What do you do when the fishing sucks?

[Rusty]

I have never fished so much for nothing considerable in my life, than since Turkey Day of '10 until now. I try to get out fishing 1, if lucky 2, times a week, but lately the weather has been putting the damper on that. So... Being the type of person that can't sit still long enough to watch 1 quarter of a football game, I began many projects.

Project 1. Skiff Work

• Hand Built Cup Holders
• Painted Bench Seats and Hull
• Built a gas tank storage / bait tank table top

Project 2. Rod Wrapping

• Seeker Black Steel guides suck and fall apart at the welds so...
• Removed Old Guides
• Got a wrapping lathe
• installed high end guides on my black steels - all black wraps
• Became addicted to rod wrapping so...
• removed every sticker on my black steels
• wrote my rods "nicknames" and model #
• re-wrapped, and epoxied back over
• They are now "custom rods," all black, with awesome guides.
• Sweet

Project 3. Simplify my life

• I surfed since I was 10 (20 Years)
• I snowboarded for a very long time
• Skatetboarded since 5 (25 years)
• Snow Ski whenever possible
• Wakeboard
• Ride beach cruisers
• ETC
• Fish a lot
• sooooo.
• I'm selling almost all of it, cause I never use it anymore
• All surfboards, snowboards, a pair of skies, boots, bindings, skateboards etc. etc
• And the skiff - all the work goes to waste of course
• All the $ is going to a newer, mo better skiff for summer
• If I have enough left over I'll get another yak and call it a day

Simplified Life - I work, play with the kid, hang with the wife, build my own rods, and fish for inshore and offshore for pelagic species.

That's what I do when it sucks. What do you all do?

[T Bone]

I used to wrap rods too.I still have my wrapper and dryer.I have a hand wrapper and not a power wrapper.Works fine its just slower.I Plan on wrapping a few rods again soon.I have wrapped five rods in my life and only have one left,My 800M.I feel every So-Cal fisherman needs an 800M.I actually broke 4" off the tip stuffing in Yak so now its a 775MH Custom.
I made my own dryer from a B B Q rotisserie motor.It works great.I had an awesome Graphite USA rod that I lost in the surf and I want to wrap another one.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by T Bone

I used to wrap rods too.I still have my wrapper and dryer.I have a hand wrapper and not a power wrapper.Works fine its just slower.I Plan on wrapping a few rods again soon.I have wrapped five rods in my life and only have one left,My 800M.I feel every So-Cal fisherman needs an 800M.I actually broke 4" off the tip stuffing in Yak so now its a 775MH Custom.
I made my own dryer from a B B Q rotisserie motor.It works great.I had an awesome Graphite USA rod that I lost in the surf and I want to wrap another one.

Nice wrap on that! Even though it can be tedious and monotonous there is something relaxing about it and I always think of all the fish I'm going to catch on that rod while building it. Fun chit. I'll post up a few pics of mine once the kid settles down for a nap.

I'm thinking about buying a blank to wrap for targeting T-sharks. What would be a good stick for that? Thinking of an 80# rod with my 2 speed Talica spooled with 100# spectra to an 80# flouro leader. I recently got a 400# capacity chest freezer so I can now harvest and process a T shark or two.