So I abandoned my lovely wife and pedal partner Sunday and headed up to Melones to bake some winter out of my bones and hopefully reverse the skunk trend I have been on lately. Splashed the yak at 9:00 from T-Town ($10 launch this year) and headed for the Dam.

Bank Robbers

Stanislaus, restrained

Bobber Lobber

Water was reasonably clear 58 degrees some debris, intermittent breeze, no floating cheese please.

Have always hooked fish here, just not today.

Waterworks

Lake not full but rising rapidly.

Heeded warning

Some fascinating geology near the dam

Pebbles

Bobber nookie

Life Aquatic

I worked the face of the dam with trolling stuff.

Marlene Dietrus

I bobbered every rock face. At Oroville every nook in this rock would hold spots.

Bobberlicious

I worked morning dawn robo worms from 2 ft to 40 feet. Went back to the jointed Rapala. Finally had by bell rung with a tiny but welcome spot.

G spot

Green Goddess

Sought comfort in the bottle

Downtown Brown

Wind started to pop and I had a long paddle back  so I rigged up a sail that got me to 2 MPH.

Sail rig

One last bladder stop

Isle of Whiz

11 mile pedalled making for 22 miles over the weekend. Really enjoying the Wave Walkers.

Pedal partner Debra and I set out for Del Valle to cure the winter blues. Buyer beware, $26 to launch 2 yaks at Del Valle including predation permit. Water was stained and 59 degrees.

First Mate

Grebes were drying their stuff.

Grebe Hostel

Debra went bird fishing

Treefish

Onto my fave lunch cove but we wuz thwarted I say

Cafe Cove Cock Block

Fishing was slow but beer was cold and sammitches good

Lunch Counter

Debra reported that my new hand coil pole holder worked quite well.

Poor Holder

We set off for the dam hoping for cleaner water

5 miles in

Boulder Bumping

No one home there either so we pedalled homewards. Lake was full to the brim.

Calm

New cover

Ospreys were working it. Baldy’s were a no show but we could hear them high up.

Fellow Fisherman

So we had our hats handed to us. No bites, no fish. Tried Rapalas, spoons, bayou Boogies, worms etc. Sun came out as I hit the 11 mile mark.

Clouds, parted.

Most of our customers think of Peridot as being pretty darn good at making metal do things it does not want to do. Forming, machining and welding of  today’s exotic metals truly taxes CNC machining to it’s limits. But many of our customers do not realize that most of our CNC machining equipment is very well suited for machining plastics. Materials such as Radel, Delrin, Teflon etc. are far more conducive to machining than many of the metals we routinely machine.

Let’s look at this example:

Laser cut 3MM thick Nylon

This part was produced on a 60 watt C02 laser. Cut time was 48 seconds per part. Most dimensions were held within +- .010 inch of nominal. No tooling required, no burr and excellent edge condition.  Need the holes smaller and moved .020 inch to the right?  No problem, easy programming change and in less than two minutes a fresh part off the machine to test.

Here’s another example:

Lustran Death Ray Gun handle

This 2 pc handle was machined on one of our CNC Vertical machining centers from Lustran as a prototype of  a spinal device. We had a mold built at our favorite Molder (Stack Plastics) to shoot a 2 inch thick X 4×6 inch brick of the Lustran material as it was only available in pellet form. This allowed us to produce working models that closely mimic the performance of the final injected molded product.

A peek at PEEK:

PEEK Handle

Our machinists LOVE PEEK! Well behaved, cuts like buttah. This handle was produced on our multi-axis Mill/Turn center at just over 4 minutes cycle time.

A second PEEK:

Highly machined PEEK

This little guy (3 inch dia) is machined on our mill turn center in a roughly six minute cycle.  No deburring necessary, excellent surface finish. We do a quick dip in the ultrasonic to clean up the cutting fluids and straight to assembly. This part goes into an assembly with 16 items on the BOM (Bill of materials) and will never see enough volume to justify the cost of Injection Molding.

Let’s look at a couple of typical Radel parts:

This Radel part has been CNC machined from 1 inch diameter bar stock, laser engraved and press fit onto a stainless steel shaft. This is just one of a suite of tools used in a novel and complicated minimally invasive spinal procedure. I expect this part will eventually be molded. Radel has the advantage of being able to withstand the rigors of autoclaving and machines very easily.

