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           "IT'S GONE"

 

 

Dave, "Davey", or "Tumbler"     

 

"Tumbler" lived in Hunterdon County NJ, and like most of us was a country gentleman. He lived in a completely renovated old field stone barn, which was an incredible treat just to see. He was a later addition to the crowd, but was one of the most creative people I have ever met. His vocation was basically in New York, as was mine, which meant a two hour commute each way. We lived at the end of the train line so it made no difference if we overslept going either way. To this day I will never forget those old seats on the Erie Lackawana line with a bar car thick with smoke. From the outside that car looked like it had window shades, so thick the smoke. There was always a card game where hundreds of dollars changed hands each night.

 

 Again nicknames stick. This one came from a night of sipping wine. Well, it's a little hard to justify sipping when one uses a tumbler to drink his wine. Generally somebody has a little too much fun and earns some kind of recognition. In this case the quote is "Hey Davey, want another tumbler?" And of course the nickname. It is all so much more descriptive thank Dave. This man in another of one of the most consummate fishermen in the group. One year he tied his own flies because he felt that the commercial ones were too full or bushy. Smelt are slim or svelte fish, not fat little chums. Hence the tied an bunch of flies which we all used for a number of years and had amazing success. 

                                

  The top fly was one of the five or so patterns Davey tied and we are still using some years later.  Another is the famed "Red Grey Ghost" pattern tied by Jim Warner of Wolfeboro, NH. These Warner flies are classic and renowned all over New England. Dave's flies, while not as well known are certainly just as effective. Dave was also the owner of Miss Saigon a Ducker boat he carried on the top of the car from Georgia to New Hampshire many years. This is a blog entry I wrote upon the listing of the boat 

 

Au revoir Miss Siagon

As most of my more intelligent and informed readers are aware, I travel to New Hampshire each spring fishing with a bunch of cronies who have been doing this for to 42 years. If your not aware of that or don't fit into one of the two categories above.....you need to follow me more closely! My friend from Hilton Head has for years carried his boat from Hilton Head to Wolfeboro, NH (2131 miles) and used it as his personal fishing craft.

The images here show the last voyage, 2008, of "Miss Siagon".
 She is an antique as is her Captain!
 

Here is the proof of the boat's effectiveness in a photo entitled "Rainbow over Miss Saigon"

 

 

You cannot pass on this investment opportunity!

 Well, you can but I can't keep my used car salesman attitude hidden for that long! The Boat 1. 3136 Ducker’s were produced 2. Built from 1947-1969 3. This one is serial number D2427 was built in 1957 4. Ducker D2427 was built by the Alumacraft Corp. in Minneapolis, MN.

 

She is for sale and any offer over $4000 will greedily be accepted. You also have to pay shipping and of course I have other pertinent photos of said boat. She originally was built as a boat used to hunt waterfowl. Two hunters would venture forth in this thing and because of it's low profile was a pretty good hunting tool. Trust me....two people is crowded. And.....the recoil from one shotgun alone would move the boat three feet on a calm day! She was sold not too many days after this was first written.

 "Tumbler" and I have spent many a day on the water together either, just being quiet and absorbing the nature all around us, or discussing what's going on in the world in which we have absolutely no control. Good company when I can get him off Miss Saigon. He puts more hours in on the water that any of the rest of us and can catch fish. One year, when fishing was great but catching slow, he decided that we needed to chum for salmon. Now that is a salt water fishing trick used to lure predator fish to the boat. One chops up smaller fish and throws the mess overboard to form a slick on the top of the water and chunks just under the surface. All year long whenever he made tuna fish for salads or sandwiches, he saved the oil from the cans.   He must have had a pint of the stuff and it stank. Now you know where I am going with this. Bear in mind that we "Purists" would never reduce ourselves to such a coarse attractor as "Chumming", but when nothing else works......well who knows. He and I went out in the middle afternoon in "Putt" to do some serious fishing. I don't think that we had caught as many as four legal size salmon all week, it was Friday, and a real morose attitude prevailed within the group. So, we armed ourselves with ample snacks and drinks (this may have been the day he earned the Tumbler name), three fly rods and a spinning rod with (Gasp) metal. There is a narrow spot between Cow Island and the shore line where we have had a modicum of success in the past. Place is called the "Barber's Pole", because the post used to mark the shoal is painted like a barber's pole. I would guess the spot is somewhere around two or three hundred yards wide, a half mile long, and offers depths from a few feet to around 30 or 40. At any rate, the wind generally does not blow too hard in that cut, and a chum slick would stay put instead of blowing up on shore. With all the lines out, Dave pulls out the magical elixir. I could smell it from fifteen feet away. Not good but we were alone and no one would no the difference unless I were to say something. And you know I did. After a pint of the stuff was dumped on the water, we started to troll around it in reasonably consistent circles. Now for you erstwhile salmon fishers, this is not the silver bullet. We did catch a couple of fish just over the 16 inch legal length. Unbelievable. But the good part was when we once again met the rest at the cocktail/dinner/card table. I of course had to tell the rest what he did and we spent an hour or two discussing the legalities of chumming up a landlocked salmon. The end result was that neither fish counted in the pool which had, because of our lack of luck all week, had grown to substantial levels. Too bad because I would have shared some of that cash. We have a first, biggest, most pool each day for two dollars each.  Hence it is six bucks per man and one fish can be as much as thirty dollars per day to the catcher of same.  I honestly cannot remember if one of the fish we caught was worth money...had it been we could never have collected.