Fish Report: 10/12/04

Well, if you listen to the weather man we may get a taste of real fall weather this weekend. I missed the cold weather that came and left in the past week and for the first time in years was out of the area for the real opening of pat season October 1^st. If you are my age you know that small game season really opens on the 1^st. I came to find out it seems that most hunters are still doing more hunting than finding.

Between Wifee, my daughter-in-law, and myself we managed to see some real nice bucks in the past week. The daughter-in-law saw her monster buck out the kitchen window, along with a smaller buck. Wifee and I both saw our bucks down in Florida on the road to our daughter's house. You would not believe the game down there in that swamp country.

Another morning there must have been 50-75 turkeys in the neighbor[base ']s yard. They later made their way down to where we were and they could care less we were there. They also have wild hogs and one morning there were two alligators swimming in the pond.

I am getting ahead of myself with the quick trip to Florida. Our daughter had lost some of the roof off her house during the second hurricane that hit their area. There had been some water damage to the ceilings and with the crazy year they have had she wanted to get new shingles on her roof as soon as she could. They had just moved into the house in June after fixing it all up.

She ordered the shingles and called Dad and her brother for help. Wifee and I drove down and took the equipment that we would need and the boy, Rob, flew down to help. They have a garage and a big house. There were more than 150 bundles of shingles. I had never in my life put on a roof in 95-degree weather with 95 percent humidity, but we did this week.

We did the garage first for practice using a roofing gun and putting on the fancy style shingles. Down there where the hurricanes seem to visit every year they have special rules for putting on a roof. You purchase shingles with a wind rating and have to use six or more nails in each shingle. What a project for an old man to be involved in. The good Lord held off the rain for the whole week, which was the first week in months without any rain, and we got the project done.

Upon returning home I talked to Rhonda and she said the people had come by to look at the damage and wanted to know why the house had a new roof already? I wanted to tell her to tell the government that when a Yooper calls for help the family just gets together and takes care of the project. I guess they are not used to how we do things up here. She had been told it would be 6 to 8 months before a local roofer could even look at the job.

As the boy flew into Sanford, near Orlando, they had to circle a few times and he said you would not believe all the damage to the houses you could see. He said there were million dollar homes where the roofs were just lifted off the house and you could look right into them. We saw whole areas where all the roofs in the area were covered with blue tarps.

We went down to the ocean where you used to be able to drive cars and had 100 to 150 feet of beach that was now gone. The yards for the houses was a three-four foot drop off that the waves were coming right up too. If another storm of the same power should hit right now they would have a real mess. You see pictures on TV but you really have no idea how much damage can be done by Mother Nature unless you see it.

I have always told my kids that October and November were my month and not to bother me during them because it is called hunting season and I do not miss them! But guess what? When your kids call for help it does not matter if it is hunting season or not, off you go.

But now the project is done and tested with some good rains already and I am home ready to do some serious poking around in the woods.

The one thing I would say is that my daughter owes her brother big time for the project he undertook for her and I sure am thankful for everything he did.