When I was a kid, I used to talk to my dad about building boats. Every winter, we would decide that we would get boat plans during the summer and build something, and every summer we would forget about it. Part of it had to do with me, I will admit. I was a kid, and my attention was pretty flighty. For the most part, I enjoyed spending time with my friends more than with my father. Nevertheless, even if I had been there every day, I doubt we would have been able to put our wooden boat building plan into action. My dad worked so much that he scarcely had time to look at a boat plan, much less build it. So between the two of us, my childhood drifted away with no boat building.
As a matter of fact, we never got around to building a boat until I had moved out on my own. We hadn't gone sailing together in several years. When I was a kid, we used to go sailing all the time, but once I moved away, my dad gave it up. He didn't have the time, or so he said. One day, however, I was looking through my old books that had been sitting in a box since I first moved away. Boy was I surprised when I found some boat plans among them. There were several different blueprints, designs that we had bought back when I was in high school. I called him up and we met up for coffee. When I mentioned the boat plans, he was interested. He looked them over and looked up at me. That is when we decided to build a boat together.
We decided to start with something simple. We found some boat plans for a 16' wooden Dory, and figured we would go with those. A Dory is a small, stable boat. We would be able to build it in the garage and it could be easily transported by car. Working with the boat plans was harder than I anticipated, however. My dad had a good bit of woodworking equipment in his garage, but neither of us had used it in years. There were definitely a few frustrating evenings before we really started to make some progress. When we finally got that boat together, however, it was worth all the effort. It really was quite a beauty sitting there, freshly painted and ready to put to sea. It made me want to build more boats!
Peter Basset runs his own home based marketing business but in his spare time writes articles about his passions cars, boats and huntng.
Why not visit one of his websites full of Discover Boats
http://www.discoverboats.net


Advice On Choosing Hunting Guns
When I used to go hunting with my dad, we paid very little attention to what hunting guns we used. We had had the same hunting rifles in the family for at least a generation or two, and we figured that they worked well enough. My hunting gun was a single shot bolt action rifle, probably an antique. It worked pretty well for my purposes, but I have to admit that it was a little bit tricky at times. It would jam up sometimes, and the pull was so hard on the trigger that it was hard to time the shot exactly right.
I was so used to shooting with that hunting gun that I had no idea if I was missing anything. I decided to find out. The other day, I went out to purchase hunting guns. I went to a hunting and camping gear supplies store. You see, I needed a lot of hunting equipment for the season. This season was about to open, and I was out of all kinds of things. I needed waders, a nice warm jacket, a new sleeping bag, and even some camouflage. Hunting guns were just one more item on my list. They turned out to be a very important one.
I ended up getting a 308 hunting rifle. It was a much higher caliber than what I'd been using before, but I figured that it would make the job easier. With the old 22 hunting guns we used to use, it would often take several shots to bring down a deer. You would shoot it once and then it would bound away. Then you would spend all day hard following the trail just to shoot it again with the hunting gun and bring it down.
With the nice new hunting gun, I was pretty sure that making a kill would be easier this year than ever. However, I felt like new hunting guns needed new hunting accessories. I decided to get a hunter rifle scope to try out. When I first thought about getting a scope, I was a little bit hesitant because I thought it would take all the sport out of it. Nevertheless, last year I didn't get a single kill. I wanted to make sure that that wouldn't happen again this year, So I decided to get the best hunting equipment that I could. Now I will see whether modern hunting guns and hunting scopes are all they're cracked up to be.
Ian Botham runs his own online sports goods mail order business as well as several sports related websites.
Get great advice and Hunting Fishing tips and techniques.
http://www.huntingfishingonline.com


MAKING HOMEMADE CATFISH AND CARP BAITS – Making pellets different
Pellets catch fish period! But what do you do if they are losing effectiveness as a standard pellet? Here’s a few ideas...
Trout pellets have been historically, the mainstay of many carp and catfish fishermen for generations as hook baits and economical ground bait. This very popular pellet has achieved a great track record of big fish catching success, not least because it is formulated for fish rather than animals and so is more able suitable as bait, with attractive oils, and providing for many fish dietary and digestive requirements and so on, although not perfectly of cause for catfish or carp.
There are so many pellets as a result of demand to create a never-ending bewildering array of new fishing bait alternatives. It is a fact that baits in general can lose their initial effectiveness after a varying period of captures. Therefore, the more bait changes or even small tweaks can keep bites coming just like any fresh new bait when first introduced can.
