Category: Washington

Maryhill State Park – Sunday May 17, 2015

Left home at 11:00 arrived at 3:50.
In site 41 to the tune of $45.00 a night.
We do have a site right on the Columbia River and it is 79 degrees.  
 This is from the edge of our site.

 And Hank is enjoying the sun.  The original plan was to move to Bend, Oregon tomorrow.  The weather forecast for here is 80 Monday and 77 Tuesday whereas Bend is going to be 60 – 64.  Think we are staying here.

We are on our way to OH Ridge Campground on June Lake in eastern California for the Memorial Weekend with Richard and Vicki.  We will than go someplace for a couple of weeks returning home before Father’s Day.

Here are Friday’s fish. 

Home: Friday May 8, 2015 – Retirement is Great

Retirement is Great, I have achieved another one of those Life’s triumphs.

This is the largest lowland lake trout I have ever caught.  It is 15+ inches and weighs just over a pound and a half.  The glass cutting board is 11 inches across.   It was fun to catch but I was sure worried it might get off before I could get it in the boat.

Great day of fishing, more trout for the smoker.

Ok, I’ve added more pictures.

 

Home: Sunday – May 3, 2015 Smoked Trout

Tanya is moving to Poulsbo so she gave me her BBQ.  My goal was to figure out how to use it to smoke the trout I have been catching.   I was not able to figure out how to get smoke and be able to cook the fish at a low temperature.   I solved by fish smoking challenge with a Masterbuilt Pro.
I spent Saturday putting it together and getting it seasoned.  In the evening I learned to fillet trout and put they in a brine I learned about at Bradley Smoker’s website.  After filleting 10 trout I started to figure out the process.  One of the key elements of filleting small trout is to sharpen the knife between each fish.
By the way here is Friday catch, looks a lot like Wednesday and Thursday.
Here is the smoker getting ready to smoke fish.
75 minutes we have smoked trout.
And yes it is good.
Here is lunch:

 

Home: Thursday – April 30, 2015 – Lake Wilderness

This morning was another day of fishing.  Today I did have the use of my electric motor so I didn’t get near as much exercise.
But I did cover a lot of the lake.  I caught the first four in about 45 minutes (got to the lake around 8:00 a.m., I don’t wear a watch since I retired so I don’t always know what time it is) and then didn’t land the last one until after 11:00 a.m.

I caught the largest one last.  The largest one weighed 3/4 of a pound and all five weighed 2.5 pounds.  I hope to smoke these and Friday’s catch this weekend.

InReach tracking says I traveled 2.73 miles today on the lake and 2.89 miles yesterday.

Home: Wednesday – April 29, 2015 – Retirement Goal Achieved

One of my retirement goals was to start doing some lowland lakes trout fishing.  Today was my first day out on Lake Wilderness.  I got to the lake a little after 7:00 a.m. and had my five trout by 11:15 a.m.
They range from 8 to 12 inches.
This is an aerial view of the lake’s location.

Here is a road map view of the lake’s location.

In 1976 Dad and I built two boats for fishing and sailing.  My boat has been in the garage since probably 1979 or so.  We moved to Enumclaw in 1977 and Tanya was born in 1979, I don’t think I have used this boat since Tanya was born.
My boat is the yellow one sitting in the lake.
Here are a couple of pictures of truck I recently purchased and by fishing/sail boat.  It has actually taken a while to get the boat cleaned and to rebuild the trailer.  It needed new tires, lights and hitch coupler.
It was a good day and I’ll be out again tomorrow morning.  Tanya is giving me her BBQ now that she is moving to Poulsbo and I think I have figured out how to use it to smoke trout.

 

Fort Flagler – Thursday April 16, 2015

It is a beautiful day at Fort Flagler

Sunny and warm for April, we will be here at least through the weekend and maybe for a week or so.  We have site 115 which is a front row seat to the northern opening of Puget Sound.

By the way it is first day back to work for the lovely Mrs. Tanya Garcia our son-in-law Mike Garcia doesn’t return to work until Monday.  They are both wonderful people. 

 

Home – Thursday February 26, 2015 – Boat Trailer Coupler

Another project has been to get my 12 foot lake fishing boat back up and running/floating.

Today I put a new hitch coupler on the trailer.  Dad and I built two boats in 1976 and the trailer I have for my boat was new in 1969.  The coupler was in pretty tough shape so today I cut the old one off and bolted a new one on.  The original was welded onto the 3 inch box channel of the trailer’s frame.
I didn’t take a before picture, this is after the old coupler was cut off and I was cutting the welds off with a hack saw.  I did a lot of the cutting with a 3 inch air cutter I purchased from Harbor Freight several years ago.   I think I paid about $7.00 for it.
You got to love Harbor Freight.
Here is another picture of hand cutting the old weld bead off the trailer frame.
The new coupler, it is much better condition then the old one and should keep the trailer attached to the truck.  I’m looking forward returning to fishing this spring.

 

Maryhill State Park – Wednesday August 27, 2014

Left home at noon got here a 6:10, site 24.  Nice sunny drive with limited wind coming up the Columbia.

(I have campsite pictures, however this WordPress program will not insert them. I will add them later. )

( now I can add only one picture, another later.)

This was our first long day towing the Saturn and every thing worked fine.  Even stopped once for gas.  We do need to get better at picking a site and then finding a place to unhook the car.  Anyway over time we’ll figure it out.

I talked about getting gas because this can be a challenge. The issue is you can not backup a tow car which is being towed with all four wheels on the ground.  The motorhome and car are 54 feet long so the gas pumps need a pretty good size area around them.  Pulling into a gas station you have never seen before and deciding if you will have enough room to get in and out can be a challenge. Having to unhook the car in the middle of a busy gas station will piss a lot people off.  Hope I go a while before this happens to me.