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3. What hobbies apart from fishing do you have?, Page 2

Wow guys, tough acts to follow. As for hobbies other than fishing and tying I draw and paint, been working with colored pencil lately.
Used to be active in frestyle and dance roller skating, before the days of in-line skates. I've been smacking the little white ball around for 40+ years and managed to eliminate the handicap..... Love AC and Vegas and now PA and Del. My 7 children.......... Did I say Seven?????? I am a Chef for the past 15 years.....was a baker for 20......... a certified welder for 5....... bird watching..... watching wildlife in general.......

That is so true - positively painful when someone's bad at it. The other problem with violin is that if you don't start playing at the age of three, you'll probably never reach the level of a professional (i.e., it's easy to be a lot worse than the people everybody listens to). That's what I love about guitar - learn three chords and sing roughly in tune and you're Tom Petty. Professionals in pop music are often such bad musicians that you don't have to be too proficient before you start hearing people say, "Wow, you're awesome. You should be a professional." That's great for the ego. And the worst thing is, they're right...

-Shawn

Am looking forward to the CAGE door being left open again soon.

Ha! cool topic... eerily, we are all similar...

Man, this is gonna get scary cause at any one point in time, I have 100 irons in the fire:

1.flyfishing of course. since I was 10. I'm on the verge of 34 now.
2.tying flies, but its more of a chore anymore.
3.I lead two bands: "The Agway Shoplifters" and "706 UNION" the first is a roots country/honky tonk outfit, the second is a jump blues/ rockabilly band. www.myspace.com/agwayshoplifters and www.myspace.com/706union
4. I play guitar, viola, violin, pedal steel, hawaiian lap steel guitar, upright bass and harmonica and accordian. (im first genny american, parents straight off the poland ship). music has been in the family a long time. I'm teaching (and learning!)violin to my 6 year old- she has been playing three years. we are on Bach right now.
5. I build tube amplifiers- I basically use the classic public domain circuits with my own tweaks. I build everything from scratch... I buy speakers and electric components. My amps are local legend and you gotta be on a wait list to get near one.
6. old records. I am a nut for 1930s-60s hawaiian tradtional steel guitar music. Jerry Byrd is my favorite.
7. I build wooden drift boats. You can see some of my work in "DriftBoats and River Dories" by Roger Fletcher. www.riverstouch.com. I have built five boats thus far and have #6 in thegarage as we speak.
8. I teach autocad at a local penn state campus. I enjoy teaching alot. besides, I spent a good portion of my late teens giving PSU my money, its about time i get some back!
9. I keep bees. I love bugs. and keeping bees is the ultimate observation deck. to be father to 30,000 bees is a privledge. It is an amazing experience to watch an entire civilization in one of my bee houses. honey rocks too.
10. birds. I love local birds. I tend to many bluebird houses on my property. we have an american kestrel we are watching lately.
11. I shoot tradtional archery. Not very good, but I enjoy it. building arrows and bows.
12. turkey hunting. i love the month of may- turkey hunt in the am and trout fish in the afternoons. what could be better?
13. grouse hunting. the numbers are up in the covers i hunt this past year. we had an awesome season. i usually hunt with a friend and his dog, but had some great solo walks in the woods with many flushes this year.
14. mtb and cross bike riding. i just moved- bought a nice farm and have access to some great road riding....might have to get into that too! I ride a singlespeed 29" mtb. I ride boyce park a few times a week near my home. really good single track for intermediate skill levels.
15. vintage ford tractors. i restored (and use) a 1944 Ford 9N/2N tractor. as a kid growing up on the farm, my favorite one in the barn was a ford. I always said i'd have my own someday. it took 20 years, but here we are.
16. painting. i paint a bit. a friend an i pick themes and then trade paintings. its just fun, and my daughters like it too.
17. I am getting into alternative fuels. I am building a solar hot water pre-heater for my home. basically, it pumps water into a black holding tank, uses solar energy to "warm" it, then it is pumped into my regular hot water heater. it takes less energy to sustain and heat the water to usable temps. I am looking into other supplemental green energy sources for my home. Its been a fun learning experience.
18. bmx racing. part of having kids is gettign involved in their activities. my oldest daughter is a bmx racing nut. she loves bike riding more than me and we have a local track she races at. "training" with her is alot of fun. being her bike mechanic is great, and watching her race makes me proud.

