It was freezing cold this morning and I decided to go to the river. The wind was blowing hard out of the North-East and the waves in the lake were almost two feet high. Nearly knocked me off my feet. I had watched one of the videos about fresh water hunting in the Netherlands on the AT/Pro page at Garrett and seen some insulated coveralls that come up to the neck and when I found out how much they cost, I was into sticker shock. The last time I went to the river it was pretty cold and my arms about froze off when I tried to detect in water almost up to my chest. Thankfully, I figured out how to get around this and took the top from a two piece rain suit and taped some gloves I used to use when soaking carbuerators in solvent and duct taped them to the rain suit and it worked perfect. The problem I ran into today was the waves were so high the water almost came into my chest waders even at waist high water level. But, next time it's calm, I will be able to get deeper where I found some jewelry before the water was raised back up from the maintenence work for the local docks. I've got to get some gloves that are not as stiff as these gloves because I dropped an ear-ring back into the water and a quarter and the waves pushed them back into the rocks by the sea wall and I couldn't retrieve them. The ear-ring looked like brass and I found it's mate last year in the river. I did find 3 clad quarters, 4 clad dimes and 5 pennies. Then while I was waiting for AAA because I thought I had locked the keys in the trunk, I found a 1963 D lincoln penny by the car. I need to find some silver and gold, I know it's out there if I can just get to it. I had planned to go to another location on the river where there's a dock and another boat ramp, but after dropping the car key into my chest waders and thinking I had locked it up in the car, I was just too discombobulated to go anywhere but home. I wasn't going to take my chest waders off until the wrecker guy got there to get the key out of the trunk because I had my spare shoes in the trunk. I got antsy waiting and decided to take the waders off and just set there in my socks until the wrecker arrived. There was the key and I called and cancelled the service call. Talk about being embarrassed if we couldn't find the key and then finding them in my waders.
The wind was about 15 mph today with gusts up to 25 mph and any normal person would have stayed home, but I had the dirt fishing fever and had to go.
The water was dark brown from all the rain we got last week and you couldn't see 2 inches under water. This gave my a chance to work on my pinpointing and lining up my scoop without any visual clues and it worked out better than it did the last time I went and I'm always happy for any improvement. If I can just remember to leave my foot positioned where I used the scoop, I won't struggle as much to rescan the target and see if it's in the scoop or still in the sand. When the wind and waves are pushing you around, it's easy to lost your place.
I had on my under armor, a pair of jeans and long sleeved shirt, a small fleece jacket with hood and the rain jacket and the rubber gloves and it was pretty comfortable in the water. HH. Hoping I will find something worth posting next week...
The wind was about 15 mph today with gusts up to 25 mph and any normal person would have stayed home, but I had the dirt fishing fever and had to go.
The water was dark brown from all the rain we got last week and you couldn't see 2 inches under water. This gave my a chance to work on my pinpointing and lining up my scoop without any visual clues and it worked out better than it did the last time I went and I'm always happy for any improvement. If I can just remember to leave my foot positioned where I used the scoop, I won't struggle as much to rescan the target and see if it's in the scoop or still in the sand. When the wind and waves are pushing you around, it's easy to lost your place.
I had on my under armor, a pair of jeans and long sleeved shirt, a small fleece jacket with hood and the rain jacket and the rubber gloves and it was pretty comfortable in the water. HH. Hoping I will find something worth posting next week...
but im not
Every once in a while a fellow has just got to go and hunt, no matter what the weather is doing...it sort of gets us to appreciate those few perfect days and stay out there hunting for as long as we can, since you can remember a day like you just had...still, you found some stuff under those extreme conditions...WTG!