A cold wet spring

This cold, moderately wet spring has been less than great for my normal outdoor activities so far. I haven’t been fishing yet, mostly because the lakes have been slow to clear their ice. I haven’t been shooting yet because the range where I usually go hasn’t totally cleared its snow and the open ground is still soggy.

We were looking to go hooligan dipnetting over the Memorial Day weekend, but the date came earlier than normal on the calendar this year. When I went looking for information on whether the hooligan were running in this area, I couldn’t even find mention of hooligan in the fishing reports or online at the Fish and Game website. When I called the Palmer office and asked what they were hearing, I was told that folks were beginning to see fish in the Susitna River, but their numbers were few and far between. We’ll probably make a trip toward the end of this week and see for ourselves what’s happening.

One thing I was able to do was help teach two different Hunter Information certification classes in the middle of the month. The first was a muzzleloading class and the second was a crossbow class the following week. I realize that not everyone can make a class they had signed up for, but both classes were small and, still one of the four students signed up for the muzzleloading class failed to show. One of the crossbow students failed to show (his father said he was sick) out of the five students signed up.

The shame of this is that we had three instructors for the muzzleloading class and two for the crossbow class – enough instructors for each class to handle a larger number of students. That’s the way it goes!

Everybody passed both classes with some good shooting in the muzzleloading proficiency shoot and perfect scores by everyone taking the crossbow class. All the students knew their stuff in addition to shooting well. These are the type classes I really enjoy helping teach.

I’ve also been working on some projects around the house. I mentioned last fall that I had bought a small aluminum trailer from a neighbor to use for hauling around my inflatable boat and, on occasion, my four-wheeler. My neighbor gave me a spare tire mounted on a wheel to go with the trailer, and I bought a spare tire carrier to carry the tire on the trailer. I had Greatland Welding repair the broken welds and add a small hand cranked winch for loading the inflatable and tying down the ATV.

I never got to work on the trailer over the winter because of weather and finally got the tire carrier mounted this past week. I still must get some parts to overhaul the rear ramp holders, but the trailer is usable as is. After checking tire pressures, I plan to use it to haul my snowblower and pressure washer in for service later this week.

I couldn’t get the small motorhome engine to start and the battery won’t charge, so I expect I’ll be visiting the auto parts store for a new battery too. I was hoping to have the RV available for a possible hooligan trip and may still if I can get to the store later this week.

We also had a service person come out to overhaul the fuel line system for our big oil heater this week. We had what seemed like non-stop problems with that heater over this past winter. As it turned out, the older fuel tank we were using had an accumulation of gunk in it from the previous owner and our use of the tank. I’m talking decades of use with no flushing of the tank.

After changing out the old-style fuel filters we were using and then still having to do multiple cleanings of the fuel filter system in the heater itself, we concluded that everything on the fuel line needed replaced. We had a new shut-off valve, a best quality fuel filter, and a new copper fuel line installed from the newly flushed out fuel tank all the way into the heater itself. After spending a pile of money on service calls, I’m hoping this upgrade will eliminate all of our heater problems for a while.

As I mentioned earlier, this spring’s weather is not good for the newly hatched grouse and ptarmigan chicks and probably isn’t helping the baby snowshoe hare survivals either. This fall will tell the tale!