Mar 17/18 - a fishing we will go

Not too much happened on Tuesday 17th; I worked some more on the new bike, of course, now that I have all the parts.  Well, I thought that I had all the parts ...

1) I don't have a front rack that will fit.  I already knew that and have ordered the version of the Velo Orange rack that attaches to the canti posts.

2) I discovered that they forgot to include the compression plug and top cap for the fork; that is now being priority-mailed to me.

3) This was expected -- I need a 10 cm spacer above the stem.  I didn't want to spec that out until I knew the exact leftover steerer.  Eventually I will probably cut the steerer but not until I've been riding it for a while.

4) Installing the shifters yesterday, I found that I don't have barrel adjusters and furthermore, the posts on the downtube aren't threaded.  I've ordered suitable ( I think ) parts.  Threading would have been better.  I've sent an email to Truenorth to see what Hugh usually does on the frames that he builds as he usually also builds the entire bike.

5) That's it ?  Time will tell.

The adjuster / independent estimator came by yesterday (this is not bike) and took photos of the car etc.  He's worked with Liberty Collision before so hopefully his estimate comes close to theirs.  I can't imagine it will but we can always hope.

We went fishing.  Yes, we paid a guide to go fishing in waters that you can see from our house.  We, in this case, is Harris, Chet and I.  We had a good trip out catching loads of jack, a couple of blues, a spotted sea trout, something similar to a grunt and a bunch of what they refer to as pinfish which are really just small scrappers. 

It was very educational.  The guide talked constantly about technique, location, bait and the fish.  Stef would have loved it !  

All the fishing was drift and all with live shrimp.   We lost as many hooks as we caught fish because the blues have sharp teeth and just bite through the line, even more so than northern pike.  If you're fishing for blues you really need to use a wire leader.  As they are good eating and running through now, perhaps I should try that.

We threw all the jacks back but one.  Our guide said that nobody eats them, too fishy and bloody.  Well, I kept one and we had it for dinner along with the blues and the grunt.  It has no fish taste and we're both pretty picky.  It has really, really, firm flesh so Sandy found it her least favorite.  I think that was partly power of suggestion because she already knew the story about jacks.

The jacks are fun to catch, scrappy like crappy.  Oh yes, we also caught one catfish that was thrown back.  I suspect that the catfish would have also been good eating.

Now the true test is -- will I get out there on my own ?  I have to reserve an early a.m. and try but before that, I have to buy some shrimp !  I could probably use frozen shrimp but who knows.

I think that's it ... I'll go for a ride today ... Frank and Nancy come on Saturday and are with us until early Thursday a.m.  They have a flight around 9am so I suspect that they'll be out of here around 6am if not earlier that day.  

In the meantime, I have to get back at my taxes and file ... ugh.

Onward !