Hey stagers,
I have a idea for some fishing jugs and would welcome your input.
My idea is to use 20 oz Mt Dew bottle ( high visibility). My wife does sewing for people and has lots of small spools called bobbins. I was thinking that if I wrapped the fishing line on the bobbin and only pulled out enough line needed and then screwed on the cap. I could set the hook depth as needed. When not in use the line can be rewrapped around the bobbin and hook and all could be stored in the bottle?
I dought that this is an original idea, but I've never seen it before.
Should I need to attach a set line the Anker line can be wrapped around the bottle. With the Anker fully secured in the bottle.
Your opinions and/or experience with this setup would be greatly appreciated.
Commander Bell out

I'm trying to get some new ideas on what to eat for breakfast. So, I thought I would ask my buddies, you can never go wrong there.

I rotate my breakfast from 2 Engish Muffins with honey butter, & peanut butter on them. or 4 pieces of toast, with the same toppings. Or, 2 packages of instant oatmeal with raspberries and either a banana, apple, or some other fruit or berry in it. Or, two kinds of cereals in a bowl with the same toppings. And usually, on a Sunday morning, we will have eggs, pancakes, French toast, or waffles, with some kind of meat with them.

What do you guys have?

I’m wondering if I should have went with blue instead of green since that’s one of the bow colors. I really would like to have a light on the bow not to leave on but long enough to keep my bearings then turn it off. They will be able to see my red and green that way. The boat had 2 led lights mounted on each corner of the transom facing forward. I hooked them up and didn’t use them until I came in late one evening and turned them on at the boat ramp. Those things lit up everything I could see deer past the parking lot. Made it nice loading up at night. I’ve left them on it and running them to the new switch panel with everything else. They’re old lights but made are they bright.

You may assume this is just a tall tale, or a fantasy of my imagination but keep reading. I was a teenager, and think it was when I was a junior in high school. I had a date on Saturday night, so when I got home from work, I showered as quickly as I could, dressed and hit the road.

It is 12 to 14 miles into town, then another 10 or 12 miles out to where my date lived. I was late and was speeding to make up for lost time. The road from where I lived to town was mountainous, and required one drive slower, but when I got up on top and the level prairie, I could fly.

Well, that was what I was doing, and driving at least 70 mph on gravel roads. On the prairie portion, the road was still gravel, but I could see for miles and had an open road. As I am sailing along, up ahead I see a rattlesnake crossing the gravel road that I will soon be passing. Now, ordinarily, all gravel roads around home are paved with gravel. This was the same, and there are two ruts, or where all the gravel and rocks have been either sunken down or tossed aside. This
was a single lane road with two ruts clear of most gravel. Suddenly, up ahead, this rattler not only was covering the road and even before the rut, its body also was across all that and the right-hand rut and some gravel as well. The snake was the largest I had ever seen. I have killed 6 ft snakes and they are big. But this one was even larger! I was going too fast to stop or to even lock my brakes and slide over him. I intended to run over the snake with my wheels locked, and that was kill him with my tires, but I was going too fast for even that trick.
As soon as I could stop which was maybe 20 to 30 yards beyond where the snake was crossing, I stopped and walked back. Now the bar ditches were grown over with Johnson Grass. I was not going to enter that tall grass with a wounded and angry giant rattlesnake. When I reached where I thought he was, I would throw rocks in the area to get the snake to rattle. However, I assume he was injured somewhat and there wasn’t one rattle coming from him.
Since I am already late for my date, and I still must stop in town at a service station to call my date on a party line to tell her I was on the way, I gave up the snake hunt and left the area. I never knew if I had fatally injured it or not. But calculating the distance this snake stretched from one side of the road to the other it must have been 7 or 8 feet long. I suppose we were both quite lucky that day, at least if it survived being run over by a car going 70 mph. Just Sayin…RJS

I have been posting stories for almost three years, and just suddenly remembered this incident that could have been potentially deadly for three men, one of which was my father.

I am not sure of the actual year, but I am probably 10 to 12, and it is winter time. The ground is frozen and partially covered with sleet. Suddenly, the gas flow pipe from Lone Star Gas Company delivering natural gas to repressure the field burst. It sent a plume of gas, natural gas condensate, and water at least 20 feet or higher into the air.

Dad, the field manager, Jesse Shields, and Buck Pickett immediately jumped in to fix this leak and get it under control, despite the absolute danger. Lone Star Gas crews could have managed but they would have been several hours in arriving and it needed immediate attention.

Two other men were sent in opposite directions to stop all auto traffic coming from either direction to prevent their cars from setting off an inferno! Dad and his boss were immediately digging a pit around the eruption so they could fit a saddle clamp over the rupture and stop it.

While there was gas in a vapor, liquid or condensate gas, and water, it was all quite flammable. While I am at most 12 years old, I knew enough about our business I recognized the real chance that if it got one spark, all three men would be incinerated immediately, and would not have a chance to survive the possible inferno! Talk about scared, I could hardly breathe. This break was only about 15 or 20 feet on the other side of our driveway and garage.

Although all three men were completely soaked with drip gas or ‘midnight ethyl’, they were digging as fast as they could to expose the area of the break. This was a 2 ½ to 3-inch black pipe and had built up enough water extracted from the air to have an ice plug which was the reason for the break. They did this as quickly as possible because any other help called upon would take hours to arrive. This leak had to be stopped as quickly as possible.

As soon as they had cleared a space around and under the pipe for a clear work area, they placed this saddle clamp and then tightened the two or three bolts on either side to securely fasten the clamp over the rupture and stop the leak. It is not every day you see something so potentially dangerous right at your doorstep and your father had to dive in and help correct this accident.

I know a lot of folks are not familiar with why an oil field is repressured with natural gas. There are four stages of field production. 1st stage is when the drilling of a well strikes pays sand, and there is enough gas pressure to cause it to flow naturally. 2nd stage after the gas pressure has dropped, for it to be pumped, that is why a mature field will have pump jacks working on each well. The next phase is repressuring the field with natural gas to force more crude to the surface. Finally, the last and final phase is saltwater flooding to recover the remaining crude. Our field was in the natural gas repressurization phase. The equation is the cost of natural gas repressuring is less than the crude oil recovered.

Up until recently, a field was abandoned after salt water had scavenged all the crude and that was pumped to the surface. However, George Mitchell and Mitchell Energy had made a great discovery and mastered how to penetrate the Barnett Shale and drill even deeper, making the discovery of both new sources of oil and gas available. Sometimes this new source was even greater than the original discovery. When other companies saw Mitchell’s men buying up areas of old, worn-out leases, while they didn’t know the reason, they got busy and started similar efforts themselves. Many royalty owners got surprisingly greater checks once these deeper wells were completed. In fact, the entire population of the U.S. benefitted from the greater amount of natural gas all at a lower price due to Mitchell Energy’s efforts. Just Sayin…RJS