Here is another Radel handle:

RADEL handle

This a little trickier with serrations milled for grip. This handle is press fit onto a laser engraved stainless steel “spatula” for an Ortho application

My point? The point is that Plastics machining is a service that Peridot excels at. It is a viable process for both prototyping and in many cases production volumes.  Consider having Peridot take a look at your next plastics requirement.

Took my brother in law Ric out for casting practice on the Delta today.  Was not expecting much, self fulfilling prophecy. Enjoyed the cloud show while looking for warm and clear water.

Decent weather, slow fishing, chocolatey goodness out there right now. We threw Spinnerbaits, cranks, traps, jigs, Jerkbaits  etc.

Only action on a texas rig senko. Fished Mandy, Mildreds, Cruisers, Holland and finished up in Franks.

Went fast for naught

Dangerious and I  decided to leave the yaks at home due to predicted weather and wisely? took the tin can  (or as I call her Bauxite Betty). This was only my second time astride Betty since I bought her 9 months ago as I am addicted to the crack called yak. She is a mid 80’s 14 ft Klamath deluxe with 25 HP merc tiller steer 2 stroke.  I mounted  a new Scotty downrigger earlier this week. Great setup for 2. Stopped and dropped coin at the Glory Hole in exchange for goods and launched in light rain and wind. Saw some recent pics at GH of some TOAD spots.

Bauxite Betty about to get all wet

Headed straight back to Carson Cove where we knew water would be coming in. Trolled the FT rapala, Thomas Bouyant and broken back rebel. Mike was rolling the flasher crawler. Stopping occasionally to throw c-rig robo worms.

Gravy Train

SLOOOOOW.

Near Carson Creek

Carson Creek

Lush green everywhere with wildflowers poised for the big bloom.

I picked up a fish right in the creek flow on a bobber that was rigged with a berkeley fluke on a crappie jig head to break the skunk.

Bobber lobber

Need to learn how to hold fish for photo

Wanted to stay back there but noticed the wind was picking up so we headed back towards the ramp. Got our asses kicked with a  wet ride from a stiff quartering wind wave around 3-4 feet.  I hate tiller steering in slop. Ducked into the houseboats for lunch. Debra’s sammys killed as usual.

Egg salad with Black Forest Ham

We fished for another 2 hrs for zip and pounded the last mile to the ramp in a freshening squall that we watched march from the dam towards us.  It beat us unfortunately. Wild ride it was. I put my lifejacket on.

Victory at Sea

Jerry S and I left P-town at the ungodly hour of 5:30 Saturday March 5th for Pardee. With mild weather, two full coolers and overcast predicted we were suitably stoked. We passed the Mussel inspection and were pedaling away at 7:30. Bank fisherman were elbow to asshole kneedeep in cheese whiz. Our strategy:  We mixed it up from the start rolling with Thomas Bouyants, Kastmasters, Rapalas, panther Martins, fenders and crawlers of the night etc. I even trotted out Bayou Boogie.  Made an early stop for one of J’s breakfast creations and a Guinness.

Thus fortified we ran 6 miles up the river arm with nary a nibble.  Cloud show, bird show but fish no show. Tried for bass for a while c-rigging morning dawn robo worms for ZIP. Was really hoping for a smallmouth. Decided to head back towards the stupid trout zone after lunch. I finally hit a nice square tail  fish about half way back along a rock wall on a silver black rapala.

Was working right off the bank occasionally bouncing rock. This poor guy was already wearing some face jewelry but I boxed him anyways as J had people at home wanting trout. Hit another rounding the big point of the Moke river arm.

J’s sweating bullets at this point but puts up a brave front

And finally gets on the board with a couple in rapid succession.

We were now back at the rec area dodging shorebound haters and tin can desperados. Rapalas start working well with the cloud cover building in. We locate a spot with a marshmallow hatch going on and begin racking them up losing a BUNCH of toads due to laziness. I nail a MOE on a firetiger Rapala after losing 2 in a row.

Ended up with sore asses, 14 miles pedalled, 6 fish between us kept and MANY lost.

Aliens crashed to Earth on the return trip but we have no fear.

