Zach Matthews
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The lizard photo and the last trout photo are great, but the sleeper to me is the shot of the guide on the platform with the rods in their rack.
Hey Abe –
I have done quite a bit of brushwhacking with both 8’8″ rods and 7’6″ rods in conditions like you see in the Smokies.
Good stuff Corey. I really dig the lizard photo, cool texture with the screen! As for the Tarpon, maybe next time. At least it gives you yet another reason to visit.
Hey guys –
Ok, I said the spectacular stuff was mostly done with, but to me, today was the day when the Gheenoe really came into its own.
First a little background. Andrew and I intended to fish the boat on Saturday. We had completed all but a couple sections of the underlying paint job and we had the engine back from the shop. Alas, boating being boating, it was not to be. Andrew had purchased an “Evinrude” 5/8ths fuel line clip to attach the fuel line to the 8hp Evinrude outboard, but something was wrong. We had to tweak the clip with a file to make it fit, then it wouldn’t run the engine. We ran over to the boat shop which had overhauled Andrew’s engine, and when they clipped on with their fitting, it fired right up. Having primed it, clipping our line on worked fine, but when we got back to the river (total round trip: 1 hr 30 min), the engine died within 2 minutes of us setting out. Apparently the carburetor had enough fuel in it to power the boat for exactly 2 minutes. Although we got a good taste of how easy this boat is to pole upriver (relatively easy under the circumstances), this was not an auspicious start. Clearly we need a different $5 fuel line clip, but the boat shop doesn’t open until tomorrow.
Here’s the boat loaded for the abortive trip:
So, having exhausted our fishing options, we decided to basically finish the interior paint job. I think you’ll agree that it looks pretty remarkable. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves now.
So here we have the whole boat out in the sun so you can appreciate the color.
At this point, we are getting close to total project completion. Andrew has a brother in law with a paint shop setup who he may ask to take a look at the exterior; we could roll it and make it look good but it seems a shame not to use our available resources considering how much meticulous work went into this thing.
And of course we need some accessories, like a poling platform, some padding, etc. But that will all come in time; the point is, we’re now 99% to our fishable boat goal.
A quick word about why we splattered it. First off, the very smooth boat paint we used was highly shiny, making photography in the boat (a primary goal) tricky. We needed to take that down. Secondly, and this doesn’t show up well in the photos, but the texture of our additions, using different fiberglass, varied in several places from the factory texture in a way that was very noticeable. Our best surfaces were our decks, predictably, so we decided to cut those out and save them. But, ultimately, Gheenoe uses a splattered finish in the factory for a reason. Once the splattering was down, it was obvious why: every imperfection in the underlying paint just disappears. Personally, I like it.
For comparison, here’s the original boat again:
Zach