Irishrover
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I'll admit to being a fairly cheap person when it comes to fishing gear. My idea of a great deal is walking through a garage sale and finding an old short salmon rod, any brand will do, true value, eagle claw, makes no difference to me. I don't even care what it is made of, all glass or one of those hollow jobs. I like the rods with an abundance of guides on them at least 5. I really get excited when I find a Penn 209 reel attached to it. 
I'll even pay top dollar for it, that being $25 bucks, $20 is even better. I usually refurbish the reels....spray them with wd-40, and pull on the line to see if the drag works. If the outside fishing line looks discolored I replace it by pulling off line until you reach the part that looks new, cheap and effective way to sort of re-spool line.
Once I have refurbished a rod and reel, more wd-40, I like to put it into action. The problem with those short rods is running a seven to eight food leader like I do for chinook. I had to find a way to make that work. Standing by the gunnel even with the rod tip up in the air the fish was still too deep to net, especially when it was right next to the boat. I was able to solve that issue by cutting the back off of an old wooden chair and turing it into a stool. Now you just need good balance to stand on the stool and not fall in. It helps to have an extra person on the boat to hold the one on the stool, but it did solve that leader length problem!
This year I moored the boat down in Astoria at the West Basin. That marina has a ton of guides who work out of there. A couple of them are friends of mine and they alway give me a hard time about my fishing gear. They would get on me about those old short rods and wanted to know how I ever moved the line around those twin out boards hanging on the transom. I explained that was easy, I just hand the rod to my wife and she leans way out past the motors as I hold onto her legs. Now she is not real fond of this little move, and it take some talking to get her to assist me, but she likes chinook, so I usually can get her to help.
One day when I was feeling tired and in a weakend state, the two guides and my wife all teamed up and put a lot of pressure me to get some new gear. One of the guide told me he would let me have two used 9' North river heavey action rods for $40 a piece (Twice what a good true value rod would cost). Then the reel pressure came! They wanted me to buy, brand new out of the box, Cold Water Okuma reels with line counters. I would have refused for sure but they told me the reel came with 40lbs test line at no cost. I figured I could save my pride by saving money on the line. The rods I had a hard time with because they came with 11 guides. Now that is enough guide to make two rods out of, and the rod blank was long enough to make one and a half rods. The upside was that I wouldn't have to dangle my wife over the outboard any more, and that would free her up to go get the net!:dance:
I took one of my grandsons to Astoria with me to get him into a nice fresh salmon, it would be his first. We accomplish the mission and I have now gotten another grandchild to catch one of the gems of the northwest. I was truly happy and after we pull our crab pots we head back for the dock. Now at the dock I make sure to teach my grandson how to care for the fishing boat and the gear when you return from the river. I explained how it is important to secure the boat to the dock, and wash the boat and gear. When we got to the new rods and reels I took my time and showed him how to wash them down. I want to impress him so I explained all about corrosion prevention, I thought using two big words like that strung together was sure to do the job. I told him it takes a quite a while to wash the rods because they are so long and have so many guides on them. The reels need to be washed too because of the salt that gets on them. I mentioned at least once or twice that these rods and reel were very expensive, maybe cost a couple thousand dollars. I showed him how to put the rods in the rod carrier (part of being a gandfather is teaching these things), then I left him on the dock to accomplish his new task, while I went back aboard the boat to put away other gear.
Now my grandson remembered that part of my lesson about securing the boat, and he at that time felt that I did a poor job of tying the stern line to the dock. To help me out he walked over to the stern and put my $3000 salmon catching fishing rod and reel down on the dock. I glanced up and saw him trying to wrapp the stern line around the dock cleet as the aft end of the boat floated away from the dock. I think no problem, he is just trying to help. I step over the the stern line to help him help me and mention to him that he had to get a firm wrap on the cleet. I told him to get closer to the cleet and he did. I can still see it in slow motion as his leg streched and the heel of his foot kicked my $4000 fishing rod and reel off the dock and into the mucky muddy water of the West Basin Marina. I jumped from the boat landed flat on my chest with my arm reaching for the rod, only to see it slowly sink into that ugly water. Fishing rods do not sink fast, they only sink just fast enough so that you can't reach them. It gives you a chance to remember what they look like, kind of like Leonardo in the movie Titanic. To top it off my grandson has to ask the question.."Gandpa what just fell in the water."
