well 1st and formost "YES" all that crap on front bumper is NEEDED! just call it a HELLA FETISH! until you have driven at night with massive lights YOU have not lived nor realized the SAFETY that is incurred. cant tell you how many times in my vehicles i have AVOIDED a KRITTER because of them and that includes the 911 cab from hell with the (4) hella light pod upgraded oem lights and 550 hellas below. it especially doesnt take much to take out a 911, as in bunny wabbits skunks possumms when hit at speed. and if ya havent realized yet YOU OUTDRIVE YOUR OEM LIGHTS in spades, and the aftermath could be ugly when it comes to horseys cows elks and deers.
yes i know i cant use them all the time, but when out in the middle of BFE at night, you bet we use them religiously. all the switches on all (4) of my vehicles are ERGO-NOMIC to my lil grubby fingertips.
now as far as the winch............its a warn 9000 xti. = 18,000 #'s double line pull. nuff said about that with the exception on all my vehicles(3 trucks) they have a receiver hitch on the front and back so in can move the winch anywhere i want for travel or winching. the class 8 truck does not have a front receiver for obvious reasons when encountering rocks offroad racing. also all the vehicles have dual batteries and winch cables going front and rear.
99.9999999 % of the time you do NOT want to winch forward unless your royal bull elk once in a lifetime hunt, is on the line and you need to get to the other side of the problem area. ie. wash out/mud/blow down tree/stream river etc.
the front and rear pre run bars are also fabbed/ installed to all vehicles. reason: mainly on the front it offers some protection which is better than NO PROTECTION against impacts from kritters and ya just may be able to drive away if radiator oil coolers etc are not KRUNCHED upon impact. this also helps greatly not getting real pissed off at dum azz'z that hit my vehicles in parking lots. they are powdercoated and worth every penny x 10.
and we have 3m'd clear coated all the fronts of vehicles. this is GREAT PROTECTION against all the road debris/track debris on all my vehicles and makes for easier than snot bug cleanup after a long roadtrip. on this trip i hit the .50 centavo car wash twice cleaning bugs off of vehicle. wyoming bugs and idaho bugs were the worst. also price out a 2011 chevy front headlight...........we clearcoated those also.
now for the trouts..............oh boy talk about PILLAGING/PLUNDERING! man what can i say???????? it WAS RETARD SIMPLE! z-rays small and big, panther martins small and the secret FLY.....................................WOOLY WORMS!
yeah no poo! freeking WOOLY WORMS! didnt take rocket science to figure that out after sitting their observing fly patterns and rises for a few hours. i caught my 1st trout when i was a kid up in oak creek canyon,az. so did both my boys, damn near same spot. after that it was off to the races and have been a trout freek all of my life.
so with that in mind, and being a life scout with the obvious fishing merit badge and having to tie our own flies, you figure out the lokal bug scene and start throwing a few in the water and see what hits them. saw this damn wooly worm cruising down by my feet, caught him, threw him into the water and about .0000001 seconds later this damn trout NAILED HIS AZZ and we knew what fly we waz gonna use.
rainbows and german browns were the vast majority caught daily. a few brookies here and there in colorado. probably biggest one caught was 14". nothing to go mount on the wall..........sigh. but more fun than sex and cost a hell of alot less.
the best score we made was a mtn range west from telluride colorado in the san juans. colorado division of wildlife was draining WOODS LAKE, and going to kill off ALL german browns brookies and rainbows. it was CATCH ALL YA CAN NO LIMITS! we about died and went to trout heaven. talked to the DOW wildlife biologist and they are killing off all the invasive species listed and re-introducing colorado cuttthroats which were NATIVE to western slope of san juans. lake will be closed for awhile to build up stockpile of fish, then catch and release and then eventually as population numbers rise a slot limit. flies and lures only. we hit it perfect timing and raped pillaged and plundered trout there. what a freeking BONUS that was. nobody in campground, lake to ourselves, all the while telluride film festival happening and the zoo of peoples 10 miles away as crow flies.
cant tell you how many days wifey and i fished ALL DAY LONG! dawn to dusk. it was freeking TROUT HEAVEN and we made the most of it and had a hell of alot of fun. worth every penny and then some and we PEGGED THE FUN-O-METER multiple multiple times.
this was my view every morning. my biggest worries were how long the coffee would take and WTF fly or lure i was gonna use. a TOTAL WORLD APART from the POO STORM of WORK!