I'm headed up to Boca Reservoir on Sunday through Thursday, meeting some other OHV motorcycle enthusiasts and wanted to take a pole or two and wet a line.  Any tips on shore fishing this lake? I'll be camped at Boca Rest Campground.  That's at the back side where the Truckee feeds into it I think.   

I have used these only for Crabfest, so maybe 4 or 5 times.  I won't be going kayaking on the ocean any more for health reasons, so it's time I sell off some of my gear.  I'm starting with the crab gear.  Including photos.
These are Promar collapsible traps.  I have lead line and stainless or brass hardware for easy clip-on and off.  The traps have buoys attached so the line floats above and doesn't foul them up. All the floats and bait baskets and holders come with these traps.  There's a burlap bag and some heavy neoprene gloves for those cold days when things are drippy, and your hands go numb. The white H thing fits the rear scupper holes on the back deck of my Hobie PA14 and the collapsed traps slide on to stay on board when heading out or back in.  I'm including a crawdad trap as well. There's even a crab snare for those times that it's too ruff to head out on the ocean in a kayak. I think I have somewhere around $250 for everything wanting to get $100 for it all. 
One problem is that I'm in Placerville, a long ways from the ocean and most of civilization.  Ha!

I started my new year buying my license on line this year.  It lets me print it out, along with the receipt.  However, it wasn't clear if they will also mail me the waterproof copy I normally get when buying from a retailer. 
Anyone know if they will mail one out or I just deal with an inkjet printed version?  BTW inkjet is not waterproof! 

Happy New Year everyone!!

Used to be a gallery tab between Members and Logout, but I don't see it any more.  Is it me or a site issue?

Fuck me to tears, but I can NOT figure out how to set the brightness level on my Elite 4 HDI fish finder.

I know I've done it before, but I can not find any screen menus that will take me to a setting where I can set the over all brightness of the screen. 

Can anyone help me with that before I slather this thing in fish guts and use it in my crab trap as bait this weekend?  Because that's about all it's good for on bright days until I can figure it out.

Thanks!!

No, not from fishing, from my dog!

Around 10pm the dog decided to wander out.  Not unusual this time of evening and I leave a door where he can push it open with his nose if he wants to.  About 2 minutes later, I hear a yelp and he runs back in.  I got a good idea what happened and sure enough, I detect a certain odor.  I panic and holler.   He runs to the bed room wiping his face on every rug, chair, etc he can on his way back there.  I chase him but he's under the bed and I can't fit under there.  So I grab a back scratcher and start swinging it at him while the wife is waiting on the other side to grab him.  The whole time, he's wiping his face and leaving wet marks on the carpet.  Finally get his butt outside.  I tied him up and then go back in the start removing everything I can that is cloth.  The stuff he's wiped, on one end of the yard with the wind blowing away and everything else on the other end.  (Skunk stink will permeate cloth like smoke does.  Think 'campfire' and you get the idea.  Don't need to be tending the campfire, just go camping and then smell your clothes later the next week and you'll smell smoke.  Same with skunk)
I get the bedding off, the mattress and box spring outside, the throw rugs in the living room/hallways the dog trapezed across, all the living room furniture out on the lawn and yard. 

Then I washed the dog.  I use Hydrogen Peroxide and baking soda with a touch of Dawn to get penetration into his fur.  If you don't know, this works great.  The Hydrogen Peroxide, H2O2, releases a molecule of oxygen when the baking soda is added.  This oxygen binds with the skunk juice and chemically turns it into something else.  Something that doesn't stink.  I tied the dog back up and now put some of this mix in a bowl and with a scrub brush, attack the wet spots on the carpet in the bedroom.  He got enough of a dose from Pepe LePew that he left wet marks everywhere he rubbed.  I then fill a spray bottle and spray the whole carpet with a mist of the solution.  Checking on the dog, he no longer has skunk smell.  I have my wife check him.  She can't smell it on him either.  This isn't the first skunking we've dealt with.  The Hydrogen Peroxide/Baking soda is a miracle. 
I then test the furniture for stink and there's a faint odor of skunk, like smoke from a fire, that lingers.  I spray the furniture but run out of the mix. 