I was distraught, I almost jumped in after it but thought better of it. I rigged up a ten oz cannon ball then two large treble hooks and spent and hour dragging the bottom for it. I was hoping it was still in the area because this was just after high tide and the water was now moving out. With a wee bit of Irish luck and a lot of bottom dragging (the marina bottom not mine) I snagged the rod and brought it back to the surface. I quickly got it to the hose and put the fresh water hose to it, I remembered my corrosion prevention speech and it had an all new meaning!:shock: I was able to sleep that night because I recoverd the rod and reel. If my $5000 rod and reel were still at the bottom of the river it would have given me nightmares for sure. Now if my grandson had kicked in one of my $20 true value rods with a penn 209 all would have been good. I would have let it soak over night, pulled it out at low tide and would be anxious to see if the soaking would have loosened up the drag!:lol:
I'll even pay top dollar for it, that being $25 bucks, $20 is even better. I usually refurbish the reels....spray them with wd-40, and pull on the line to see if the drag works. If the outside fishing line looks discolored I replace it by pulling off line until you reach the part that looks new, cheap and effective way to sort of re-spool line. Once I have refurbished a rod and reel, more wd-40, I like to put it into action. The problem with those short rods is running a seven to eight food leader like I do for chinook. I had to find a way to make that work. Standing by the gunnel even with the rod tip up in the air the fish was still too deep to net, especially when it was right next to the boat. I was able to solve that issue by cutting the back off of an old wooden chair and turing it into a stool. Now you just need good balance to stand on the stool and not fall in. It helps to have an extra person on the boat to hold the one on the stool, but it did solve that leader length problem!
This year I moored the boat down in Astoria at the West Basin. That marina has a ton of guides who work out of there. A couple of them are friends of mine and they alway give me a hard time about my fishing gear. They would get on me about those old short rods and wanted to know how I ever moved the line around those twin out boards hanging on the transom. I explained that was easy, I just hand the rod to my wife and she leans way out past the motors as I hold onto her legs. Now she is not real fond of this little move, and it take some talking to get her to assist me, but she likes chinook, so I usually can get her to help.
One day when I was feeling tired and in a weakend state, the two guides and my wife all teamed up and put a lot of pressure me to get some new gear. One of the guide told me he would let me have two used 9' North river heavey action rods for $40 a piece (Twice what a good true value rod would cost). Then the reel pressure came! They wanted me to buy, brand new out of the box, Cold Water Okuma reels with line counters. I would have refused for sure but they told me the reel came with 40lbs test line at no cost. I figured I could save my pride by saving money on the line. The rods I had a hard time with because they came with 11 guides. Now that is enough guide to make two rods out of, and the rod blank was long enough to make one and a half rods. The upside was that I wouldn't have to dangle my wife over the outboard any more, and that would free her up to go get the net!:dance:
I took one of my grandsons to Astoria with me to get him into a nice fresh salmon, it would be his first. We accomplish the mission and I have now gotten another grandchild to catch one of the gems of the northwest. I was truly happy and after we pull our crab pots we head back for the dock. Now at the dock I make sure to teach my grandson how to care for the fishing boat and the gear when you return from the river. I explained how it is important to secure the boat to the dock, and wash the boat and gear. When we got to the new rods and reels I took my time and showed him how to wash them down. I want to impress him so I explained all about corrosion prevention, I thought using two big words like that strung together was sure to do the job. I told him it takes a quite a while to wash the rods because they are so long and have so many guides on them. The reels need to be washed too because of the salt that gets on them. I mentioned at least once or twice that these rods and reel were very expensive, maybe cost a couple thousand dollars. I showed him how to put the rods in the rod carrier (part of being a gandfather is teaching these things), then I left him on the dock to accomplish his new task, while I went back aboard the boat to put away other gear.
Now my grandson remembered that part of my lesson about securing the boat, and he at that time felt that I did a poor job of tying the stern line to the dock. To help me out he walked over to the stern and put my $3000 salmon catching fishing rod and reel down on the dock. I glanced up and saw him trying to wrapp the stern line around the dock cleet as the aft end of the boat floated away from the dock. I think no problem, he is just trying to help. I step over the the stern line to help him help me and mention to him that he had to get a firm wrap on the cleet. I told him to get closer to the cleet and he did. I can still see it in slow motion as his leg streched and the heel of his foot kicked my $4000 fishing rod and reel off the dock and into the mucky muddy water of the West Basin Marina. I jumped from the boat landed flat on my chest with my arm reaching for the rod, only to see it slowly sink into that ugly water. Fishing rods do not sink fast, they only sink just fast enough so that you can't reach them. It gives you a chance to remember what they look like, kind of like Leonardo in the movie Titanic. To top it off my grandson has to ask the question.."Gandpa what just fell in the water."
I was distraught, I almost jumped in after it but thought better of it. I rigged up a ten oz cannon ball then two large treble hooks and spent and hour dragging the bottom for it. I was hoping it was still in the area because this was just after high tide and the water was now moving out. With a wee bit of Irish luck and a lot of bottom dragging (the marina bottom not mine) I snagged the rod and brought it back to the surface. I quickly got it to the hose and put the fresh water hose to it, I remembered my corrosion prevention speech and it had an all new meaning!:shock: I was able to sleep that night because I recoverd the rod and reel. If my $5000 rod and reel were still at the bottom of the river it would have given me nightmares for sure. Now if my grandson had kicked in one of my $20 true value rods with a penn 209 all would have been good. I would have let it soak over night, pulled it out at low tide and would be anxious to see if the soaking would have loosened up the drag!:lol:
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