"On Britches and Gadgets""

My neighbour stopped by today to ask how the cod jigs he sold me had worked this summer, well I said I had not much luck but I don't think it had anything to do with the jig. At any rate he ended up giving me some Cod, must of felt sorry for me, nice guy and probably not.....but I am getting side tracked. When he gave me the cod he also gave me some "britches" to try. My first time and they were delicious. Not familiar to me but delicious, as was the cod. I believe it is the roe of the cod that really is shaped like a pair of "britches". I had to google of course and found that the name also was given to some macaque monkey who was born into a breeding colony at the University of California. The word britches gets around. For example growing up as a child when I got into the odd bit of mischief ;-), my Mom would inevitably say that ,"I was getting too big for my britches". Something more to do with being out of line to put it nicely rather than getting to big for my clothes.

On a kayaking related note the picture is of a new kayak deck spare paddle holder from Northwater called, are you ready? "paddlebritches". If you are or are not familiar with Northwater they produce some very practical kayaking accessories and safety gear. Northwater.com will get you to their site. The kayaking Instructor's Blog gave it a good review. I like gadgets but have not tried this yet. Their peaked deck bag rocks and I use it on every trip as well as their tow and tether lines. The Paddlebritches are made out of a 1000 weight cordura and may be useful for also securing part of a fishing rod which I had a bit of a problem doing during the cod fishery here in Newfoundland. Sort of a two bird with one stone kind-of-a-thing. They retail for $29.95 cdn. Dear me!! Another gadget but I am rationalizing, like a true committer(i know this is not a word yet) to the purchase, that it is very practical, has a few purposes and may even be easy on the kayak deck paint job sliding spare paddles in and out. Ok, I'm convinced....where do I buy one...lol.

On another note I thought one day when I was over come by waves in following seas how it would be nice to see what was behind me without turning my head in bad conditions. Well this image of a "clamp on paddle mirror" came to mind and I started researching the idea and to see if any suppliers of kayaking gear had actually developed a mirror for a kayak paddle or for the deck of a kayak, nerdy I know and maybe not as practical as "Paddlebritches" but all ideas have an "infancy". What I found much to my astonishment was that someone had already taken out a patent on it. Still haven't seen one for retail though. Just another kayaker on another "pipe" (paddle) dream.