Fishing Line Jig – First Test

Friend and blog Reader Ken mentioned the fishing line ‘FG Knot’ to me several weeks ago.  It’s used to tie braided line to mono or fluro-carbon line.  Braided line is very strong and light but prone to fraying if dragged across rocks.  Tying a short length of mono or fluro-carbon line as a leader onto the hook end of the braid alleviates most of the braided line issues.

Ken watched a number of YouTube instruction videos and particularly noted one from an Australian fisher who had made a jig for the knot which he was selling for $44.  That seemed expensive and Ken decided to build his own.  We used it on our last fishing trip where I realised I might be able to improve upon the design.

As mentioned in previous blog posts mine looks like this

 

With the Araldite set, today I made my first attempt at a FG Knot tying braid to mono.

Braid line on the left and mono on the right.  The knot is certainly strong but doesn’t look as tight as I would like.

Second attempt.  Mono on the left and braid on the right.  To the left of the red line are the winding of braid on the mono and to the right is a series of half hitches where I attempted to finish off the braided end.  The knot looks nice and tight but the half hitches need more work.

More practicing required!

This morning Jan reminded me she had asked me to remove the bougainvillea growing in the corner of the front porch.  It’s very tenacious and refuses to die no matter how much weedkiller it drinks. 

 

I suspect it was once a large bouganvillea as the roots stretched to China.  Well that’s how far I thought I had to dig!  After digging half a metre I cut it off and reinstated the porch pavers

I wonder

How many Australians who are hesitating about getting the COVID-19 vaccine consider the following.

Australia’s total population is 25,000,000

Latest statistics show the total annual deaths in motor vehicle accidents was 1200

3,000,000 Australians have been vaccinated against COVID and there has been one attributed death.

Therefore statistically if the entire population of 25 million were to be vaccinated with Astrazeneca the calculated number of blood clot related fatalities would be 8.

Conclusion.  You are 99.5% more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident on your way to receive the vaccine than dying off the vaccine.

Over Engineered

One of my many failings is I tend to over engineer things I make.  The tackle box is no exception.

 

As you can see in the above photo I’ve fitted all my fishing traces onto five “noodles” and yet I have room for another five.  No doubt I’ll get a spurt of enthusiasm and make more traces.

Postman Pat made more deliveries today.

The precision woodworking ruler and the stop for the bench saw fence arrived from China.  One of the first tasks was to fit the stop to the fence.

It hasn’t worked out quite as I had anticipated but I’ll resolve it somehow.

Meanwhile Jan went to use her new gardening tool storage only to find the lid wouldn’t open.  I hadn’t notice the problem as I thought it was my seat.  The last coat of paint had sealed the lid to the base.  an easy fix!

A text message arrived today advising I was due for my second Astrazeneca injection.  10-12 weeks hasn’t elapsed and I phoned the surgery to ask what was going on.  The Receptionist explained with a tired voice, I wasn’t due and that the system was sending out messages too early.  Another “cock-up” with the Federal government vaccination plan!

A question for our readers…

Does anyone know how many more press conferences and interviews Prince Harry will need to give before he achieves the privacy he craves?

 

Getting there

After watching me put on my shoes Jan suggested I avoid sitting on the hard , cold and wet concrete kerbing by making a small box to sit on.  It’s lovely to acknowledge she is interesting in my health and wants me to avoid another bout of hemorrhoids!  She then went on to state the box could also be used to store all her gardening equipment

The gardening box has been completed

 

I’m just waiting for the paint to dry.

If you hate painting then it’s best to do all of it at the same time.  My new fishing tackle box has also been painted.

Don’t query the colour of paint.  It’s the colour of “what was left over in the garage”

The more challenging job has been the fishing line jig.  I’m using a variation on Ken’s jig.  This involved gluing six buttons back to back in pairs.  I used Araldite and let it set overnight.

The tricky part was drilling a large hole through the middle of the paired buttons.  First I drilled a pilot hole and then used a larger bit taking it very slowly to avoid splitting or cracking the buttons.

Finally I used more Araldite to secure the buttons to the tops of the knitting needles.

