Haymaker

Archive for January, 2010

If he were in the movies, he’d be Gary Cooper or Harrison Ford. Their roles suit him to a “tee”: the quiet man to whom everyone turns in a crisis. In other words, he’s a natural.
Charley Cornelius grew up trout fishing; his father started him on the path when he was just 5 years old.And though he’s now devoted to the fly rod, he’s never outgrown his love of bait fishing, which may explain his delight in offending purists with tales of catching huge rainbows in Alaska with impaled field mice.
The first time we fished together in California’s Sierra Nevada, Charley walked though a field kicking up grasshoppers that had yet to shed the morning dew. Each went into a small blue cricket basket. Later, while fishing a small creek, he crept noiselessly to an almost inaccessible pool. (The guy’s got the knees of a 15-year-old.) As I watched, he promptly caught three trout on three casts. His line placement through the tangle of limbs and brush was perfect.
Later in the afternoon, after I had pulled a nice rainbow out of a large plunge pool, he crept in behind me and extracted an enormous brown trout from the same water. He didn’t yell or punch the air with his fist.The only way I knew he had a big one on was the way the rod bowed. Then he flashed a sheepish Cheshire-cat grin and patiently wore the fish down. When it was over, he looked the fish over quickly backed out the fly (an olive Woolly Bugger), and put the brown back in the pool. His only comment: “Nice fish.”
A former commercial airline and Alaska bush pilot who can mesmerize a group around a campfire with an endless stream of hilarious flying stories, Cornelius is also one of the most experienced offroaders I’ve ever seen. When the rear differential on one of our trucks blew out ona tough mountain trail, he winched the vehicle out. He just naturally assumed command and demonstrated the skills needed to extract the truck from a serious (let’s call it a cliff-hanging) situation. The line pull was dicey, as the truck to be winched was sitting on the side of a talus slope. One wrong move, and it would tumble into a ravine. Once Cornelius sized up the situation, he went to work like a surgeon and deftly pulled the vehicle out of trouble.
That night, as we sat around the fire, I asked him about the unusual soft top on his truck.
“I call it the ‘Can-Back;” he said. “The canvas sides and rear flaps can be rolled up and secured for full access to the cargo bed. In addition, the frame and soft top can be removed and easily stored when you need the truck for work.
“The idea came out of my old Land Rover days,” Charley continued. “You know, the old Land Rovers with soft tops? Well, in 1994 I bought an F350 4×4. My dog, Ruger, had always traveled in the back of my Land Rovers, and though the pickup worked well, the open bed didn’t give Ruger any shade when I went fishing and camping in the mountains or offroading in the desert. I didn’t need a hard cap, but that’s all I could find on the market. Then I thought of those old Land Rover soft tops.
“So, I made the first Can-Back. Basically, it was an aluminum frame that I bolted to the bedrails of the pickup. Over that I placed a canvas cover that could fold up or down.That gave Ruger plenty of shade. It also gave me complete access to the entire bed, which you can’t get with a hard cap. “I never saw dollar signs, but I soon realized I had something that people wanted. Guys just kept coining up to me and asking where I got ‘that neat top.’”
Neat top indeed. The “canvas” is actually something called Sunbrella, a breathable flibric that carries a five-year guarantee against fading or loss of strength due to normal exposure to road conditions—including sunlight, mildew, rot, and atmospheric chemicals. A flurocarbon fmish helps the fabric shed water
In fact, the Can-Back offers functional flexibility without compromising durability or access. The complete kit consists of an extruded aluminum track system that bolts to the bedrails and a stainiess steel superstructure on which the canvas cover is mounted. The structure is light in weight (60 pounds) but strong enough to support a full- size cargo rack capable of holding 300 pounds.
I was so impressed that I asked Charley to help me assemble a fishing truck, using his F350 as the base. What he devised is a reflection of his no-nonsense, practical nature, If he were a shotgun, he’d be a weathered pump—mechanically simple and utterly dependable.
Charley broke down the project into two main components: offroad performance and storage.

Once the B&M and DeeZee installations were completed, I went to Summit Racing Equipment (an Ohio-based supplier of mail-order performance parts) for three important additional contributions. First, they installed a Flowmaster cat-back exhaust. Improving the flow of exhaust gases helped the engine run more efficiently, which means we were able to put more power to the wheels, where it counts. (For more information on exhaust modifications, see Chapter 10.) Second, a Summit remote battery jump terminal (positive and negative posts) was mounted to the lower edge of the front bumper. When not needed, plastic caps protect each post. But if you need a jump start, instead of climbing under the hood and connecting directly to the battery, you attach the jumper cables to the remote terminal. This makes jump-starting faster and safer. Third, a Summit battery terminal disconnect switch allows you to separate the battery from the electrical system. This helps keep the truck from being hot-wired; it also means that if you leave the vehicle parked for a long time while in camp or on a thy-long hunt, you won’t have to worry that an accessory (such as a dome light) or some other electrical short will drain the battery.
That done, I called in the “Back Saver.”The last time you hoisted a deer into the bed of the truck, did your back leave you writhing in agony? Well, next time let the Superwinch S4500 do the lifting. I mounted this compact winch to the bed, on top of a DeeZee cargo skid mat. (Originally designed to keep cargo from sliding around in the bed, the ribbed mat also hoses clean in seconds.) Now all you need to do is hook up the deer and have the S4500 do the work. Finally, I peered through the wheels and looked at the brakes. That prompted a call to The Progress Group (a California-based company that specializes in suspension and brake upgrades) for help. They recommended Extreme Performance brake pads and cross- drilled brake rotors. The system helps the front disc brakes dissipate heat more efficiently, which prevents brake fade (take note, high- country hunters). An additional benefit of cross-drilled rotors is that the brakes shed water more efficiently, which helps improve stopping power in wet conditions. The rear drum brakes received performance-lined brake shoes.