“A legal settlement aims to let Central Valley anglers eat more striped bass, in hopes that stripers will then eat fewer endangered species.”

After a week of  rain (GLORIOUS),  Dangerious and I rolled thru the fog yax in tow. Hit the promised land

8:30 at the ramp for a cursory quagga inspection. Bankies everywhere.

First time for me at Pardee. Well run put and take with great bank access for the kiddles.

Started trolling our spread  and headed south towards the river arm following the left bank. Saw a boater bag a nice fish right away. He liked the submerged tree so we proceeds to poach his pattern. Lost a nice one  on a fire tiger rapala due to operator error  (broken line) which unfortunately left my FTR lodged in his face as a sort of gruesome clownlike jewelry. Mike gave me a Raiders rapala to console me for my loss which the fish liked.

Mike would later see a fish jump and shake something off and he  retrieved it for me.  Was my long lost FTR. Thomas Bouyant spoon was also  on

Weather did not suck

Fullspeed salute, lake 5 ft from spilling

The end of our drift was Potty point.

Rapalas worked, broken backs worked, spoons worked.

Cheeto flingers were knocking them hard and sporting full stringers bot homey don’t play that. I had 4 nice rainbows to the boat and several ldr’s. Mike did a little better than me.

Pardee traffic jam

Back to the ramp

Mike’s dinner

And back on the road

I talked Dangerous Trebles and Chilly B out of a patio boat trip to Los Vaqueros and convinced them to roll for New Mel. Loaded 2 peddlers and a paddler on the trailer and were at the ramp at 9:30. Water way up, lower ramp at Glory hole almost flooded

Had 6 rods in the water all with different gear. Weather unreal for Feb. Beat for Carson Creek with nothing on the way.

Stopped for lunch and libations. Mike checks for shrinkage

Got a couple of bobber hits off the bank but couldn’t put my beer down fast enough. We punched back in and went to work. Mike gets a speeding ticket from the County Mounty.

Ranger did a verbal check for licenses and was cool enough not to require visual proof. Lots of grass in the water made for a lot of fouled gear. I tried Thomas Bouyants, cripple lures, grubs, Panther Martins, FT rapala, little cleos. Will put this lake aside for the trout season.

Had the pleasure of traveling abroad with my two college age children and lovely wife for the first time since the kids were kids. For many years my wife and I were not cool and now we are miraculously cool again. 3.5 hrs to Houston, 1 hr layover and 3.5 hrs down made for a relaxing flight. Arrived on a Thursday at around 9:30 PM and settled into the Best Western Irazu for the night in the capitol city San Jose. Had client meetings in Heredia in the morning and embarrassingly enough could not find them as Costa Ricans do not believe in street signs as far as I can tell. So off to the small regional; airport for our 25 minute  Nature Air flight out to Quepos. Only one other couple so we are stuffed into a beechcraft

and the pilot tells my son to take the co-pilots seat.

Beech Pit

Considering my sons driving record this worried me a little.

Arrived in Quepos early evening and taxied to the resort.

Wow. 3 story villas with 2 level 280 degree wraparound verandas,

hot tub on the deck,

outdoor showers

DELUXE (Buena Vista Luxury Villas). Had food delivered from a local restaurant of which there were many.

Settled in for the night

Big tree 50 yards from our villa with large white flowers that the rain filled up each day. Obviously  a happening monkey drinking establishment

The view from the resort

Spent the next week  on various tours, beach days, exploring the countryside in rental cars, ziplining

Islands everywhere

The local laxative is very effective

Despite not speaking the local dialect somehow we knew right where to pee.

Wildlife was incredible with 4 species of monkeys, ambiguous amphibians, butterflys on steroids and birds galore

Troops of these guys right off our veranda each morning and evening. Well worth getting up early.

Not known for it’s cuisine we still ate pretty good

One restaurant was one of Ollie’s covert CIA cargo plane shot down by the Sandanistas

Our resort had it’s own private beach with new yaks, snorkel gear and boogie boards.

Saw a rainbow and a volcano on the way out of the country

What a wonderful country to travel through. Low crime, people are very nice, .02% of the worlds landmass with 5% of the worlds biodiversity. Highly recommended