A Little of This, And a Little of That

With all this white stuff still hanging around, coupled with the record-cold temperatures we're still having, and everything that is frozen, starting with the North Landing River and including, as of first thing this morning, the water pipes in my house, it's a bit difficult to even think about fishing. However, I'm going to try.

Before going any further, though, let me just say that we dodged a bullet this morning with our frozen pipes. My first move was to get some space heaters aimed inside all the kitchen and bathroom vanities. Then we took a couple of hair dryers to the cold-water intake lines therein.

When those steps failed to show any noticeable difference, I started calling some plumbers. I quickly figured out that the commercial avenue wasn't going to work; they all were slammed with earlier service calls--more than 40 at one of them I called.

One commercial venture, however, was kind enough to give me the name and phone number of an independent plumber with an outstanding approval record, and he really was helpful. After letting me know I was only No. 3 on his list for the day, he told me to crank up my heat in the house higher than normal, keep all the doors to the bathrooms and vanities open, and continue using the space heaters and hair dryers until he arrived.

As things worked out, in the neighborhood of an hour later, every faucet in the house suddenly started running freely. I subsequently called the plumber back and notified him, then asked what he recommended I do to prevent another incident until warmer weather returns. His instructions were to keep all the bathroom and vanity doors open at night, keep one faucet dripping slowly both upstairs and down, and not to push the heat back to a lower setting at night, as I routinely do, until it warms up around here.

This is the first time in all the years we've lived in this house that frozen pipes ever have been a problem. Hopefully, it also will be the last. You can be certain of two things: First, I will keep this independent plumber's advice handy, and second, his phone numbers will remain at my fingertips all the time.

With all of that said, let me now get back to at least trying to think about fishing for a few minutes. What I want to pass along is nothing big; rather, it's just something I found last evening while doing a little online research into another baitcast reel.

I happened across The Old Farmer's Almanac predictions for best fishing days in 2018. Here is that list:

January 1, 16-31
February 15-March 1
March 17-31
April 15-29
May 15-20
June 13-28
July 12-27
August 11-26
September 9-24
October 8-24
November 7-23
December 7-22

Incidentally, after about a week of looking, I finally found a reel like I wanted and ordered it last night before going to bed. I had been looking hard at three different ones, all made by different manufacturers, and I liked all of them about the same. The tipping point for me, though, was that one of them offered a far better drag than either of the other two.

Did I need it? No. Was that ever a consideration? Not really. Was the price right? Yep. Will I use it? You can bet on it.

And finally, I also must pay my utmost thanks to the friend who volunteered to shovel my driveway afternoon before last. He accomplished in about an hour and a half what, when I did it the last time, took me between four and five hours to finish. I've known for a good spell now that I'm not even remotely close to the "hoss" I used to be (not that I ever was much of one), and my friend proved it, once and for always. "You're the best, Shipmate, and I'll be eternally grateful...not just for all the shoveling but for the good fishing conversation we had, too."