All of this stuff Im teaching my kids along the way, its pretty funny to hear a 5 year old talk about bees into great detail.

peace.

Davez,

Amazing. And when did you clone yourself? I was especially happy to hear about the bluebirds. At our old house we had two boxes and we got bluebirds and tree swallows . . . and house sparrows. When we got the first bluebirds after setting up the houses, some bloodthirsty little old lady at the Bluebird Society I was talking to on the phone told me I would have to kill all the sparrows around or they'd break the bluebird's eggs, kill the hatchlings, and even kill the parents. I started out with a Daisy pump pellet gun, dispatched many a sparrow with it using iron sights, then put a scope on it, but when I bought the German made break action gun (1,000 fps) with a really well designed scope that's when the distance shooting got started. I could crack our kitchen window and plug them at the end of the yard. Then I started hunting the sparrows on the fence row in the field where a neighbor had put up about 10 houses. One summer he swore there wasn't a sparrow left within a mile. We still lost a few eggs and had house sparrows drive one pair out and break their eggs. Those sparrows certainly didn't live to enjoy the nest box. A few years ago we moved more into town, and I now miss the bluebirds. And I sort of miss the hunting, though I had stopped hunting game in my twenties after growing up doing it. Do be careful if you decide to get rid of the house sparrows in your neck of the woods, song sparrows and white throated sparrows--along with many other native sparrows--are both inoffensive and protected by law. But since you know a bit about birds, you probably wouldn't mix them up. Oh, and I've built a few kayaks, but driftboats? ? ? that sounds way cool.

DaveZ..
When the hell do you sleep man???

I don't sleep. life is too short. its a blessing and a curse. the blessing is, i have the ability to do all this stuff, the curse is, there is not enough time to do it all. fortunately, my family is involved with most of it, if they weren't i wouldnt do it. time with them is more important than it all.

don't get me wrong, i don't do those things daily, other than maybe ride bikes or play instruments.

Dave

oh yes, sparrowhunting. hilarious. we used to use decoys. hahahha! shoot one, then prop him up with toothpicks, then shoot the whole bloddy lot of them when they fly in!

haven't done that in years. we have kestrel, owls and a hawk that cleans up on the sparrows. but they also like bluebirds too..its a tough livin.

the signof spring is out there.. I heard redwing blackbirds all over the place this morning.

off to fish tomorrow.

It's nice to see how well-rounded the people on this forum are, much more than just a bunch of obsessive trout and bug fanatics. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

This has been a great topic. I feel like I know all of you a little better now. Good stuff.

-Shawn

A few hobbies, but work takes up most of my time

- I cook whenever i'm not on the road, which is kind of funny because it's also my job, which is why I'm not home. I guess you could say I cook all the time

- I like to read a lot, which is good because i spend a lot of time on airplanes

- I love Golf, and used to be very good at it, but between moving to Mass. (where golf is very expensive) and taking up fly fishing, I find that I don't play very often any more

If I could fish everyday I would but then I'd get divorced and I don't want that to happen. If I fished all the time I'd have no time to tie flies which I still love to do. I also love to cook gourmet meals or prepare any of the 100 or so recipes my Mom used to make for the family when I was still living at home. My wife and I really enjoy going to the Riviera Maya, the Bahamas, or Key West a couple of times a year. I like to build a rod once in awhile but I have so many now I can hardly justify building any more. I guess I could always try to sell some or just give a couple away. That is about all I want to do; fish over large rising trout, eat gourmet meals, travel to the Caribbean and fish for whatever will eat my Crazy Charlie's and sit in the sun drinking Anejo dark rum.