July Continues!

New Trailer Brake Actuator

It's been an interesting summer for sure.  The good news is that the garden is growing like crazy,  With the right amount of proper fertilizer, warm muggy days and warm nights, along with timely rains, the first planting of corn is tasseled out, the cucumbers are producing like crazy and the potatoes look fabulous.  I did speak too soon on the potato bugs as I am seeing a few these days.  As most of you know my boat has been a curse these last 12 months.  After getting the live well valve replaced and backing it into the shed the next morning there was a puddle of brake fluid under the surge brake actuator by the hitch.  Pulling the plug where one checks and fills the brake fluid, it was completely empty.  After filling it up again and letting it sit a few days, nothing leaked out but still there was something wrong.  My estimates on the trailer is it probably has 30,000 to 40,000 miles on it.  Last fall it got 4 new tires, a new axle, it isn't worth the chance to mess with the brakes.  Looking online an original OEM Dexter actuator replacement was about $350 by the time you add shipping and taxes.  Last fall when I needed an axle I was given Kremer Services as the "official" RangerTrail service center.  I called them and it wouldn't be till the end of July before they could order one and get me in.  the service guy was going to call me back but never did.  Last Thursday there was a "MEGA" fishing garage sale in Lindstrom, MN, near Frankie's.  Deciding to go it would also gave me the opportunity to stop and discuss my new problem.  The sale was a complete dud although I did buy 7 pairs of Green Bay Packer socks for $20, but that was about it.  Stopping at Frankie's, Deb was behind the counter as I told her my boat is lonely already for your shop!  Discussing the latest issue she said, yes we do these all the time, in fact I have the actuators in stock.   Well put my name on one and I'll be back on Monday.  She promised me they would put it in while I waited.  On Monday the boat was dropped off and instead of waiting around it was a great opportunity to drive to Burnett Creamery just east of Grantsburg, Wisconsin about 35 minutes away.  Uffda, their cheese curds were out of this world.  Freshly bagged from the morning they were still warm, squeaked like crazy, and had the best flavor of any curds.  Ended up with 4 bags of curds, some 14 year old cheddar, and 4 rounds of 3 pepper Colby cheese, incredible.   Next stop was to cross country it to Cumberland Wisconsin and stop at Louie's Finer Meats for their amazing homemade bratwursts.  Got 3 flavors, Packer Brats which has sauerkraut and cheese in them, Pickle and Cheese, and plain Beer Brats.  Before getting to Louie's, Jared from Frankie's called and said the trailer is done.  Incredibly the charges on fixing the trailer were $410, a heck of a deal considering it was done right and I wouldn't have to find a guy who knew what they were doing to bleed the brakes.  As well it was very noticeable once pulling, it's possible that the brakes had been going bad for a while.  Well now they are fixed.  I ended up giving some cheese to Deb as she asked if I would pick up some of that 3 pepper stuff.

Bill's 18 inch Smallie

Last Wednesday Bill Lundeen was in town, as mentioned in the last post.  He said he'd like to go fishing and thought a river trip would be nice so he showed up at noon, we loaded the Jon boat on the UTV and headed to the river.  Admittedly my routine is pretty much the same, run up about 4 miles then fish the north side of the river with crankbaits while drifting down.  As stated, the water temperature is quite high and usually my river fishing is done in August but I am surprised at the few smallmouth we have been catching.  Finally Bill hooks into a nice one, we were probably double the distance from the shore as we usually are, maybe this is trying to tell us something!  Never the less this was an interesting experience for Bill, one that was all my pleasure.  One of the best places to fish is where the shoreline rocks meet deeper water and the fish hang in the small areas of calmer water next to the main current, this hasn't been very productive either.  It's a fast paced fishing experience as one is drifting with the current about 2 to 2.5 mph, so everything is fast.  It was nice that Bill caught the first fish and the way it was going, maybe the last fish.  After passing the good areas we anchored just downstream from Cloquet Island to fish with worms but nothing was biting.  Giving it 20 minutes we moved downstream to another deeper eddy and anchored.  After about 15 minutes something hit my bait but after lifting the rod and feeling nothing I set it down.  Another tap tap, another lifting the rod, another nothing.  Deciding to reel it in to check the bait, the hook finally connected with a nice smallmouth bass.  Apparently the fish had the bait and was swimming upstream with it making it virtually impossible to detect.  After deciding to reel in the circle hook did it's job and fish on!!!  It's an interesting way to catch a fish but it works.  Once again zero rough fish caught, not even a catfish.  I am getting to think that the real trick is to get up into the shallow areas where the fish come up to feed, like off of John's dock.  Checking it out it's only about 3 feet but Jake and myself's best day was there.  You would think the deeper holes would hold more fish but that seems not to be the case.

Second Smallie on a bottom crawler rig

After fishing with Bill I noticed that the ceramic inside ring of one guide was missing.  Thorne Brothers fixes these so on my way back from the garage sale last week a detour on Central Ave to Thorne's I dropped of the rod.  This Monday when returning from Frankie's they called to say my rod was done.  Another detour and picked up the rod, a Fenwick HMX casting rod, not an overly expensive rod but worth fixing for sure.  The guide was a single foot guide, small diameter and quite honestly it's almost impossible to even tell which guide they had fixed.  The workmanship is excellent, and it was even a matching guide.  The next thing was the price, only $12.  I felt so guilty I had to buy a bait!  Nice job and highly recommend them for rod repair.  The other thing happening is fixing up the river boat.  When out with Bill it was very difficult loading the boat on the trailer.  When I got the boat my brother-in-law had side guides mounted but they were not very good and the brackets became more of a problem than what they were worth, so they got removed.  Fast forward, this spring the thought was to weld a plate to the trailer then using better u bolts, that would be more secure.  Neighbor Brandon volunteered to weld the trailer, so we did it last Thursday night.  After looking at it we decided to weld the side guides directly on the trailer, using some angle iron to brace it.   They look pretty good and now will stand up to getting the boat straight on the trailer better. At the same time the winch didn't function well.  Brandon was going to fix the front roller stop however decided to simply move the winch down.  This worked but the winch handle was still too long and hit the boat on that last turn.  Ordering a new winch from Amazon, one with a strap, it needed modifying in the form of a new mounting hole on the trailer as well, decided to shorten the winch handle as it was also to long.  This is sort of a pain but a few trips to the hardware store and getting out the seldom used drill press, it is a work of art! The next thing is mounting some navigation lights which are done and just needs to be hooked up.  New guides, winch, lights, now all we need is the fish to cooperate better as I'd hate to say fishing off of John's dock is more productive!