Grandpa’s Folding Knife

I finally replaced my old folding knife I lost decades ago.  I do carry a small lightweight pocket knife daily.  But its no replacement for what I had lost.  

 

Long, long ago while cleaning out my Grandmother’s garage, I found the old worn out folding knife.  It was missing both side skins showing only the rivets.  The non stainless steel blade was rusty and black; it was four inches long.  The knife, or what was left of it was a large heavy beast of a knife, despite no side skins.  It was in terrible shape and nobody wanted it.  

I kept it, and got to working on it removing the rust, dust and grime.  However, the blade kept its greyish black appearance but took a wonderfully sharp edge. It was a carbon steel blade rather than stainless.  Scrap oak was used for the side skins.  I simply oiled the oak side skins with Hoppes gun oil  to protect the wood a little and give them some color.  Though it was not a locking blade, it took some effort to close the blade. 

 

I had this knife for years, and used it often, not only as a knife, but a screwdriver and a prybar.  I even used the butt end of the knife to pound a tent stake in place during a rain and wind storm in the BWCA.  And sadly, that is where I lost this knife.  

I had it in my jean jacket pocket behind the front canoe seat as Paul and I fished for walleyes.  We were along a rock island over about twenty feet of water.  The sun was setting bringing on an evening chill.  Reaching behind me for the jacket, I heard a “ploop” and watched my Grandfather’s pocket knife sink out of view into the inky depths.  I guess if there was a good place to lose this knife, Lake Three in the BWCA was a better place to lose it. He spent considerable time there long before it was designated as the BWCA.

 

I lost that knife in the mid 1980’s and after years of procrastinating, I finally ordered a replacement; the 110 Hunter Buck Knife.  The dimensions are a bit smaller than what I lost, it has brass ends rather than nickel.   I wonder how brass will hold up the way I will be using it.  It has a locking blade, which is a safe feature.  The price was right, so it will be a good replacement.  

Fishing Opener

 

The MN Fishing Opener is upon us!

 

Reflections

 

I am not sure how memories pop up into my head, but some how my cranium clay is stirred. A Minnesota Walleye Opener form years ago resurfaced while preparing for the big event.

 

My wife and I headed out on a cold May Saturday morning; our destination a particular reef to bobber fish along the edge. We got there only to find 12 other boats on the same reef. We dropped anchor away from the others. It seemed like an odd thing, a small community of boats arranged in a large oval of about 50 yards. We could make out the muffled conversations and laughter while intently watching our bobbers lay upon the glass smooth lake surface. It was rather peaceful with an occasional fish dragging the bobber under the surface.

 

The serene scene was shattered by a 20 foot Lund Pro V. The asshole boated through all of us at top speed over the reef and through the community of boats fishing along the reef's edge. Rather than going around us, he upset everyone. We all braced ourselves from the impending wake, violently rocking us all from side to side up and down, upsetting many beers into a frothy mess all over the boat floors.

One man who had a few beers in him dropped his cigarette into his lap along with his beer. He stood up slamming his fishing rod down while patting away the burning smoke, and flung a long heartfelt rant of expletives at the Lund Pro V driver.

This string of four letter words echoed off the island's rock surface and hung in the air trailing off across the reef following the wake of the offending Lund Pro V. He spewed what we all were thinking.

 

As the wake settled down, and the ranter calmed a bit sitting down opening another beer while relighting another smoke. A voice called out from across the reef.

A stern voice in a calm manner spoke out, "hey, watch your language. I am fishing with my boy."

 

Every occupant from all twelve boats all looked toward the man who spoke just to see the young boy who had witnessed his first curse words. In unison, we all laughed long and hard. 

 

The voice came from a man that looked no younger than 80 years old. His "boy", looked to be no younger than 60 years old.

 

That was one of the better fishing openers we had.

Not Caffeinated

To Caffeine or not to Caffeine.

 

The previous night’s spaghetti dinner mishap was only compounded by the morning’s coffee kerfuffle. I had the water heating up on the Coleman two burner stove in anticipation of camp coffee. Which is the best coffee. To build the pot, you throw out the coffee pot percolator parts and boil lake water and coffee grounds together. Anyway, I ransacked the food pack looking for the bag of coffee grounds. I asked Paul if he had brought the coffee. He simply stated, “ah, no, I thought you brought it.” 

 

We had this discussion about who brings coffee in this trip’s planning stage weeks prior. Neither one of us remembered who was to bring coffee. The correct answer should have been both of us. We braced for what lay ahead for us; we were both one pot a day coffee junkies. 

 

We prepared for our day and the coming days deep in the BWCA caffienless. We each popped a handful of Excedrin and set out for a day of walleye fishing. While in the canoe fishing, we debated the merits of canoeing/portaging back to the truck, drive into town, buy coffee and paddle/portage back. We estimated if we left at that particular time, we’d be back before dark. 

 

Our answer was in our heads. Our heads pounded with caffeine withdrawals. We were crabby. We were irritable. We hated the world. That and we were doing so well with canoe tied up to an old pine tree half submerge over an eighteen foot dropoff. Well, we estimated it to be eighteen feetish deep, we really didn’t know for sure. Nor did we care. From this spot during our “flee for caffeine debate”, we were catching walleyes. We quit counting after a couple dozen and managed to put 6 nice filleting sized walleyes on our stringer.

 

Our two companions, who were non-coffee heathens, paddled by. They had brought in the latest electronic gadgets to hone in on the fish. They stopped by noting the depth in front of us. They knew our caffeinless addled brain plight and took pleasure in it…or so we believed. They mocked us and bragged about their fishing adventures on the north side of the lake targeting specific depths. They annoyed us greatly. But we got the last laugh. Well we really didn’t laugh at that particular moment in great pain. 

 

They were smiling as big as life when they raised their stringer of two little walleyes. Paul scowled and hefted out our stringer of seven beautiful walleyes, he had caught one more during their annoyance parade secretly adding it to the stringer.

 

Funny, they paddled off in a huff not saying a word. And for a moment, the dark caffeine mind fog was lifted as we triumphed in our delight of out fishing our island mates and their electronic gadgets.