How to Silence a Ladder / Lumber Rack

After many fruitless searches, I decided to write my own "How-To" on eliminating wind noise (buffeting) caused by a ladder / lumber rack that extends over the cab and terminates at the windshield.

Here's the rack I picked up for $150!! I know, a steal.


Very simple design


Tough lighting for pictures (and not an ideal spot)

I was able to buy this cheap, but had to do some work on it to make it fit my truck. It was made for an extended cab Dodge, so it extended past my windshield to about the middle of the hood. WAY too much for my liking. The solution was to simply cut off the protruding part at the point where the angled part began. We welded caps on the exposed pipes and gave it a quick paint job from a can.

Everything was going well, until I drove on the interstate for the 1st time! Up around 65-70 mph, there was a terrible noise right above the cab. Like a loud rumble / hum, and no, unlike what you'll find in the forums, turning up the stereo was not an option.

So of course, I came back and tried to search for a solution. I got all sorts of random ideas with airfoils and whatnot, but it wasn't really anything I wanted to do right off the bat. Then I came across one fella in a forum who mentioned, "an old camping trick" to wrap rope around the front bar to break up the airflow around the tubing. I tried that first with a small rope and really long spirals (about 5 inch gaps) and it WORKED....but not 100%. So, I figured if all I was doing was disrupting airflow, perhaps a thicker rope wrapped tighter would do it.

I was able to find a black (to match) dock rope (to resist mildew and whatnot) that's about 5/8ths of an inch and about 12 feet long that was going to have to work. After wrapping this with a spacing of about 2 inches, I was able to wrap the excess around the vertical post and then tuck the tie-end into the spiral.

IT WORKS! I have absolutely NO noise or buffeting coming from the rack now, and I personally don't think it looks that bad. And for a $7 dollar piece of rope, I'm very pleased.


Cruddy photo, but you can see the wraps.



This photo is a little better. You can see the wraps, the excess on the post, and the tag end tucked in.

The only issue I've found (which I'm thinking is inevitable because the rack is right above the windshield) is the dirt dripping onto the windshield when things thaw out. You can see that a little bit in the above photo. BUT, in the long run, my truck is usually dirty...so...not really a new problem.

Hope this is the kind of thing that can get googled. Again, I saw a serious lack of solutions on the web, so decided to display what worked for me.

On an unrelated note, I was putting away shells this weekend and found something that's always nice to see:

My one and only shot at a critter with the rifle this year produced!

Duck Hunt Success!

Last Wednesday, Jason and I awoke in the wee morning hours and headed down to the chain lakes to try our hand at duck hunting. After a half-hour drive, we were loading up his 13 foot canoe and heading into the darkness. Now, let me tell you, starting a paddle up a deep river, at night, in December, in a SMALL canoe rated at 450 lbs max, is a little scary. Every time I blinked, the canoe would LURCH to the side and make me feel like I was going over. Let's just say I was glad to be done with that 1/4 mile paddle! (Makes me appreciate my large, 3-keel scanoe even more!)

After walking to a pit blind he found, we hurriedly threw out some decoys and collected some brush to beef up the camouflage. After that we sat. And sat. And sat. We were hoping for snow and clouds to keep the birds down, but it didn't pan out. Everything was just too high. Well, after three hours we got kinda cold and frustrated, so we went exploring. It's great country down there and one of the first mornings I've spent in a marsh in six years. It's always nice to be there to watch the world wake up and listen to everyone singing out at the sun.

At one point we heard some shooting up ahead of us and saw a flock of mallards coming at us and in range! We had a strange little conversation at that point. Jason said, "Well Tom, what do you think?" "I don't know, are the in range?" "I think so....what do you think?" And now, Jason's side of the story is funnier, because he said later, "All I heard was your safety coming off and thought, well, I guess Tom made up his mind!" Jason shot once leaning over backwards and I picked out another drake and pulled on him. One shot stopped him in mid-flight and he HOVERED there. TWO MORE shots, and no bird. I can almost positively say I never felt my cheek on the stock. It just seemed like there was no way I could miss! Alas, I'm still good at educating birds.

Well, the morning drug on and we packed up. Ended up at Killarney Lake and went on a little walk down a dike. We got to a place we were going to turn around after not seeing any birds when a hen exploded at our feet. While I fumbled with the sling on my shotgun, I saw Jason pull up and knock her out of the sky. She landed across a slough and started running! Turns out his shot just hit her wing...so we both went over there and gridded until we found her hiding under a tussock of grass. Kinda sad, but it ended quick.

Now that brings us to Saturday morning when we decided to try it again! This time the canoe ride went better and since I knew where we were going, I felt better about the whole set up. This time I was able to enjoy paddling up a river at night. There's nothing like being on the water in the dark, it's very soothing and calm. It makes you use all your other senses (rather than your eyes) and in a marsh...that keeps you pretty busy!

Well, we had to break about an inch of ice from our pond and then threw out the decoys. Yet again, all the birds were really high and never gave us a second glance. SO, on our way out, we decided to hit a hillside to try and get a better view of the country upriver from us. We were trudging up there when I whispered at Jason, "Jason! What IS that?" It really looked like five black clumps of grass. That's when one moved! He said, "I think those are turkeys Tom! I have a tag, do you?" Well yeah! So, our duck hunt quickly became a turkey-stalk. It was pretty loud and crunchy with all the ice, so by the time we got around a little hill, the birds were gone. Hmmph...I'll bet they ran up the hill on private land. JUST as soon as we said that, we walked around the hill and there they were...about 20 birds up in the cottonwoods like they were roosting!

