Category: Travel

Travel

Eagle Creek Tarmac ES 22 Uneven Wheel Wear

I’ve written about my Eagle Creek Tarmac ES 22 before, talking about the handle screws coming loose.  Now I want to talk a little bit about another thing I’ve discovered about the bag I love to travel with.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the wheels don’t quite track in the same direction with the bag.  Each of the wheels (if looking from the wheel side) point out which causes some uneven wear on the wheels as you can see in the picture below.  Notice the lighter color on the wheel which indicates this is the part that makes contact with the ground.

Because of this, I’ve taken a bit of proactive maintenance on my Tarmac 22 bag.  Since I live in dry and dusty part of the United States, every so often, I take the wheels off to clean and lubricate them.  I also note which side of the wheel was on the inside so I can flip the wheel to wear on the other side.

Removing the wheel involves using a set of pliers and a 5mm allen wrench to unbolt the wheel (you also have to unzip the bag liner).  The wheel is held in place by a bolt and a lock nut (nut with a plastic part to keep it from accidentally coming loose).  I use the pliers to grip the nut since it’s a tight fit.

Once the wheels are off and marked, I clean them with a penetrating lubricant like WD-40.  This clears out any dirt and dust and helps the ball bearings to move freely again.  You will typically find all kinds of dirt and hair on the wheels when you remove them.  Pictured below is a dirty wheel and one that has been cleaned.  Also don’t forget to clean out the wheel well too (pictured above without a wheel).

When all the cleaning is finished, just reverse the procedure to install the wheels.  Remember to flip the wheels so they start wearing on the other half of the wheel.

With a little bit of preventative maintenance you can make the wheels on your Tarmac 22 last as long as possible.  If the bearings ever wear out, I’m sure Eagle Creek will gladly replace the wheels since there is a lifetime guarantee on the bag.

– Dom

My new fly fishing site … domflyfish.com

It’s taken a fair amount of work lately, I finally made the time and energy investment to create my own fly fishing website.

One of the motivations for creating it was to capture my experiences as I went out and to share them with others (I’m mostly doing this so my kids have a record of something their father loved).  This fly fishing website will be a little different, it will use different types of media like google maps with video & audio.

All future fly fishing posts will go there now.

Check it out at domflyfish.com and let me know what you think.

– Dom

Wyoming G&FD Cutt-Slam

Found out about this nice little program & certificate from a co-worker this afternoon.

The Wyoming Game & Fish Department manage several areas of native cutthroat trout within the state and want to promote it using the Cutt-Slam certificate.

I’ve had the chance to catch Golden Trout in CA, Gila Trout in AZ, and Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout in NM.  All of these native fish in their natural watersheds (sometimes hard to reach) were absolutely beautiful.

I had no idea this kind of program existed, maybe worth a vacation fly fishing trip to Wyoming to see what these fish really look like.  It would also be nice if NM did something like this too.

– Dom

My Brodin Pro Cutthroat Net

This last week I took my father and 2 brothers for a couple days of summer fishing on the San Juan River below Navajo Dam in New Mexico.  We had a great time catching several thick 17 inch trout on size 28 midges.

One of the problems I had was with the size 28 hooks and my Brodin net (I’ve had this net for more than 10 years now).  It seemed every time we landed a fish the hook would get caught in the net and I spent the next 10 minutes getting the hook un-stuck (even though I pinched the barb down as best I could).  More than a couple times, I actually broke the hook and had to tie on a new fly.

I’ve seen some of the newer nets with a rubber bag and thought they would be less of a hassle when catching & releasing fish.  So I researched it a bit and found that Brodin has a whole new series of nets called their “Ghost” series (which look pretty slick).

What’s nice is that Brodin also offers the newer “Ghost” net bags to update a older net like mine.  I’m definitely going to order a newer Ghost (thermoplastic) net bag for my net.  I’ll do a “how to update your net” in a later post and maybe include a video.

I also found a great gallery of fish & net pictures on the Brodin website.  More than several pictures show the newer ghost net bags and they look great.

Enjoy!

– Dom