outdoors.truthandcommonsense.com

Chief Cummings and his dogs

Where to begin. I’m going to submit a more extensive article to several magazines to see if they want to publish the work. But here, I’m going to share with you my father’s hunting life in photographs. Yesterday, I persuaded him to let me scan many of his old albums so I could capture his love of the outdoors in photographs. My dad has always, ALWAYS loved the outdoors and did anything he could to get into the woods or on the water. Even now, crippled with a bad back, diabetes and age, he travels to his beloved Alabama cabin as often as his health allows. He sits quietly on the porch and watches squirrels, birds and other critters as they hop, fly and crawl their way past his perch.

Dad on a bear hunt 1955

He tells stories of a youth spent collecting orphaned critters from cats to alligators as he ran the woods of Plant City, Florida. He played ball, helped his dad work construction, loved his mom, snuck in and stole oranges from farmer’s orchards, and did what kids in the forties did back then. During a stint in the Navy he was stationed in Jacksonville and spent all his free time hunting around the Florida/Georgia border. One of his first memorable hunts was with “Chief Cummings” hunting bears. Back then, the local wildlife officer actually helped set up the hunts. Dad still had photographs from that time. The photograph shows Dad proudly posing with his father’s Marlin rifle. Grandpa had shipped it over to Dad just before the hunt and he didn’t even have time to shoot it. Dad says it was a good thing he didn’t see a bear on this hunt. The firing pin was busted. One of the other hunters, a master chief in the Navy stationed at the Navy oridinance post manufactured a replacement later.

Dad eventually killed a 508lb bear on one of the hunts. As he sat there talking about the hunts of his youth he said “Son, those were good days.” Yes they were.

Game warden setting up the hunt!

How it was done in 1955

Everybody has a pair of boots they love. Usually, as in my case, the boots were at one time waterproof, but now can no longer hold that claim. My favorite pair of boots is a set of upland Danners. They are the best fitting pair of boots I ever owned. It is like wearing a pair of custom leather gloves on your feet. For the first couple of years the boots were waterproof because of a Gore-Tex lining. They were great! I wore them on duty as an anti-crime detective and in the woods hunting and hiking. But, eventually I wore them out. I had them resoled and somehow during the process they began to leak. It was heart breaking.

Worse, the wet boots led to wet feet and that led to some foot problems during the long hunt. I vowed to get a new pair of waterproof boots when I got home and I did, but they do not fit as well. I missed my Danners, no other boot felt the same way on my feet. I think every hunter/hiker knows where I’m coming from. So, I began to think about how to seal the boot. I tried Mink oil and all its cousins with some success. I figured the leak wasn’t actually through the boot, but along the seam around the sole. No matter how I worked it, I couldn’t seal the seam and a small leak always started shortly after hitting water. Then I got an idea. For years I had been using a product called Plasti-dip (http://www.plastidip.com/) to recoat certain metal items including parts of my tree stand. I knew the product was extremely waterproof and had some stretch built into its makeup.

taping off the boots

So I took my Danners and a pair of leather Irish setter boots and did an experiment. I taped off, using painter tape, the edges of the boots below the stitched sole and just above the leather seam along the foot pad. With a brush I applied several coats of black Plastic-dip to the areas I felt were leaking.

After a period for drying, I put my son to the task of testing the boots-much to his dismay. (Hey, I was busy working on something else and he was just sitting there during homework, so it seemed like a good idea!)

Jacob the guinea pig!

The end result of the experiment was a waterproof pair of boots with only a small black line of Plasti-dip along the soles. Now, I tried the same method on a much bigger scale on an old pair of snake boots that leaked almost since the day I owned them. Those boots are made of ballistic nylon and I basically had to paint the entire sides and top with Plasti-dip. That task was more difficult because of the material, but I managed to get one boot waterproof and the other almost the same. Since I started out with a pair of snake proof sieves, I know I’m the right track.

When I looked up Plasti-dip online I was surprised to find the product comes in many different colors, including clear, which should work for those of you who worry about appearances. I’m tickled; my boots are back in action and I think I’m on to something here!

Update: I figured out why, after a number of coats of Plasti-dip, my snake boots refused to stay waterproof. As I stood over the wet pair I noticed that the soles of the boots were wet. Not the rest of the boot, but water was definitely seeping out of the bottom. What?? So I reversed the process and filled the boots with water. I watched as water poured through the soles of the boot. Apparently, my boots have soles that do not deflect sharp objects very well. One stick, not a sharp one at all, had rammed its way into one sole and left a 1/4 inch cut. Each sole had at least three holes in it. Back to the drawing board. I’m going to have to find a material waterproof and tough enough to withstand me walking on them. AAGGH!

Update Two: I bought Shoe-Goo and put it on the boots. We’ll see. It does harden to a tough coat. I think I got all the holes. A couple of layers of plasti-dip and another test is in the offing. Update:  Success! The snake boots sat in water for nineties minutes with no leaks. I’m using the rest of the spray to cover the rest of the boot. If it works, I’ll be as waterproof as a rubber boot with snake protection. Total investment was less than fifteen dollars.

My waterproof Danners. Back in business

waterproof!