Once the adhesive has set the needles will be mounted on the board.

I’ll need to tie a few test knots in the fishing line in order to calculate the required length of the knitting needles as this will determine the tension in the fishing line during the knot construction process.

Melbourne, Victoria has gone into 7 day COVID-19 lockdown.  A COVID-19 infected returnee from India (where they had gone to attend a wedding) went into hotel isolation in Adelaide, South Australia.  Cross contamination occurred inside the hotel infecting another guest who then went to Melbourne.  This has become something of a “super-spreader” incident resulting in the lockdown.  Other States have or are, closing their borders to Victoria.

This has resulted in long queues of people attempting to get vaccinated.  A reversal of the vaccine hesitancy to peak demand.  One person left the following comment under the media photo of the queues.

“Look at all the dumb people waiting for their kill shot”

There is something amusing about the comments or antics of a dumb person trying to be clever.

Then there was the case of the english actor Sean Ward who posted on several social media sites

“Morning guys, this is just your daily reminder that COVID-19 has an effective survival rate of 99.96% if you are aged 0 to 60 with or without an underlying health condition,” Ward says in the clip. “The vaccine has 95. The Johnson & Johnson has 81. So you’re taking the medicine that is putting you more at risk from dying to COVID and you don’t see the problem here.” <link>

Which just goes to show Sean may be good at acting, but is a D- when it comes to logic or maths.

It’s hard to establish the mortality rate of contracting COVID-19 because much of the world doesn’t have a good public health system where deaths go undiagnosed or unreported.  However available data suggests the mortality rate is between 0.4 and 19.7% <John Hopkins University>. 

Before deciding whether to have the AZ vaccine I did some number crunching

In Fortress Australia there have been 30480 recorded cases of COVID in Australia and 910 fatalities

That is a current mortality rate of 2.99% of those infected

It also represents a mortality rate of 0.00359% of the total population.

AZ will protect 80% of those vaccinated.  If everyone was vaccinated the mortality rate would be 0.0007177%.

Contrast that with the annual road toll percentile of 0.004657%

To state it more simply

30480 Australians caught COVID and 910 died

If the 30480 had been vaccinated then statistically 6096 would have contracted COVID and only 182 died.

During the same period 710 people died of the flu and there were 1181 road fatalities.

Of course the above statistics are calculated during “Fortress Australia”  when the borders open the figures will exponentially increase. 

I’m getting in early and went and had my AZ injection five weeks ago.

 

 

 

Fortress Australia

Back in March of last year when COVID-19 started to impact the world Australia closed it’s borders and has been rather successful in controlling the virus.  State governments were responsible for physical quarantine of arriving personnel with the Federal government being responsible for policy and funding.  The way some States responded made those politicians wildly popular.  Here in Western Australia the Labor government was returned to govern with a massive majority.  The Federal government didn’t fail to notice that fact and decided to reap some of the popularity by retain control of the vaccine rollout.  Usually it is the State government health systems who control vaccination programs. 

Well the Federal government has made a ‘pigs ear’ out of their national vaccination program.  Selection of vaccines, purchase, delivery and distribution have all been confused and delayed.  Communication has been poor.  By the time arms started to be bared the AstraZeneca blood clotting scare had arrived.  People started thinking “Why vaccinate… we are in fortress Australia and safe”.  Vaccine hesitancy is now rampant. 

The problem is COVID-19 is here to stay… Forever!!!  Fortress Australia isn’t sustainable.  Eventually Australia is going to have to open it’s borders and COVID-19 will then be loose in the community.  We need to achieve herd immunity NOW!   

Today Postman Pat delivered the Mortise & Tenon tool I’d ordered from China.  Unfortunately it has received rough handling in transit which has resulted in the aluminium box being damaged.  Initially I thought the tool had escaped damage but on closer inspection I’ve realised it is missing a screw.

If you are interested in how the tool works there is a YouTube video here.

I managed to extract the foam rubber from inside the tin and then panel beat the aluminium container roughly back into shape.  Fixing the tool will take further investigation.

