Recent content by DougK

I used the knock-down wood gunnel kit on a Royalex Mad River Explorer salvage project, it has been some years now and no issues. Modern epoxy is good enough.. Also the kit I used has modified shiplap joints rather than a pure scarf, discussion at...

good story, thank you for posting.. this struck me, "It’s a simple rock hop, one he’s made hundreds of times in his 50 years of rafting." rock hopping is a young man's game. I don't rock hop anymore, have not for ten years at least (65 now). It's one small hop for an old man, one big break...

suffering from a paddling deficit, sneaked out after work a new heronry, dozens of nests, the herons had strong loud opinions about everything.. an arsenal of rods is not enough for me to catch bigger fish ;-) at least there is the majesty of nature to contemplate, viz. the two goose...

6' Browning rod from the 1980s, works great ;-) broke an inch off the tip during a wrangle in the dark with some bushes I wasn't expecting.. still feels the same to me.

attempted fish trip, silly trout took my pike lure,

have done similar, using a Bakepacker which isn't made anymore.. fish into an oven bag, with some olive oil and lemon, steam it that way. Not sure why I stopped doing that, huh.. (looks for old Bakepacker)

+1 on backpacking trips I carry soup mixes, then fillet and dice the fish, drop it into the soup and cook 10min or so.. as you say, delicious chowder, clean and quick.. in the canoe my wife likes to go heavy and eat well, I end up putting oil on a griddle..

I tried sanding and recoating similar cracking and crazing on a secondhand boat, it was a lot of work and came out looking like hell.. gave up and paddled, been five years now and still going hopefully..

the recipes at dirty gourmet have worked well, at least the ones my wife has picked out and made.. https://dirtygourmet.com/category/recipes-by-activity/backpacking/ a dehydrator is not terribly expensive, a lot of our meals are pre-made and dehydrated. Really you can make almost any recipe...

for group trips, I invite my son and his college friends - competitive swimmers, weightlifters, marathon runners, and a soccer player who is the toughest of all, she runs the portage.. then I dawdle along with the lightest canoe ;-) with my wife, she likes to pack heavy and take lots of...

Mad River from an old website no longer in existence, see it on the Internet Archive - All of my wood gunwales are oiled with Watco Teak, redo every year. The Mad River Explorer gunnels had rotted away due to being stored outside for decades with no maintenance.. I put on new gunnels and...

the volume of data available from cell phone is overwhelming, and I seriously doubt anyone at all is looking at it in detail. (source - used to work at Chief of Staff Intelligence, Electronic Warfare). The LLMs that are masquerading as AI and/or machine learning might change this, but again the...

I've had shoulder issues for some decades now, started with swimming but then also impacted paddling. Step 1 to find a good physical therapist, step 2 is to keep doing the PT exercises the rest of your life.. I have occasional pains but have not been incapacitated at all in those years. I was...

mine does have the cord and cord lock, but it does not work to keep the seat in position - I think what happens is when the boat is on the car roofracks, the cord is not strong enough to retain position against the bumps and bangs of going down the road.. I'm in CO, not a lot of ww canoeists...

I have a Wenonah Vagabond with this adjustable seat and I hate it.. incredibly noisy when it slips and bangs around, which is most of the time, never stays where I put it, adjusts nicely between too low for comfortably sitting and the upper setting which is too low for kneeling with feet under...