Again, we had a brief conversation that went like, "OH. THERE they are. Here we go." And with that, I watched Jason shoulder his shotgun and decided to follow suit. I picked out the closest bird to me and hauled off twice. The second shot wasn't really needed, but it turns out it didn't hurt anything at all....I'm pretty sure the first shot was a head shot, and while he was falling out of the tree...I hit him again. Meanwhile, Jason was loosing off all his shells and reloading. The birds kinda flew off one by one, but all the branches were blocking his pattern, so he had to walk away empty handed.

I was able to find my first turkey ever in about 2 minutes...those critters sure do blend in with the brush! Well, we checked him out and talked about how strange the morning went, but how fortunate. I never thought I'd say it, but packing a turkey out of the woods (err, marsh) is actually kind of a pain. But it was a pretty pleasant one. The sun was still hiding behind some clouds, the fog was still nestled in pockets, and it was beginning to lightly snow. Huge flights of geese were overhead honking contentedly, and the whistling of duck wings overhead added to the moment.

All I can say about it, is that it was a perfect morning. And of course, I had to get a couple photos down by the river...just because we were DUCK HUNTING.


Happy Tom and his first turkey!


Now isn't that a nice looking morning!?

After I got it home, everyone had a good time checking it out. Actually Lucca and Sarah had a good time checking it out...the cats didn't want anything to do with it. I hurriedly dealt with it, noticing that it didn't have a beard yet and it's spurs were JUST starting to form...which, in talking with Jason, meant it was probably a young Jake from this year. Should be good eating!

With much of the afternoon remaining, I threw my stuff together and met Rod out at the trap club. I was able to shoot one box of shells with my new shotgun...coming away with a 17...first time out. Not as good as I was hoping, but again, talk about a fun day!

Oh, and after getting up at 3:30 in the morning and spending the entire day out in the cold....I slept like a ROCK that night!

I Touched a Dead Guy

After a nice visit to Lolo to celebrate Thanksgiving and my birthday, Sarah and I arrived home after an uneventful drive. A short time later Sarah had to run some errands (picking me up an awesome ice cream cake!) so I decided to go on a little drive.

It's a very familiar road for me and I'm pretty used to who uses the area and who lives where. I was coming down the road when I looked up the hill to see a hunter sitting against a tree. It was a peculiar spot to set up as it was about 20 yards from the road...and he was looking up the hill. He was pretty good at staying still because I didn't see him even twitch! I thought something looked odd about him, but continued on my drive. Upon circling back (after about an hour) I was making my way back up the same hill. The guy's truck was still parked down the road a ways and when I got up to him, he was still there and in the exact same position! NOW my adrenaline started kicking in and I turned the truck around so I could investigate. I parked below him and rolled the window down. A quick, "HEY!" didn't alarm him so I got out to see what was going on. As I CREEPED up the hill, certain that I was walking into a suicide, this fella remained motionless. I got up to him and sloooowwwly touched his shoulder. WTF!?

Under the layers of camo and hunters orange, he was all straw! That's when I finally looked him over and noticed an empty beer bottle in his "hand" and he was wearing ski goggles. I glanced up past him and saw a house about 40 yards away, with their big picture window staring straight at this guy. The bastards had put up a dummy to keep people from hunting on their land? I still want to talk to them, but within the next two days they had taken him down. I wonder if they saw me creeping up there and then my disgusted look as I stared at their house.

Upon getting home, Sarah had been doing a load of laundry which caused the sink to back up, then the outlet for the washer to overflow. While we were cleaning up the water and soap, there was a knock on the door. Sarah answered it and was out there for quite a while, so I peeked out the window. There was a kid in his 20s talking to Sarah and another guy about 15 feet away with his hood pulled over his head. Now, there have been blatant break-ins around Coeur d'Alene lately. Folks will knock on your door and if you don't answer, they'll kick in your door and grab what they can. If you ARE home, they'll make up some story about selling firewood or something. I know, can't trust anyone anymore right?

Well, I joined Sarah by the door and found out this guy was offering to rake our leaves for $15. His story was that they sold everything they had, were homeless, and trying to get to South Dakota. We told him no and watched them both walk across the street to our neighbor's place...again, the second kid hanging back about 15 feet. Suspicious, I circled around the house to get the license plate...and while I was doing that, noticed the girl in the passenger seat giving me a weird look. I walked up to her and told her that they were likely going to get turned in because of the scam going around; she thanked me and waited for the two fellas with a young kid and two dogs in the back of the jeep.

When they got back in the car, Sarah watched them leave. She said, "They're turning right, nope...going straight...nope...now they're going left!" Suspicious much?

Anywho, it turns out that I called the cops just to be on the safe side. With my report given, I went next door to see what story they had given the neighbor and to tell them that I had called them in. The story they got was that they were homeless and trying to get to North Dakota, and they offered to rake her leaves for $10.

*sigh*

Quite a place anymore. And reading back through this, the stories are more entertaining when told out loud....easier to build up a little suspense...but, I wanted to record them somehow.

But, everything has worked out fine and the roto-rooter guy came on Monday and was able to clean our clog. While he was doing that, a firetruck, ambulance, and cop responded to our adjacent neighbor's house. I still don't know what was going on over there.

Busy around here.