My Make-Do Monday for June 21st

There are two parts to this Make-Do.

First: Use for an old (or new) bicycle tube.

Cut your tub into half inch wide pieces and you create some super strong long lasting rubber bands. A mountain bike tire produces longer rubber bands, a regular bike tire makes smaller bands. You have do choose what you need.

Here we have used a regular tube and made small bands for Pilot to secure his fishing pole parts together with.

**********************

Pilot is headed out to Scout Camp/Super Activity tomorrow at 4am. They are going to Lake Powell in Southern Utah. I love Lake Powell and am a bit jealous that I am girl not boy, jealous again. They are going to use Kayaks! Then fish. Then hike to Anasazi ruins. Play in the water. I am truly jealous! But on the other hand, I am so very pleased that we have some very fine leaders in our Scouting program that want to be with our boys and take care of them while they have fun. I feel blessed, very blessed that we have such fine leaders and other young men that my 14 year old can associate with.

So on with the Make-Do portion.

It is the fishing part of the trip that had us concerned. Taking a regular pole takes some awkward space. The pole and the tube it is stored in. And the fishing at Powell can be great, even super at times. Other times one may never get a bite. Pilot had to weigh the pros and cons of taking a regular pole with him. So as we were going through the fishing kit, to get hooks and leader line, etc, Pilot looked at our Bottle Bobbers we made last year. He decided he would take two of them and his pole. Then next thing I hear is, "I'm not going to take my pole. I'm just going to use the Bottles."

"Really? Why," I asked. He responded with, "well they take up less space, are lighter, and will still get the job done." He got it- He was going to have to carry his gear and the lighter Pilot could make it, the better.

However it has changed again. He just got home from dropping his gear off and some of the other kids are taking their full sized poles, so he said he is taking his. Oh well, the logic was there for a moment. However, if he carries his pole and doesn't catch fish, maybe next time he will go the lighter way with the bottle line.

So anyway, back to what the Bobber Bottle is.

We took a small water bottle or soda pop bottle.

Then we tied 30# line to the neck of the bottle. On one side of the line we had about 3 to 4 feet of line and at the end of that line we tied on a swivel- the one that has a safety pin like end. This is the end we fasten to our chair or shoreline twig- the end that is secured on dry ground.

To the other end of the line, that was about 5 to 6 feet long, we added another swivel to which a fishing line with a swivel and a hook can be attached. On the one in the photo, there is not a second swivel. We tied the hook directly to the end of the second line on the bottle. This one is a bit short, but we needed it short.

I wound up the long line without the hook. And then wrapped the hooked line around the bottle and stuck the hook end into the label. Then I put a cutting from a sock over the bottle, acting like a big elastic band holding everything safe and secure on the bottle. If your hook has a swivel at one end, you would undo the swivel and then put the hook and line into the bottle. This way the hook definitely will not come undone and catch you when you least expect to be caught!

In Pilot's bottle, I put his line with swivel and hook. Extra hooks, a worm threader with a couple of feet of string, a small fingernail clipper with a couple of feet of string and some extra line. The couple of feet of string is so that he can tie the tools on the kayak or his own belt loop so he doesn't accidentally drop them into the lake. The clippers are so he doesn't use his teeth to cut the fishing line.


In the future, I want to replace the bottles we have made with the larger mouth bottles, like the mountain dew bottle I use for my water bottle. It would make getting the extra gear out of them a lot easier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for visiting with me today and leave me a comment if you have the time.

Now jump back to Ann's site for more ideas.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check out my other posts for these meme's: