The X-boat Resurrected

The Masked Shadow

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Jul 19, 2020
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How did the spotties taste? I like to keep whatever I kill as well - even if it is only 6 inches. When it is small, I usually chop it up and make it into dog or cat food :)
 

Ulu

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Dec 13, 2018
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The Sunny San Joaquin
How did the spotties taste? I like to keep whatever I kill as well - even if it is only 6 inches. When it is small, I usually chop it up and make it into dog or cat food :)
I like spotted bass but then I like almost all fish.

I will not usually keep a fish smaller than 12” unless it is a Bluegill or a Crappie. Catch and release for little trout & bass is my MO.


Nice looking fish, and boat, and truck, and scenery!
Thank you. Before this was my boat it was someone else’s experimental boat, and before that I really have no clue How many times it has been modified.

Pine Flat is in the low mountains of the East San Joaquin Valley. I think the top spillway level is about 1100 feet. Nowhere close to that now although it is about 10 feet deeper than the last time we went, and is slowly coming up.

It is extremely dry at this lake in the summer. There are rattlesnakes that swim in the water from time to time.

I have personally seen two in the water, and one that came up on a boat as they pulled it out of the water. They are usually swimming down stream, and are easy to spot swimming in the water if you are looking.

They cannot latch onto your boat if you’re cruising, but if you are trolling at 2 miles an hour they can easily wrap around your engine/motor, and they tend to get sucked right towards it. Sometimes I see people trolling with their boat fenders dragging in the water and I think this is a prime way to let them climb right into the boat too.

I will try to get to some higher Mountain Lakes this year, but because of forest fires we were not able to go at all last year, and I don’t know what the conditions will really be until we get there.
 

Ulu

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Dec 13, 2018
1,843
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The Sunny San Joaquin
This is kind of a separate post because I had to think a lot about the question of taste.

A lot of people don’t like to eat bass. Personally I don’t care to eat catfish although I will if someone else has cooked it for me. I would just always choose a different fish than catfish.

I would say that the taste of the spotted bass is milder than large mouth, & mild in comparison to catfish, rock cod or snapper. Surely not as good as halibut, but perhaps on the same class as true Atlantic cod (which we see here quite often. I’ve never eaten a striped bass so I don’t know what to expect there but someday I expect to catch one.
 

The Masked Shadow

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Jul 19, 2020
4,913
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Southern California (San Diego)
This really only applies to fish. I kill lots of insects and I shot a possum in my backyard last summer, but I did not eat it.
Same. What gun do you have? My uncle and grandpa love to hunt. I sometimes tag along, and it is actually quite fun.
 

Ulu

Potamotrygon
MFK Member
Dec 13, 2018
1,843
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The Sunny San Joaquin
The X-boat is getting some more structural reinforcement. Previously I had installed some Scotty downriggers on the gunnels, and it was not great.

They were putting to much stress on the hulI & I needed to move one of them. So here I am cutting loose the bed of epoxy.
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Oh there’s a big scar now!
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Yeah not so bad after a refinishing with a little epoxy filler. Still needs paint. I had to sand a patch for the new bedding epoxy.
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OK, the mount is moving from the aft rib to the forward hull rib. (Yeah this only has two ribs.) This will make it accessible to someone fishing from the front of the boat.
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Unfortunately it was still a bit weak, And even though I had reinforced the gunnels a lot on this little old boat, It was putting a lot of stress on the hull.
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Anyhow I created this reinforcement that ties the gunnel to the flotation chamber at the rib, and also attaches to the biggest reinforcement on the flotation chamber.
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It’s just plastic, but it is a plastic boat ;-) Also, being PVC plastic it is easy to reinforce with the glue and more PVC plastic.
 
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