Yesterday I stumbled upon another interesting narrowboat blog.  Somehow I’ve missed not identifying Narrowboat Annie.  That has been rectified and she now appears on our blog list.  Dredging the faint memories in the back of my mind I think I read a canal magazine article about the construction of Annie.  Fitted out at Wharfhouse Branston??   

Paul, you are correct about the potential issue of low light with the house front security cameras.  I have already fitted a porch light with a motion detector and the camera has HDR capability.

Today it’s back to the ‘man cave’ in an effort to complete three recent projects.

 

More Projects

If my memory is accurate I’ve previously mentioned the replacement mitre gauge I bought from China for the DeWalt bench saw.  It was possible to purchase all the components as a single item but that looked expensive.  Instead I’ve sourced the various components individually and assembled the mitre saw fence myself.

The extruded aluminium fence was fitted to the mitre gauge and I then made a timber front from MDF.

 

Next the adhesive tape measure was fitted to the top of the aluminium fence.

The adjustable stop which fits onto the fence has yet to arrive.  Doing all this myself has reduced to total price by 50%.

Another cheap purchase from China were these adjustable bench dogs seen on the left in the photo below.  To their right are the Veritas Bench Dogs which were six times the price. 

They fit into the 20mm holes in my assembly table top

You can also use them a a timber stop when planning a piece of timber.

During the recent fishing trip Ken showed me his FG Knot jig.  The FG Knot is excellent for attaching leader line to braided line.  After using Ken’s jig I though it might be improved.  This next photo shows my progress to date.

Ken’s jig uses vertical wood dowels which don’t flex as the knot is tied.  My idea is to use plastic knitting needles.  Two of the needles hold the braided line whilst the third will hold the leader line.  I have yet to work out how long the knitting needles will need to be to keep the line tight when tying the knot.  I also need to find some large buttons which I’d Araldite to the top of the needles.

 

Security

Ever since we moved to Perth I have been thinking about the house security.  We have already removed the large trees on the front lawn which was partially due to my desire to eliminate a concealed approach.  The front of the house is tidily presented but plain in appearance.  I want it to look “normal”.  Access down either side of the house has been eliminated with my construction of a shade house on one side and polycarbonate roofed storage area on the other.  The most obvious way to access the house would either be via the rear neighbour’s property or through the roof by removing some of the cement roof tiles.  This latter point has been made slightly more difficult with the installation of the solar panels.

Most thieves are lazy and look for the “softest target”.  I want our house to not give the appearance of being a soft target but also not appearing to be affluent.  We’re not affluent… but you know what I mean!

If you have observed the actions of burglars and thieves you might have noticed they invariably wear a “hoodie” over their head and look down to avoid being recorded on a security camera.

Today the security cameras I ordered for the front of the house were delivered by courier.  They are my next line of defence.

They were $4 each.  And yes…… if you read the fine print on the box you will realise they are fakes.

The cameras are ceiling mounted at either end of the front porch.

My theory is any thief will see the camera and raise their hoodie before looking down.  Which is where our real hidden security camera is located.

Hopefully any potential thief will see the exposed property frontage; difficult access and the cameras; before deciding to go elsewhere and look for an easier target.

 

Away South

The Isuzu had been packed to the ceiling the previous evening and I was chomping at the bit to be off.  However I sensibly waited until after 9am to avoid the morning rush hour on the freeway (that’s motorway in the UK and NZ).  A one hour drive in light traffic to reach Ken in Rockingham.  He had already packed the caravan and it was just a matter of transferring my kit from one Izuzu to another before heading south.

Our destination was the caravan park at Gracetown some 3-4 hours south of Ken’s. 

Ken had booked in for three nights but when the receptionist said a 4th night would be free we decided to accept the offer.  That turned out to be a wise decision.

First task was to setup the caravan on the allocated site.

It was close to the facilities block making it very handy for a couple of old fellas.

This region is well known for three things.  The numerous wineries; the world class surfing and fishing.  We were interested in the latter. 

