice is holding to the stream edges with the deeper current breaking through the middle section.

Avery, again...

Top: A view showing the rim of ice hanging on to the south shore of the river. You can see that some of the residents don't have far to go to wet a line.

The middle photo depicts the backbone of the municipality. (The railcar is from the old Milwaukee Line that used to run through Avery. It was here the steam engines unhitched and let the electric powered engines haul the cargo and passengers over the hump into Montana.) The other two pieces, jail and fire engine, represent law and order and emergency services.

Of course, we can depend on the Trading Post for a bit of recreation, no matter the preference.. you can probably find it or catch it here..