THE REGIFTING

Yesterday was not only a very special day personally in our household turned into a gift giving exchange between Billy Ray and I for completely different reasons.

For several months, although Billy Ray lives near the San Marcos river that actually has flowing, albeit slowly, water in it's upper reaches, he hasn't been doing much fishing. And we were discussing what might be good tactics during the heat wave + drought and he commented how he didn't really have a good ultra-light or medium-light spinning rig to fish with.

Something small and preferably a 4 or 5 piece travel rod that didn't cost too much and wouldn't cause a lot of tears if it were stolen from a car, the idea being to have a small fishing kit in your car at all times for those spur of the moment opportunities.

Of course, I have several rigs of that description for myself and El Fisho Jr., and some that Billy Ray uses when we all go out fishing. I had one rig I was thinking about giving him, it's a nice Mitchell outfit, ultralight travel rig but this particular spinning reel has a bad habit of the center drag adjustment knob becoming loose on it's own and just disappearing during fishing. I got several replacement knobs from the maker years ago, and you just have to watch it every minute. So I use the rod and haven't used that reel in years, but it wouldn't last 5 minutes with Billy Ray.

So recently on ebay I found a nice and cheap and NIB Daiwa Executive Travel fly/spin travel rod pack with a new unused ultralight spinning reel. The fly reel was missing from the pack but I also found a NIB Kmart fly reel circa 1972 on ebay for well under the sticker price on the box of $9.97 that is the perfect size for this kit.

I didn't know it, but Billy Ray's dad has one of these rigs, except his is just the spinning travel rod. Billy Ray has been wanting one of these Daiwa Executive kits apparently for some time, so I made a good random pick when I ran across it on ebay. After he left to head back home, I ran across some new Stren 6lb line and some older but virtually unused 6 weight forward Scientific Anglers fly line and some backing he can throw on those reels and be ready to go.

So in return, I got a very cool new Magellen Hydration fishing vest, sort of a far out looking affair with a tiny back/hydration pack on the back and a fishing vest with these modular looking pockets on the front. I've seen these out for sale the past couple of years, and he got it and didn't like it and the sanitary seal hasn't even been broken on the hydration valve yet.

It has some mesh pockets on each of the inside and I think will make a dandy fishing vest. It has enough straps on the outside where some fishing rod cases could be lashed to it for an ultralight fishing kit bag. There are two very strong straps, one on the top of each shoulder, and the Springfield Armory Scout M6 bag could easily be strapped on top of the hydration part via a short 2" wide "Y" strap and some kind of strap on the bottom to keep it from swinging.

So I'll be looking at my new fishing vest tonight figuring out how it will be outfitted.