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River King . . . the world's finest fishing and working catarafts |
The Cataraft Chronicles The following is a chapter from my running journal of the six month effort to redesign the rowing frame on our Kingfisher catarafts. Here you will find an almost daily update of my current sea trials / shakedown / vacation trip to the Gulf Coast to try the new design in several different types of fishing water.
You can find the other chapters here: Cataraft Chronicles, Table of Contents
(Note: I am writing this on Sunday evening, March 14. It's been 4 days and I still have not been able to take care of my e-mail or update the website. So this installment will have several new days on it. I know I have some important messages from the office. I'm now at an RV park in Everglades City where the owner allowed me to use her telephone to get my mail. I logged on OK and Netscape said I had 26 messages. The first 6 downloaded fine, then the seventh started taking forever. I guess someone sent me a long one. After several minutes, message 7 was only about 30% complete and then the modem disconnected. So I gave up and left so she could return to her TV show which she politely turned off while I was using her phone.
Got up this morning and made coffee and cleaned up in the van. Headed out early to find a motor for the boat. A few miles down the beach (east) I started to pass many boat dealers, mostly on the water as I had hoped. Pulled in at Adventure Marine in Fort Walton Beach. John is the outboard specialist there and in his office I explained what I was looking for. He just happened to have a '98 model OMC, 15 hp, 4 cycle, tiller steering unit, still in the crate. We went down the road to the warehouse which had about 30 outboards in crates. I first tried a Yamaha with similar specs but several hundred dollars more. Put the OMC on the transom and it seemed like it really belonged there, especially at the price he quoted which was almost $1000 less than the same motor was priced in Sandpoint.
We went back to his office to do the paperwork. Before leaving I took a photo of the happy salesman. Blacky and Craig, this could be you.
I then immediately headed for the nearest outdoor store to get my Florida license, $32 for an annual, like Montana in the '80s. After that I found my way to Joe's Inlet where I was told I would find a good boat ramp. Here's the boat, just after the first launch with the motor idling. It started first pull, just like John said it would.
I was pretty busy checking things out here and didn't get any good pictures underway. The boat had pretty good speed but did not plane. Instead, the prop cavitated as I approached full throttle. I think this is because the frame needs to be further forward over the hulls. The motor weighs almost 100 pounds and with my 185 added in the rear, I think the boat is a bit stern heavy with no-one else on board. Also, I'm sure the upward curvature of the hulls at the stern creates some suction.
However, the boat turns very well and seems quite stable at half throttle which was still moving along pretty well. The next step is to experiment with the fore and aft balance of the boat - i.e. moving the frame forward several inches over the hulls.
But that will have to wait till next week because my "Bluegrass Unlimited" magazine says there's a bluegrass festival this weekend in Estero Beach, Florida which looks like about an eight hour drive from here. The only thing I like as much as fishing is playing my banjo so I just can't pass up a chance to do some picking on this trip. I'm way up in the panhandle now and Estero is in southern Florida between Naples and Fort Meyers.
Done with the initial motor test I pull out of the water at about 3:00 PM and head for the Interstate again. Before leaving I take one more shot of the boat, loaded up and ready to go, with the motor on the transom, (which I hope will travel OK). It looks pretty massive back there doesn't it?
Leaving Fort Walton Beach, Florida after the first motor test.
I drove till pretty late today. Pulled off the freeway well after dark near the
intersection of I-10 and I-75 for gas. The guy at the next pump notices my boat. He's a
fly fisherman returning from a day fishing near Apalachicola. He has a 5 pound redfish in
the cooler and says they are plentiful near there. He looks at my inflatable hulls and
suggests I watch out for shallow Oyster beds. He tells me the waters off the west coast of
Florida deepen at an average rate of one foot per mile. Ominous. I drive south for another
hour and a half and stay the nite in a KOA campground near Ocala on I-75. I fall asleep
wondering if Oysters are as sharp as the lava in northeast Oregon.
I didn't know it then but I should have taken the time to update the website and get and answer my e-mail this morning. But that takes a couple of hours and I wanted to get a good campsite at the bluegrass festival this afternoon; so I showered and shaved at the campground and hit the road early again.
This was the second time I ever stayed at a KOA, the first was in Lafayette, two days earlier. I don't know if they are all like this but these two places were immaculately clean and well cared for. I bought a KOA membership card for an extra $10 which qualifies me for a 10 percent discount at any KOA campground from now on.
Driving down I-75 shows Florida poorly. The skies were smoggy near Tampa. Lot's of 18 wheelers on the road and few of them drive slower than 70 mph. Seems like lots of construction is happening in central Florida. Whenever I drive on the East coast it always surprises me at first how rude people are. Then Sandpoint is pretty laid back. No one's in much of a hurry there and people always seem to let you in if you need to change lanes. I guess I'm spoiled.
I finally arrived at the bluegrass festival in the afternoon and spent some time setting up camp. The camping here was "rough" meaning no hookups for electricity or waste and definitely no telephones in sight (so no e-mail). Canadians Barry and Shirley were parked next to me (that's their motorhome in the background) and Barry took this shot of me after I had my $16 K-Mart awning rigged and my $12 Home Depot indoor / outdoor carpet rolled out on the grass. You can just see one end of my Mexican hammock attached to the front door hinge.
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Stylin' at the Estero Beach Bluegrass Festival. The weather here was in the high 70s
during the day and down into the 50s at night. Definitely shorts weather for this Idaho
boy.
