A little DIY......

[Aquaman01]

Hi. Yesterday while getting ready for an outing I had a quandry. Three pieces of my ice gear were missing; 1- my box of add-to-the-line ice bobbers, 2-my floatation handled ice scoop and 3-my floatation handled minnow scoop. Uh-Oh!!

I poked around the garage and turned up a 3' section of 3/4" foam backer rod. Foam backer rod is a closed cell foam similiar to the 'swimming noodles' and is a solid 3/4" diameter section with a thicker skin on the outside. It is used to stuff into the gaps in between pre-cast concrete panels prior to caulking the joints. You can either buy the stuff or salvage bits of it from commercial construction sites. Good spots are parking ramps, apartment buildings and warehouses in their final stages of exterior finish.

Uses are as follows....

-slit a slice of it like pac-man for an ice-bobber/strike indicator

-slit an 8" section of it and zip-tie it to your scoop so it won't go down the hole

-fasten it to your minnow scoop for same

-make treble-shields out of slices of it. Heat the treble hook briefly with a flame and shove it into a slice of the foam; voila!, instant hook-sheath.

-use it as a lure holder in the boat, house or onna bucket.

-Wrap leaders around it for easy taming

etc, etc, etc.....