Well the soft water season is almost over if not over, and there are a good number of you waiting on the hard water season to get here, but, that unfortunately never seems to materialize for you heartier souls.

I had a long non fishing (miserable) summer never wetting a line this year! First I had some health issues for most of the summer which fortunately seem to be under control now, on top of that I had a boat that also needed some mechanical work (new motor). Fortunately that motor has been replaced and the boat at least idles fine, and is waiting on spring to get here for breakin.

There were several of you , and you know who you are, that offered fishing opportunities to me but unfortunately I was not able to capitalize on even one of them because of either my medical problems or the cotton pick'in winds were blowing on the pro-offered days. I want to take this time to formally thank each and every one of you for the kind and considerate offers that were made to me by you.

Now for some tech info for those of you who may have shallow water issues from time to time and get into the sand a little. After tearing down the 5.7 L GM engine it was discovered that there had been a major head gasket failure between #3 and #5 cylinders. There was an actual channel torched/melted between the two cylinders in the mating surfaces of both the block and head. The first thought one would have is that the head gasket blew allowing this to occur. But not so, the cause that was determined, was the fact that the head and block had a large deposit of sand in them sucked up when I got into some shallow water while leaving the river one day. I got over 3 cups of sand out of the block thru the drain plug and the holes that feed the head in the area of the failure, also several more cups of sand from the head itself. Not only that there were several more in both exhaust manifolds, although I did not attempt to clean the side with even numbered cylinders, there was sand packed in the drain hole when I removed the knock sensor and drain plug assembly. Never once did the motor over heat either by gauge or by the audible alarm. In fact the water pump impeller looked new yet with no visible signs of physical damage, the Bravo III mounts its water pump inside the boat under the engine on the side with the even numbered cylinders. Before reassembling the new long block with the needed parts from my old engine I took the intake to a local machine shop that builds dirt track engines just to be cleaned and checked for the piece of mind that it was ok. It was there that I was informed that it takes very little blockage in the water(cooling ports) passages that go from the block to the head to cause this type of problem. The shop owner told me that had I checked the drain plugs after the engine had cooled and the sand had settled and if I had cleaned that sand out at that time the break down probably would not have happened. He also said there may not be any type of signs such as high temps on the gauge or an audible alarm that the engine is over heating in the area that ultimately fails as the gauge and alarm only receives their signals from a single source that is usually a fair ways from the problem area, both are located in/on the thermostat housing, one on either side. So if I helped even on person avoid this problem then all of this typing would have been worth it.