My last birthday was the big 50 and although I don't look it, (at least that's MY opinion.. lol) my adult son's Michael & Mitchell are now calling me an "old fart!" I'm happily married (20+yrs) to a wonderful lady.
I'm a Field Service Tech. by trade. If it uses low voltage wiring I have installed and or fixed it. Alarms, intercoms, satellite, cable, & lots of other systems.
I was raised in the San Fernando Valley, a suberb of L.A. in So. Cal.
I've been fishing sence I was a kid. I used to ride my sting-ray bike miles to fish the local ponds or take the bus out to the beach and fish the pier.
I built my first rod as a teenager. It was a very heavy,(both weight & power) very long, ugly beast of a rod and I loved it! I used a solid 7 1/2ft green bamboo cane for the blank, bent wire coathanger to make guides & tip, & wrapped it using dacron backing. For a kid with no clue it worked quite well for still fishing large cats. I wish I still had that rod!
Got Dale's book "Advanced Custom Rod Building" as a gift in the mid 80's and in 2 or 3 years built more than a few "deckhand" style inshore rods from scratch and tore appart & rebuilt every old cheepy K-Mart or garage sale rod I could get my hands on just to make them better and put fancy crosswraps and "name" weaves on them. I could never draw even a stick-man or paint by numbers but I found great joy in thread art!
I moved to Sacramento, CA in 1988 but was unable to bring my rod lathe & other rod building stuff so I gave it to my buddy who got me started. For reasons that still evade me I didn't pick the craft back up until about 5yrs ago but been going gang busters (except this year) ever since.
I've built casting & spinning rods from ultra-light to 40lb class stand-up & trolling but only 1 fly rod and it was a light spin/fly combo and not a true fly only rod. Although I have built rods for clients I concider myself a hobbiest not a pro by any means. However, I've found I love to teach what I have learned to others and at times I love that even more than building. Maybe I'll write a book or make a couple DVD's someday. Ah, but there is so much more to learn!
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"Don't just stand there! What ya doing, waiting to be milked?" quote from my dad.
Glad to see you up and running Ray. This is possibly the friendlyest site I have been on so far. Great bunch of folks here. We need to put together a trip down to their waters some day. They already know your boat story so I am sure they will take precautions. LOL
Frankly, anything that will pull my string is a good thing. If I'm not going to cook it I can always put it back. I love trout, bass, crappie, perch, and catfish and until I learned to fish the salt a 40lb channel catfish was the largest fish I landed. I still have yet to catch a largemouth bass bigger than 5lb and have yet to catch any steelhead, walleye, musky, or gar, or a big laketrout. I rarely get out to the ocean anymore but that will change! I've successfully targeted most of the inshore species like calico bass, halibut, rockfish, yellowtail, 1 small tuna, and of course, SHARKS which at one time were my absolute favorite prey. A nice white seabass still eludes me as well as a black seabass or grouper.
One day I hope to get where I can target some exotics like dorado and someday try my hand at BIG GAME like Bigeye tuna and the sailfish species.
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"Don't just stand there! What ya doing, waiting to be milked?" quote from my dad.
Hey Ray - down here we call Dorado "Mahi-Mahi"... and when you see them every other day, they're not "exotic" anymore... lol Sailfish, Marlin, Hamerheads, cobia, King Macs, Grouper... get yer gear together and come on down! lol I got a spare bedroom!
What do you mean when you say So Cal what does this mean?
My girl friend and I are turning the big 50 in 2 more years and I can't wait but she is having a real hard time of it. 50 is just a number and means nothing, what does matter is how you feel and how you make the most of your time.
As the old saying goes you are only as old as the person you are feeling and he is 3 years younger then me.
Hey Ray, great bio. Its great to know alittle something about everyone. Ive caught ALOT of catfish (living in Iowa all these 39 years), but I also caught a biggin, 36 lb flathead on a wally diver crankbait and 20 lb braid line. That is one I will never forget!
