TEN

No, not me, the catfish !

This nice ten pound blue catfish, is one of five that we kept this morning. We also kept three flatheads or Opelousas cats and a channel catfish.

A major weather front is coming our way and this may be the right time to take the boat out of the lake and clear the speedometer tube of mud. I hope that’s the problem anyhow, it quit right after I went way up in the shallows to recover a jug.

We threw back a nice little bass and a 27 pound blue catfish this morning.

Poco and I cast the jugs last evening. Here is a look.

Betty had gone with her Sister to the Doctor, so Poco and I took care of business.

Here is our last jug that we put out.

APPROACH

When the National Weather Service issues a severe storm alert as far ahead as this one, ya’ just gotta’ take notice !

With the storm’s approach, we began to prepare. Boat out of the water.

Fish cooker and lawn chairs rounded up and covered.

While the boat is out of the water is a good time to refuel, coil lines, sort and clean the tackle box.

It is time to den up and wait out the weather, while getting ready for the next round of jug fishin’ !

Wer’e gona’ stay another week !

Here is a quick video glance around camp.

Boat Hauled out for Bad weather approach

JUGS

Sitting by the campfire this morning when the sun came up. Sippin’ on a fresh cup of coffee, going over a check list. A check list that hasn’t been written down, yet every item checked and re checked.

The boat is in the water and all safety equipment is in place. The live box is at the ready.

Updated the information on the jugs and added fresh hooks.

We baited and put out the bream traps yesterday evening before retiring to the campfire to visit with the neighbors.

The first sunrise on the Lake, always is a grand thing for us.

Yuup, it’s jug fishin’ time again.

ROCKS

Towing our Jeep will expose it to risk from road debris and rocks.

We looked for and found a Blue Ox rock-guard on the internet.

Here is a look at the system as it is installed on our toad.

The installation on the Jeep for the first time was pretty straight forward and simple. The guard has two brackets that attach to the tow bar.

A couple of pins hold it in place.

The guard comes off quickly and folds up much smaller for storage.

The guard protects the headlights, fog lights and parking lights as well as the windshield.

The folded rockguard fits nicely behind SPF-60’s spare tire when we are parked.

BRAKE

Towing our Jeep flat, that is with all four wheels down, means that we would need a braking system for it.

We decided that Brake buddy made just the thing that we needed. Here is a look at our setup.

This morning we pulled the toad behind the Kawabunga truck to try it out since we never had a system like it before.

 

The system comes with a remote that mounts on the dashboard so you can monitor it’s functions.

The remote is wireless and can be released from the velcro that holds it to the dash, for system checking.

With the transfer case in neutral and the transmission in park, we leave the ignition switch in the accessory position, which allows the Jeep’s ABs system to be functional !

DIODE’s

Last year we were at a campground where as managers, we had full hookups. This year we have a new assignment and that campground has water and sewer but no electricity. To be ready for that, we are converting many of our incandescent light bulbs to Light Emitting Diode’s. Here is what  the majority of our bulbs look like.

We are replacing them with this bulb.

This LED bulb uses only 1/10th of the power and gives off more light. We bought 10 of these for $19.90, delivered to the house,  on eBay. Here is the link.

T10 194 168 501 921 W5W 28 LED 3020 SMD Car Side Wedge Light Bulb Lamp White 12V

Here is how they look when installed.

The light fixtures look like this when closed back up.

With the factory equipped bulbs in the fixture the clear lens was very hot to the touch. The new LED bulb uses so little power that the lens is cool to the touch !

Our dining table light looks like this, when converted.

Here is a look at the bulb by it’s self.

Our cost for each bulb on eBay was $4.29 each. Here is a link to the eBay listing.

63 LED BA15S 1156 WHITE BULB CARAVAN BOAT LIGHT 12 Volt

At this point over half of our fifthwheel’s lights are converted to LED’s, for under $25.00 !

OX

We’ve never had a Blue Ox tow bar before. However we plan to tow our Jeep Wrangler flat, with all wheels on the ground. So, we needed a tow bar that is rated to pull the fairly heavy Jeep. The Blue Ox Alpha series is rated at 6500 pounds. Today I hooked it up for the first time. Here is a look.

We are impressed with the fit, finish and robustness of the Blue Ox tow bar. Here is a look at the connection to the Jeep’s base plate.

Our first time to hook it up went very smooth and quick, it was a simple, straight forward process.

The jeep’s tail light’s are  being used and a series of diode’s prevent feedback into the jeep’s electrical system.  A  simple, standard trailer plug makes the connection and gets the job done.

Though we haven’t had a chance to get it out on the highway yet, we think that it will do just fine.