I'll shampoo the rugs when Home Depot opens at 6am and stock back up on hydrogen peroxide. 

BTW, I've shot and killed maybe 7 or 8 skunks around my house in the past 3 or 4 weeks.  They are everywhere.  I didn't get a shot off this one, as I was trying to corral the dog and minimize his spreading the smell to everything.   

I have a rain gauge I check each morning when I go out to get my newspaper.  The totals are logged on a simple notebook file just so I can keep track of where we are in the rainfall season.  This morning, I'm sorry to report that my 24 hour rain fall total won't be entirely accurate.  You see...  my 6 inch rain gauge was over flowing this morning!!  Yup! More than 6" of rain in the past 24 hours!

What's even better is that this rain is falling where it counts; up stream from the reservoirs and then turning to a very heavy snow pack with a high moisture content higher up the mountain. 

I just wanted to post this up as it's good news and wanted to share.
Here's my totals at my house so far this season;

Oct 17    .25
Oct 28    .10
Nov 1     .60
Nov 2     .60
Nov 8     .50
Nov 9    1.50
Nov 15  1.00
Nov 24    .50
-----------------
SUBTOTAL 6.05

December  3    .75
December 10 1.00
December 11   .25
December 13   .50
December 18   .25
December 20   Trace
December 21   .75
December 22  6.00++ (overflowing gauge at 7am)

That's a total of 12.8" of rain this season.

I'm looking for some advice.  My brother, who is 60 years old, was diagnosed with Alzeimer's almost 7 years ago.  Yea.  At age 53. 

The first 5 years, not so bad.  He was even able to stay working at his job until finally this year, they forced him to retire.  Now, not so good.  He is getting not only forgetful; stuff like he can't remember if he retired from the Air Force or the Navy,  (He served a career, then began a new career in the FAA where he recently was forced to retire.) but he's getting argumentative.  Even with his younger grandchildren.  An example; today my brother and his wife took their 6 year old granddaughter to the park before her soccer practice.  She fell on the swings and took a hit to the head.  Nothing serious, but enough to throw her off at practice later that afternoon.  My brother kept getting angry at her for not trying hard.  When reminded she took a fall at the park on the swing, he didn't remember that and accused his wife of making it up.  This happens all the time, as in at least every few days at least.  He goes to a day care 4 days a week, but he's finding it boring.  In fact, he's finding his whole life boring and that is contributing to his frustration. 

My brother and his wife live in Oklahoma.  I'm flying them out here to our place in a week or so for 10 days as a 'get-away' from their home situation. 

My brother was the 'cool guy' all his life.  He was an air traffic controller in the Air Force, worked after retiring from the military for the FAA until just recently, and a computer wiz.  Now he can't even play solitare and is afraid of computers.  He can't drive, after getting lost a couple times, and they had to sell his Mustang convertible.  He got me into racing motorcycles, heck I even followed in his footsteps into the AirForce.  He was accepted to Annapolis, but turned it down when he preferred the AF.  He was a 4 year varsity track star in HS and got other scholarships offered, not just Annapolis.

His wife is very depressed and at her wit's end with his aggitation with boredom after retirement.

I'm hoping there's someone around who has or is dealing with this sort of thing with a family member and can offer some advice. 

I plan to take him fishing, Yosemite, our old stomping grounds as we both grew up in this area, camping, to the ocean, etc.  My wife is going to take his wife to a day spa and other wimmen stuff that they do to unwind and decompress.  She tells me physically he is fine and will live many more years, which has here scared that this is the tip of the iceburg and how bad things are going to get. 

Sorry if it sounds like whining and complaining, I'm just wanting mainly to know if there's someone around who has been there and can offer any suggestions I can do and if there's more help for his wife. 

Social Security Disability has come through, the VA pays for all the daycare, his military pension and his FAA pension are slowly getting his checks in order, so money is not one of their problems, thank God.  They are far from rich, but won't have to worry about grocery shopping. 

Man, I feel so bad for him and for his wife.  It sucks for me, I can't fathom what it's like for them.