That evening we poured over the map and discussed where we might fish.  Surfers don’t appreciate fishers.  Probably something to do with fish thrashing in the water and cleaning of caught fish in the ocean.  Both attract sharks and there are some big ones on this coast.  At least one surfer gets bitten annually and there have been fatalities. 

We decided to head further south and fish at Boranup Beach.  Access to the beach is via a 4WD track through the national park.  It really is a 4WD track!

 

The photo doesn’t do justice to the size and depth of the ruts.

The Australian Salmon are supposed to be doing their annual migration north and that is what we were after.  Being a difficult drive into the beach we only found four other vehicles when we arrived.

We failed to catch salmon but did get our full daily limit of 24 herring.

That evening there was another discussion about fishing spots.  The next morning we drove to several locations only to discover there was either no beach or surfers.  Neither Ken or I were willing to fish off the rocks.  It’s just too dangerous.  Particularly when there is a heavy swell and you’re wobbly on your legs.

Eventually we decided to fish at Gracetown where we had fun catching more herring.  However we couldn’t clean and fillet them there because there was a sign forbidding the practice.  Obviously the instructions were part of the effort to separate the surfers and sharks.  Driving south we found another remote beach.

Friday was going to be our last fishing day and we decided to go back to Boranup Beach.  This time we’d leave at 5.30am with the intention of being on the beach at dawn.

The plan worked and we were the third vehicle to arrive.  Actually I suspect at least one of the vehicles had been on the beach overnight.

Well the day looked like it was going to be a wash out from a fishing perspective.  We struggled to catch herring, which we needed as bait for the salmon.  The was also a strong current running left to right across the beach dragging our lines.

Then the resident stingray started patrolling up and down “His” beach.

 

He was so darned close to the edge of the water you would have only wet to the knees touching him.  We certainly didn’t want to hook him because that would be the last we’d see of the line.

I was using the small bait rod trying to catch herring when I noticed the line on my surf casting rod was running to the left against the current.  It seemed strange and I decided to reel in the line.  It appeared I had a large lump of seaweed caught on the hook.

But maybe not!

The salmon had committed suicide on my line and then exhausted itself.  So there were salmon around!

By now we had almost used all the bait herring we had caught that morning.  Then Ken got lucky.

 

We threw out our salmon lines and continued fishing for herring when Ken suddenly started screaming at me to look at my salmon rod.  It was bent right over and almost about to be pulled from its sand anchor.  One hell of a fight but I managed to land a second salmon. 

Ken then caught his second salmon only for it to throw the hook and escape just as he was about to get it out of the water.

The final fish tally was three Australian Salmon and approximately 40 herring.

It would have been a bonus if we had caught more salmon, however I’m not complaining.  When I got home Jan cooked us some of the salmon using a recipe she had made.

 The fillet has been garnished with sun dried tomato and capsicum (peppers) before being cooked in it’s own juices in the air fryer.  It was delicious.

 

The Part I Hate

I’ve reached the part that I hate.

All the construction has been completed and the screw head holes filled.  It now needs to be sanded and given three coats of paint.  I’m sure I‘ve previously mentioned I intensely dislike painting

At this point I haven’t decided whether a vent is required on one of the end walls to allow the air to escape.  Could I have done such a good job that the compartment is airtight?  I’m hoping not!

Time to start thinking of the next project.  But not before I head off on a fishing trip down south with Ken tomorrow.  Perhaps I will have more success than last time and I must remember to take some photos.

 

Next on the list

Jan has asked if it would be possible to replace the exterior aluminium framed glass sliding door and window in the laundry.  She doesn’t like it and would prefer a solid timber door.

After doing some measuring I believe it would be possible to replace the sliding door on the left side with a 720mm wide solid timber door.  The area to the right would be framed in 4x4 and clad externally with a cement fibre panel.  One the inside there would be a Formica wet wallboard panel.  The loss of light would make the laundry dark which means the door will require a small window.  I could either make the door or purchase one.  Having estimated the required materials purchasing looks the cheaper option

The timber door would open inwards and a new security screen door would open outwards.  My only concern is whether a 720mm door has sufficient width (we’re not getting any thinner!). 