I go to bluegrass festivals mostly to pick tunes with and meet the other folks who show up. Every part of the country has it's own flavor and the south is no exception. Here there are few women who pick, although every guy has his wife along to cook and take care of camp and/or the kids - it's a southern tradition I guess. In the northwest, there are many female pickers and the atmosphere at most festivals is relaxed. Here, the guys pick aggressively and sing pretty loud. A lot of them are very good singers and their southern drawl sounds really good with this type of music. When it's your turn to play a lead break you better step right up and do it - as it is seldom offered. Although they play mostly the same bluegrass tunes here as anywhere else, the musical experience is like driving a car in New York City; it can be intimidating - but when you get into the spirit of it, it can be a lot of fun. They really got a kick out of my yankee rendition of "Play Dixie for Me".
There are many Canadians pickers who spend winter in Florida attending the many
festivals that are held here during the season. I met a guy, Leonard, from Ontario who
held his fiddle in the crook of his arm instead of under his chin. He had some great
fiddle tunes that sounded pretty good with my frailing style banjo.
The festival continued today with stage performances by several of the regional bluegrass bands. The stage setup was at Florida's Koreshan State Historical Park. With the warm afternoon breeze, the good tunes and gently swaying palm trees it was hard to believe that a few days ago I was winterbound in Idaho.
Here the Florida group "Tater Hill" performs.
As is usual for me, I only watched a couple of the groups perform then I walked back to
the campground to socialize. Saturday nite was more pickin and meeting new folks. I turned
in about midnight but a few of the southern boys on the other side of the campground got
to drinkin and singin and kept everyone awake - on and off - till about 4:00 AM when
someone got mad enough to yell at them to shut up. Gratefully they did.
A strong wind came up this morning at dawn from the south. It woke me up as it pulled my awning stakes out of the ground and threw them against the van. Word was that a storm was coming through and the day's stage performances might be cancelled so I decided to move on. I was anxious to work on the cavitation problem anyway and I wanted to find an uncrowded boat ramp near a good marine supply store in case I needed some hardware. Once I get the boat running properly I can get serious about fishing.
I stowed the awning, broke camp and pulled out by 9:00 AM. I drove slowly southward down Highway 41, then through Marco where I got lost in the maze of curving streets downtown. This place looked a lot smaller than Naples and Fort Meyers on the map but it is full of people, mostly rich it seems. Signs announce new condos in the 350's to 1 million range. I jockey for position in the narrow streets with Jaguars, BMW's and new 'vettes. My laptop map comes to the rescue again and I'm soon outa there and headed south to Everglades City.
I don't know where the day went but it's getting late. After several tries I finally find an RV park with an open pad and pull in. The manager kindly lets me retrieve (part of) my e-mail in her kitchen (see above). My parking slot is close by the laundry room so I do my weeks worth of T-shirts, socks and underwear.
Then I walk a short way down the road to a small roadside bar. Dinner, like the thatched roof screened-in bar, right on the waterway, is real south Florida - Conch (pronounced conk) fritters, Grouper sandwich, fries and 2 buds. The bar's pretty empty as the storm finally rolls in from the southwest flapping the canvas awnings. The selections on the juke box are right there too. It's pretty much Hank Williams, Leonard Skinerd or the Doobie Brothers - take your pick. I go for Hank and feel good about my choice as that seems to please the three bikers at the pool table who might have had a few more buds than me.
I've been in Florida for 4 days now and I've only put the boat in the water once. I
decide to head up to Rosie's (Rosie Fox, a friend who has offered me a roof and shower
whenever I'm in Florida) house in Hobe Sound tomorrow. There I can get e-mail, catch up on
business stuff and have a base to work on the boat).
I contact Rosie at her office and she say's to come on up. She won't be home till 7:00 or so so I take the slow way through the Everglades. It rained on and off last nite and rain showers are coming by every 30 minutes or do. But the air is warm and the sun shines between showers. The humidity is heavy in the air. Hey, this is a jungle.
The few roads through the Everglades have waterways along one or both sides and it seems like there's lots of wildlife here; many types of strange birds, swirls in the water, etc. I had my Florida license so I stopped to bank fish at the next likely hole.
On my way down to the water I noticed a rather large alligator type thing in the grass. I showed him my cutomary northwest angling courtesy and I let him have this hole since he was definitely here first. He appeared to be about 7 feet long.
I drove on a ways further and noticed that every hole had a few gators and if I wanted to fish I'd have to share, which seems to be the custom out here. I then came to a pretty big hole with several fish of some kind rising out in the middle. The urge to fish was stronger than my aversion to crowded water. Besides, the gators were all on the opposite side of the creek and seemed to be napping, so I gave it a try.
Here you can see the rise rings. I could see the fish as they came to the surface and they appeared to be from 8 to about 20 inches long. The gator on the right is about 10 feet long.
The fish were very selective. I tried every thing in my fly box and never got a hit - from the gators or the fish. I can say they were definitely not taking blue winged olives. Finally some type of sunfish hit a large green drake mayfly nymph on a slow retrieve about 6 feet down. I say some type of sunfish because it had several sharp spines on it's belly as well as the usual ones on it's back. I guess if you live in this hole you don't last too long without some serious protection.
I arrived at Rosie's after dark, ready to do some boat adjusting tomorrow, Tuesday.
f you have more questions, you can reach us at:
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River King Catarafts
Port Ludlow, WA
Telephone: 360.316.1170
Or, send us E-mail: info@cataraft.com
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