Month: September 2006

I put together the pontoon boat in the backyard today. Working on the placement of the fish finder, baskets, anchor, and misc items. The mount for the fish finder worked well and can be located on either pontoon. The PVC mount seems to be ok. The final adjustments have to be made in the water. I need to locate some oar rests to keep the oars from moving back into the motor.

Lots of salmon filet and steaked out in the ice chest – now the freezer preparation awaits.

Tommorrow I will find the oar rests and a couple of fuses to finish up. Thursday we are leaving for Nevada to go – well of course – fishing!

Mounting the fish finder was fun. I liked using what was lying around the home to come up with a way to mount it. The transducer usually is mounted on the solid hull of a boat but pontoon boats have no such place. I wanted to mount it so that it could be adjusted and in such a way that if it did hit a rock or something it would not break off but would be able to give a bit (like the kickup brackets provide for) The unit itself needs to be visable (duh) and close enough to me so I can push all the neat little buttons on it.

I got a lot of ideas from browsing the net. Here is what I ended up doing:

Take these items found around the house with the exception of the velcro strap

Put them all together:

The vecro strap will hold the mount on the pontoon. The transducer is mounted on the PVC pipe. Under neath the black cover the pipe is cut with two notches and connected back together with the spring. If it hits something solid it will bend yet the spring holds it solid otherwise. I cut the orignal hull mount so it slides into the pipe and is held by the same bolt that holds the spring. Stretching the spring out to align the holes was no fun. I put the lower screw in first to hold the altered mount and spring. Then I used a long strong twine tied to the other end of the spring to stretch it out to get the second bolt through. I used the bicycle tube to cover it because I was tired of gettng my fingers pinched 🙂

Here is a picture from the Bass and Tubes web site that gave me the idea:

Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning.

He told Bush that Three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. To everyone’s amazement, all of the color ran from Bush’s face, then he collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken, almost whimpering.

Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, “Just exactly how many is a brazillion?”

Today the news bulletins and updates were all about FIRE. First the fires mentioned in my last post. Next a fertilizer plant in Solano County. Then the fire outside of Napa near Yountville. A small fire on Hwy 70 outside of Yuba City and many small grass fires throughout the area.

The Pentax is out of warrenty go figure – so I have to decide if I should take it in to be repaired or throw it in the dead do something about it later drawer.

Still working on the transducer thingy placement . …

The sky is an eerie orange if I were not so lazy I would drive to the river and get some sunset shots but I am lazy right now. Made some beans for dinner – life is good.