Bass Boats and Hawaiian Aloha Shirts

It’s summer here in always sunny southern California and prime time for outdoor activities. There are tons of outdoor activities that are challenging and entertaining, but one thing that’s does suck in San Diego and most of California is the fishing, the shore fishing is one of the worst things you will ever experience if you decide to try your hand at fishing California. When you want to fish our so called public lakes you will be required to have a expensive state fishing license, as well as pay for daily fishing licenses for that particular location and in some instances an additional parking fee. What our state fishing license fees are used for is anybody's guess. In my opinion it’s all just one big rip-off because you are paying to fish from shore with very limited shore access to most of the areas that actually have fish. And when you do manage to locate fish, they are numb to your lure presentations. That's most likely a result of all of the fishing pressure our lakes receive in general, not to leave out that the bass here are the ever finicky Florida strain bass.

Sure you can rent a small aluminum boat from one of the concession stands, but you will pay a lot for it. Take the sucky, nearly void of deep water Lake Hodges for example, a lake access/fishing permit and boat rental for 2 people will set you back about $75 for a unreliable boat (image below is what you actually get) that has to be returned by 6pm or something. I mentioned unreliable because in the past we have rented boats from Lake Hodges and every single one of them quit running at some point, most appear to run out of fuel or lose spark. Hodges solution was to give you another piece of crap which had the same characteristics. When they are out of replacement boats to give you, they prorate your rental fee and tell you that you now have the option to fish from shore or go home.

 

 

Nonetheless I tried to brush things off and give things the old college try and adopt the mindset that even though its Lake Hodges (which is close to my home), it’s still better than being in the office. I was also very easy to find on Lake Hodges, one just had to look for the bass fisherman wearing one of the (almost predictably) bright Hawaiian shirts from Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts, and yes that was a shameless plug for our business. But then one day not to long ago my wife and I got totally fed up with the local fishing scene and decided that we needed to go elsewhere for our outdoor entertainment. Being an old Mississippi river rat that's far from home, the only logical choice for me was to head to the next closest big river, that being the lower Colorado river.

It took just one excursion / trip to the lower Colorado to realize just how much Lake Hodges and California in general is screwing its residents and visitors. Everything in Yuma and probably most of Arizona is actually accessible to the public, do you see a body of water from the road? Just pull off the road onto one of the many paths through the sand and head to the water! But there was still one major annoyance (ok, frustration), that being access to the actual river. With few roads in the area you are still extremely limited on what you can access and ultimately end up to going to the public fishing docks and a sprinkling of cleared bank areas to fish. The good thing is that most water access is free, unlike California parks that charge you an access fee just look at the water.

So what was my solution for straightening out this dilemma you ask? Buy a bass boat of course! So off we went to our local Outdoor World (Bass pro shops) to look at boats, while we started out looking at a aluminum Tracker boat (which would have suited our needs well) but somehow ended up buying fiberglass boat, in particular a 2013 Nitro Z-7. We have not taken delivery yet, but in a few days we will have a boat similar to the one pictured below. (I snagged the picture below off the internet because it does have the same paint scheme, less the Mercury 150 fourstroke) Our Nitro Z 7 has a 2013 Mercury 150 Fourstroke, which I am really looking forward to running, Lowrance on the bow and Lowrance color sonar with GPS capability and chart plotters in the console, KeelGuard, hydraulic pedestal, hydraulic steering, etc.

Sadly I didn't see an option for a Hawaiian print bass boat, but I certainly would have considered it. Thinking out loud... I guess I still have the option to do a Hawaiian themed wrap for my bass boat.

 
OMG Not that it's a new low for me, but I just realized that I have already resorted to blogging some of my "line sheet" and I don't even have the boat yet! I guess that's what happens when you have bass boat fever. and of course my wife has taken every opportunity to buy boat related stuff for herself, if there was ever an excuse to needlessly blow money this is it. My wife has purchased more stuff in the last few weeks than she has all of last year (nonetheless I still love her).