Many pellets have a binding agent or effect. Often this is a gluten containing meal or flour or a similar type of ingredient. Many cheaper pellets have a higher cereal content and lower protein content. Often these pellets also have lower quality oil content and the protein source is less digestible by the fish. Trout pellets are often used as a supplemental feed as part of a mixture of more expensive pellets in modern European carp fishing.
Trout pellets have been scorned because they do not have the profile of nutrition ideal for carp and there are dietary concerns of sorts here, but this has never stopped carp from devouring shed loads of them. The good old trout pellet is one of those baits that is a reliable dissolving bait for many fishing applications and these days they are used alongside specifically designed carp pellets and other fish rearing pellets with exceptional fish catching properties of attraction and digestibility including certain salmon pellets and halibut pellets.
Trout pellets have many common nutritional features in general and have never let me down as attractor feed or as part of ground bait mixtures. Chumming with a variety of sizes and qualities of pellets is the common modern trend here in the UK where popularity of pellets has exploded.
In the States, catfish pellets are frequently as easily available as trout pellets are here in the UK and have many nutritional similarities to trout and carp pellets as opposed to pet feeds or animal feeds like pelleted sheep feeds, rabbit feeds etc. “Dynamite baits” are making the infamous ‘halibut ‘marine’ pellets more available in the States and when used in quantity can be very effective however, very often this can make fish highly ‘dependant’ on them on certain waters where used almost exclusively.
In circumstances where these pellets have ‘had their day’ and results have slowed down there is lots you can do. Often the first signs of pellets initial effectiveness reducing is how you are hooking fish. Perhaps hook holds get much lighter and far more bites are missed or do not develop into confident ‘takes.’ You may lose more fish due to ‘hook-pulls’ with fish being more lightly hooked.
You can begin by changing the sizes of pellet you use to smaller ones. Hook rig changes like changing ‘hair-rig’ hair length, hook length and hook size are simple starting points. Very often sharpening your hook far more with a diamond sharpener makes a massive difference and very few anglers really take the time with this extremely important detail. More fish are lost by fish being very lightly hooked on a rig and being able to get off the hook as a result of a few shakes of the head, or even up-side down body spins by the more ‘clued-up’ crafty carp!
With catfish the same situation can occur where they learn to be wary of pellets – despite their previous success, but this happens with 99 percent of baits used in general by fishermen. There are very few baits which when ‘hammered’ consistently on a single water consistently produce the biggest fish year in year out, but there are many variables involved here too!
Catfish can be caught very effectively on sinking (or floating for that matter) catfish or trout pellets. Most anglers prefer baits that stay on the hook for longer, so sinking baits are used more. Many fishermen overlook other possibilities to consider, many are very simple. Dog or cat biscuits or cube of luncheon meat or piece of fish, shellfish or prawn alongside a pellet bait on a ‘hair’ (or 2 or more) keeps results coming.
Where it seems that pellets have become so established that they appear to be the ‘dominant bait’ to the average angler, then his results may tend to be ‘average’ too unless he is an outstanding fisherman anyway. To get better than average results on pellets can just be a case of a simple dip or bait soak as you would use for boilies or in fact as a dip bait itself. Dips and soaks are used with very good reason, boosting attraction of all kinds of hook baits and raising catch rates for many anglers.
Ordinary peanut oil, or canned fish oil as a dip can get the fish ‘going’ even better or perhaps try mixing together oils of different types. Combining various vegetable oils and fish oils for example. ‘Taste’ is the dominant sense in catfish and strong tasting ingredients usually reserved for use in making carp paste and boilies can be made into dips by adding liquids. Cheap pellets soaked in fish protein and amino acid supplements for example. Crustacean extracts classically provide exceptional attraction for both carp and catfish and make your pellets unique.
Even evaporated milk or coconut milk can be used effectively and catfish like carp seem to love sweeteners of a wide variety from sugars and molasses to sweet products like lactose, Talin or even canned fruit syrups as a cheap option. The effectiveness of ‘energy drinks’ is another quick alternative if you have some in the cool box while fishing and fancy trying this angle.
The author has many more fishing and bait ‘edges’ up his sleeve. Every single one can have a huge impact on catches. (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.)
By Tim Richardson.