April 23, 2012
By Bob Zettler
I was suppose to go with a friend but he had boat issues and so I went by myself - go figure.
Went to bed early Saturday night and woke an hour before my alarm. Decided to go ahead and leave and take it easy and even stopped for coffee at the local Mobil station and there was man laying on the ground at the front door! Worried it had been robbed and this guy was dead I was shocked to see the clerk inside behind the counter and then I saw the man on the ground was surrounded by puke... (Picture upon request)
Turns out the local police didn't want him in their cruisers and left him there an hour earlier when a friend was suppose to pick hum up. Interestingly, he had driven there. I took his picture and left...
I had planned on going on Saturday but the weather forecast for Sunday looked a lot better with sunshine and little to no wind. That was on Friday and when Saturday night rolled around,,,it was vastly different with 10-15 MPH winds and cool. Got to love that weatherman...
I even drove under the speed limit and was surprised to see my gas mileage was even better than usual. Got minnows and ice at R&K and headed on to put in at Wilborn. Only two trailers in the lot and I was able to get the boat in with little issue and since I had coffee I decided i better hit the Jon one more time... It had been a nice ride over and I even thought of stopping on the Coal Shaft Bridge to take a picture of the sunrise as it was gorgeous but decided against backing up. I thought of that as sat there.
Finished my business, parked the Jeep and walked over to the ramp and my boat. All relaxed and ready to combat the upcoming wind, I about crapped my pants as I had (Whoops) done it again - I had (this time) completely forgotten to put the plug in and the water was inches from the edge of the transom!!!
As that Brittany Spears song stated to play in my head I saw that my Cabela's jacket and raincoat was floating as I ran my fat butt up the hill to get my Jeep. Huffing and a puffing, I got the trailer into position and jumped in the boat. As I reached around (the transom) to put the plug in, I couldn't find the hole. Starting to panic a little, I finally found it but only after soaking my t-shirt, long-sleeve shirt and sweat pants.
Jumped in the seat and tried, and tried, and tried to get the motor started but no go. Fearing the worst, I finally realized I hadn't turned the kill switch off, I flipped it on and the Mercury fired right up. With the bilge pump pouring water out, I was able to get the Jeep to pull it up and out. Now I had water flowing out two holes, was soaked through and through but at least no one would ever know as I was lucky as one was around to see the show. Whew!
But I wasn't going to let that stop me and I was able to dig up another light-weight jacket and raincoat and headed out. Wanted to hit this one brush pile but my trolling motor couldn't hold me and I gave up and hit the south-side of the railroad bridge and decided to use my two-hook spider rig setup and fish the rocks around the ten foot depth with minnows on a slow troll. And by golly, I caught a few Crappie. And nice ones at that.
For the next seven hours I worked around the bridge and caught some nice ones and lost some very nice ones too. As a bonus, I even caught a couple of Walleyes with one going 18" and even had to throw a number back being they were under the limit. But fighting that wind was a Mother! I went through two deep-cycle batteries fighting that wind but even though my relaxing day had gotten off to rough start and fighting that wind and cold had me gritting my teeth so hard that I have to go to the dentist on Wednesday, I still ended up with a nice haul - three keeper White Bass, two keeper Walleyes and 13 Crappie.
I even headed home before dark but not before relishing in the fact that I had survived the fact that I had (whoops) done it again!
You all be safe out there and try not to forget to put the plug in your boat - and in the right hole!
No comments:
Post a Comment