I will update the Nitro Z 7 bass boat picture once I take delivery, which is this Saturday, but if you see someone wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and standing on the bow of a bass boat in the vicinity of the Colorado river, it's probably me. Am I going to change my clothing to fit in more with the local fisherman? Hell no, my personal opinion is that there is no reason that we can not have a dress code that's somewhere between covert camouflage and sponsored tournament apparel similar to a NASCAR drivers suit. But because of my preferred clothing choice I am sure that someone will tag me with a funky nickname that will be hard to shake off. Next week we take the boat to the lower Colorado river for it's maiden voyage, so stay tuned, this could be a very interesting year.

Back in the day I used to fish Red Man bass tournaments and a whack of club and pro am tournaments, there is a voice in my head telling me I have some unfinished business in my future.

I previously stated that I was going to post more pictures here but have since changed my mind and started a new blog called Fishing Safaris which is 100% dedicated to our Nitro Z-7 boat and bass fishing on the Colorado River

Mahalo

A Hawaiian Shirt Only a Mother Could Love

About a year ago I was in our Hawaiian shirt store putting away some stock and overheard a customer asking the clerk on how to go about obtaining our fabric scraps. It was about then that my wife came into the store and the clerk asked her and she replied that we usually donated them to a local church, but then said let me ask Charles. While it’s true that we donate fabrics to charities, I have also often thought about other outlets for the fabric so I responded with a loud and sort of proud tone of voice “I am going to turn all of the fabric scraps into Hawaiian shirts”. At first there was silence and then they all started laughing, little did they know that I was serious. I mean why not, I am often asked by customers to recommend our loudest and often most hideous looking Hawaiian shirt.

That’s also the sort of question that's hard to answer, especially when you pride yourself on offering nice looking Aloha shirts. So my thought and subjective consciousness was to mix up and cut all of the different colored fabric and designs that we had laying around in the shop. Then I was going to have sewing put them together to make what most would consider to be the world’s ugliest Hawaiian shirts and everyone agrees that statement would be an complete understatement. But just imagine the look on someone’s face when they opened a gift and pulled out a shirt that didn’t have any of the shirt 12 pieces that matched. The shock, the horror, the sheer amazement. I think the moment would be totally priceless to say the least.

 

So we started making some of the most popular sizes in limited quantities and tossed them onto the Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts website and in our showroom.

 

What myself and everyone else didn’t realize was that some purchasers actually planned on wearing them! Yes, not only are there people that are willing to wear them, we now have a waiting list for people that have requested ugly shirts in a size we didn’t yet offer.

 

The very first shirt sold also happened to be the one we used for the picture in the product page. Here is a picture of the purchaser Alän Lieffring wearing his original ugly Hawaiian shirt.

 

Don't forget that Father's Day Sunday, June 16 2013 and we are certain he would like a Aloha shirt from Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts which are made in the USA

Edit: First off we want to thank everyone for the flood of orders in the past few months. We also wanted to say that we were caught off guard by all of the people that purchased the ugly shirts, not so much that they purchased them, but because they are wearing them. They are sending us pictures as proof, all we can say is hats off those that have the kahunas to do so.

 

Hawaiian Shirt Design from the Archives

 

While reviewing some old artwork that we had not yet followed through on (meaning the design never went to print), I came across this one and wondered if anyone can guess what the large flower is? Your hint is this: While this flower is cultivated commercially in the Hawaiian islands and the US mainland, the flower has a genus of South African flowering plants.



I also managed to dredge up the original pineapple photo that we used for the design we utilized in the Wave Shoppe pineapple shirts.

 

While the design is almost retired, you can still read about the process of designing textiles by reading this blog post appropriately titled Designing Hawaiian Print Fabrics

 

With a lot of new design being printed, as well as on the drawing board, it promises to be a summer filled with exciting new and original designs for Aloha shirts and select Hawaiian dress patterns in the Wave Shoppe line.

Mahalo from everyone at Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts