On 2009-09-28 12:23:38 -0400, "Fred" said:


On 28-Sep-2009, rw wrote:

but when I thought about the fly boxes my
stomach turned. They were literally irreplaceable.

I found my stuff. No new gear upgrade this year (except for sal****er).

You are lucky!
I turned over a canoe once while fishing and lost my prescription glasses
$400 to $450 & a camera
I saved my fly rod

I would hate to lose fly boxes but they are in the pockets of my vest

Fred

OK, here's one, happened to me when I was about 12 yo. We were in a
cottage on Back Lake (Connecticut Lakes Region) when a guy tipped over
his boat losing all his spinning gear include his tackle box, and a
very expensive (so he says) knife.

Bruce Bacon, local boy, my age, came up with the idea of a diving bell.
His mom had a large galvanized wash tub, you know the kind with
handles on each side, about 2 feet deep and with a diameter of about 2
1/2 feet. We brought the wash tub to the site of the tip over and
secured two paint-bucket-filled-with-congrete anchors to the handles.
We place the tub in the water up-side-down, but the buckets of cement
weren't heavy enough to sink it. So, back to shore for two more paint
buckets. That did the trick.

We had about 4 feet of rope connected to each bucket so that the tub
"floated" about 4 feet from the bottom of Back Lake.

Bruce was first. With fins and a fact mask, he dove down (about 12
feet) and started the search for the guy's equipment. When he needed a
breath of air, he went under the tub and up. As he took his breath of
air, the water level rose (of course), and he swam around another
minute or so looking for more stuff. He came to the surface with two
plastic boxes of spinning lures.

My turn. I dove down, searched around for a minute or so and found the
knive. I then swam under the bucket and up into the air pocket, took a
breath (water rising) and continued my search for more stuff. After we
each had made two dives, we had to "restock" the air in the tub.

Bruce said that we should blow out all the air as we rose to the
surface. He didn't say why. It wasn't until years later that I
realized how dangerous this "diving bell" was.

Long story longer: We found most of the guy's stuff, including two
spinning rods/reels, another plastic box of lures and a belt (?). The
guy gave us each $5, a helluva lot of money in 1949.

Dave ( who was NOT a diver in the Navy)