When it comes to hunting and fishing, many
things that are cheap and most everything that is free seldom
seem to work very well, last very long, or in the final analysis,
end up being cheap or free. Well, there may be one thing that
defies this truism. It's the one gallon plastic water jug, the
kind that "drinking" and "distilled" water
come in at the grocery or discount stores.
Maybe the jug isn't exactly free. It's cost is figured into the
price of its contents when you buy a gallon of water. The bottler's
assumption, I guess, is that you can throw away the plastic jug
when it is empty. So, if you want to quibble, and I don't, you
can say the jug is at least cheap, that is, worth a few cents,
and certainly expendable.
The jug is not expendable to me, however. I've found some essential |
uses for it in a variety of hunting and
fishing circumstances. If you like just one of these uses for
the gallon plastic jug, you will never throw another one away.
I started using the gallon jug several years ago to carry water
for my hunting dogs. Sure, I already had the big plastic five
gallon "gerry" can that when full weighed a ton, took
up lots of room in my truck, van, or stationwagon, was hard to
store on the road and at home, and was always difficult to pour
from in the field.
The gallon jug, on the other hand, even when full, was light
in weight and small enough to easily stash with other hunting
or fishing gear. There was no trouble pouring from it either,
because it was a single one-handed process that made it easy
to steer a water stream just about anywhere. |
Nothing too clever or innovative occurred
with the gallon jug for a couple of years until one day I forgot
my dog's water dish. Had the water in the jug, but no where to
pour it. I also had an empty jug and a good idea. With a knife,
I cut the bottom half out of the empty jug and used it as a dish.
Thus was born another use for the plastic bottle as a water dish
for the dog and later as a wash pan.
The bottom half of the jug as a wash pan came about one day after
I had gutted a deer and stood in the middle of a field, blood
and gore up to my elbows. Back at my truck, when I dropped the
tailgate, there was my gallon jug with the dog dish. The rest
is history, except for the part where I recently decided to carry
soap and a towel to make clean up jobs complete.
Incidentally, the jug and wash pan combination are perfect for
cleaning up fish fillets, knives, and slimy hands when in a boat
or up on shore. It's better than hanging over the side of the
boat and dropping your soap in the drink when in a boat or up
on shore.
On the subject of ice. The gallon plastic jug is a great ice
maker and ice container. Fill a jug 4/5 fall of water and put
it in the freezer about 10 to 12 hours before you want rock hard
ice. On most summer fishing excursions or any early season hunting
trips, I freeze up several jugs and put them in a well-insulated
chest type cooler and have a messfree ice source sometimes lasting
for a couple of days. It beats the expensive, quick stop gas
station ice cubes in a bag that always leaks leaving a water
puddle where soggy sandwiches float, then sink at the bottom
of the cooler.
By the way, when the ice in the gallon jugs does melt, it makes
great ice water perfectly suited for drinking by man or beast.
If, for some rea |
