Good Things<\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve got a lot of things.\u00a0 Most of them are fishing things\u2014you know, rods, reels, boats. Some are tools, a few are guitars.\u00a0 A couple are kids.\u00a0 While I\u2019m not a hoarder, I do have a tough time throwing things out.\u00a0 Old shirts that are too small and ripped might still have some sentimental value, and rather than get tossed they end up in an old duffel bag or on the back of a closet shelf, to be looked at once every couple of years. I will then reminisce about something that happened while I was wearing it, or the person that gave it to me, and then I put back into stasis.\u00a0 The Steelhead T-shirt is a great example.\u00a0 This shirt has Jon Q Wright artwork of a steelhead on it, I think the artist himself gave it to me.\u00a0 I was wearing it when a friend and I fished in a friendly pike tournament in northern Minnesota.\u00a0 At some point during the day I went shirtless, and not much later I was wrestling around the boat with a 10-pound pike that ate my Reef Hawg.\u00a0 Next thing you know the pike, Reef Hawg, and t-shirt were all rolled into a ball of scales, slime, cotton, and hooks on the bottom of the boat.\u00a0 The shirt got the worst of it.\u00a0 Well actually the pike got the worst of it, I know we won the tournament, and I\u2019m pretty sure we ate the pike.\u00a0 <\/a>A few years later I was on solo muskie mission on the Mississippi.\u00a0 This is one of my favorite things to do\u2014I get first cast into all the spots, I never have to guess if my boat partner is having any fun, and I can switch to fishing for smallmouth or walleyes at any time if I feel like it.\u00a0 The bad thing is that it is tough to get a photo, not that getting another photo of me with a muskie is that crucial at this point in my life, but I still may want one so I rely on the self-timer.\u00a0 On this particular day I was wearing the sacred shirt and I ended up with a very large muskie in the boat.\u00a0 This was before digital cameras, and I only did one self-timer attempt and hoped for the best.\u00a0 I have mostly retired the t-shirt after that day, breaking it out only for very special occasions, like a baptism or wedding.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Check out these pliers.\u00a0 This is the Lineman\u2019s Pliers, bought at a thrift shop for 5 bucks in about 1992, and it is one of the most versatile tools I own.\u00a0 The pliers function comes in handy all the time and while it is a little thick at the tip to be much good for unhooking fish, it has done that detail many times. It is heavy enough to be a hammer, and I know that I gave many an Alaskan salmon the coup de grace with the business end of the old lineman\u2019s.\u00a0 And it even has a side cutter, handy for making wire leaders, cutting hooks, and one time a wire crab trap.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 While idling across a shallow flat behind Captiva Island, an abandoned crab trap got all spun up in my guide\u2019s motor, and the Lineman\u2019s was the only thing on board with a cutter [I often bring it in my tackle bag].\u00a0 It took a few minutes but I was able to cut it free and we continued with our unsuccessful attempt at tarpon.\u00a0 I use it for bending wire on every muskie lure I make.\u00a0 The Lineman\u2019s gets a place in my hall of fame and is always in the top drawer of my tool chest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometime in the mid-90s\u00a0Gunnar gave me a Gerber Multi Tool.\u00a0 I had never owned any kind of multi tool before, always relying on the versatile Swiss Army knife in my pocket.\u00a0 So now I have this new tool, it comes in a nice sheath, but how to carry it around?\u00a0 I barely owned pants at this point in my life, and definitely didn\u2019t have any pants accessories like belts, so off to Target I went and I became a belt owner.\u00a0 The multi tool I have hanging at my side has changed a few times over the years–I remember one I lost when I reached over the side of the boat to release a big bowfin on Crystal Bay in Minnetonka.\u00a0 With the fish in the water at boatside, I grabbed the hook with the Gerber Tool and gave it a twist.\u00a0 The bowfin said “Guess again” as\u00a0he spun the other way, and multi tools are many things, but buoyant isn\u2019t one of them. I still have the same twelve-dollar belt.\u00a0 I figure I have worn this belt around 7,000 days, it is starting to show signs of wear.\u00a0 The strap thing at the buckle has been gone for five years but I\u2019m getting by without it.\u00a0 I think I can get another five years out of it.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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I can\u2019t imagine someone who is a steelhead angler not having a favorite hook sharpener.\u00a0 The nature of steelhead fishing causes a lot of hooks to become dull, and while I don\u2019t mind flat out replacing a dull hook, my first choice will always be to try to bring the point back.\u00a0 This stone has been in my vest pocket for many years, somehow it has avoided becoming lost, despite my bad habit of not zipping my vest pockets all the time.\u00a0 Another gift from Gunnar, he pointed out all the nice features, especially the leather sheath and the hook groove.\u00a0 He since gave me what he considers a to be a better one, but I don\u2019t like it as much for some reason.\u00a0 How this thing is still with me I don\u2019t know, since much of the hook sharpening goes on in the middle of a racing river with numb fingers.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Another thing that accompanies me on each steelhead outing is my Simms rain jacket.\u00a0 To most people, Simms is synonymous with quality fly fishing clothing, and this jacket lives up to the reputation.\u00a0 My experiences with their waders has been lukewarm at best\u2014one pair [it was their best at the time] leaked right out of the box.\u00a0 I sent them back to be repaired, they charged me $50 for the \u201crepair\u201d, and they leaked just as bad on the next trip.\u00a0 I patched the seam myself [voiding the warranty \u2013 ha!] and got a couple of years out of them.\u00a0 I\u2019ve gone through a lot of waders, I get a couple of years out of whatever pair I buy no matter how much they cost, I\u2019ve settled on Frogg Toggs as the best value-vs-quality wader out there.\u00a0 When Simms made this wading jacket though\u2014they got it right.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure if I have caught a steelhead in last 15 years when I WASN\u2019T wearing this jacket, and I will gladly buy another one when this one gives out.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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What are your favorite things?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Things I\u2019ve got a lot of things.\u00a0 Most of them are fishing things\u2014you know, rods, reels, boats. Some are tools, a few are guitars.\u00a0 A couple are kids.\u00a0 While I\u2019m not a hoarder, I do have a tough time throwing things out.\u00a0 Old shirts that are too small and ripped might still have some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1369,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions\/1379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}