Leaving Australia

Readers if you read or watch international news you may have noticed the Australian government had temporarily banned entry into Australia from India.  Moreover the government has enacted legislation which may result in any person breaching this ban being imprisoned and/or fined. 

Leaving aside the threat of imprisonment or fine, I decided to research the situation.

Back in March of last year the Federal government banned all citizens from travelling overseas unless they obtained an exemption.  Moreover the government advice to all overseas Australians was to return home.  At that time it was estimated there were 10,000 Australian citizens and permanent residents in India.  The figure surprised me as I hadn’t realised it was that high.  As of April this year 20,000 have returned from India and yet another 9000 are now wanting to return. 

From the media interviews of Australian citizens and permanent residents in India wanting to return it’s apparent all who were interviewed left Australia after the March 2020 ban.

Going to the government website I note where an Australian citizen or permanent resident has dual nationality they can leave Australia BUT THEY CANNOT RETURN.  Citizens could also apply for a travel exemption.  No doubt this is how the senior Australian cricketers were able to leave to participate in the Indian Premier League where huge salaries are earned.   

I have listened to the reasons why people returning to India; their father was dying, or to get married!  I’ve also watched the TV interview with the Australian cricketer demanding his government send an aircraft to repatriate him.

My impression is many of these 9000 either left for India after the travel ban or decided to wait out the pandemic in India only for the situation to turn critical.

The Australian government has to make decisions on what is best for all Australians.  Currently Australia is very close to COVID free.  The way of life and the economy are back to normal.  Quarantine capacity in Australia is already full.  There is no spare capacity to accept a surge of 9000 from a COVID ravaged region.

To those stuck in India I say “You made the decision.  On reflection it might have been a poor decision….. But you own it!”  In the last year over a million Australians returned.  You could have been one of them.

 

Three More COVID-19 Cases in Perth

Here we go again.  Just as the current lockdown restrictions were being eased Perth has three new cases.  All are linked to the current hotel quarantine system and are not linked to the previous breaching involving cross contamination between hotel rooms.  This time it’s another hotel security guard at a different hotel who has contracted the virus.  He then spread it when he returned to his accommodation he shares with seven others, two of which have also contracted COVID.  The man had recently received his first injection of the Pfizer vaccine and initially thought his symptoms were a side effect of the vaccine.

The State Premier is once again criticising the hotel quarantine system and points out in the media that the Commonwealth (ie, Federal Government) is responsible for human quarantine in the constitution.  Is he right?

The Commonwealth became responsible for human quarantine with the passing of the 1908 Quarantine Act.  However as the Commonwealth didn’t have officials at the borders to perform quarantine services it required support from State and Territory health departments

In 2012 the Commonwealth and States mutually agreed to an Implementation Plan under which the Commonwealth was responsible for:

1. Administering the 1908 Act
2. Providing advice and guidance to the States
3. Developing procedures to be used by the States
4. Providing training to State officials
5. Reviewing State performance and providing a financial contribution 

The State governments are responsible for:

1. Resourcing the plan
2. Deciding whether quarantine of arriving individuals is warranted
3. Ensuring appropriate treatment is provided to persons in quarantine

It appears the Federal government has overall responsibility under the 1908 Act but State governments are responsible for actual quarantine implementation.  Yet another example of confusion when various levels of government are involved and politics comes into play!

Meanwhile I have discovered being lazy results in additional work.

There is a lawn water reticulation pipe under the dust extractor pad and I decided not to relocate it when digging the evacuations for the pad.  The reticulation came on this morning and a geyser appeared beside the concrete pad.  Apparently I nicked the pipe with the spade during my digging and I now have a leak.  More digging to replace and relocate the pipework.  Should have done it properly in the first place!

 

Framed

Not us….  The dust extractor!

Yesterday afternoon was spent making window frames minus the glass panes.

The upper left will provide access to the electrics and ducting whilst the upper right provides access to the filter bag.  The lower will enable me to remove and empty the rubbish bin.

All that is required to finish the job are three sheets of fibre cement board and some paint.