In the last adventure, I mentioned the previous fishing trip where I was at the stern and referenced engine issues. Not one to leave people hanging, I felt I should get the story out there. Not to mention I don't want a rift between Mud and I, especially since he has that sweet new to him vessel.
The previous few days, Yoop's nephew from the UP was down visiting. His name is Fidge. Great kid, loves the outdoors and anything to do with it. And boy can he spin a tale. I think he comes on it naturally. He will make a great fisherman, just on his story telling alone. During his stay, we had gone shore fishing a few times, got a couple bites, skeeter bites that is. He was looking forward to a trip out onto the water, instead of from the sidelines.
The day was July 4th. I worked a 12 hour shift ending at 5am, went home and was meet at the door by Fidge. Its been a few years, well a a lot of years since I was a young teen, but since when do they get up at 4 in the morning, without a lot of poking, prodding and being tossed out of bed? Anyway he meet me at the door stating he could not sleep. I put away my work things and we loaded up the fishing gear and set off on our way.
I am not a morning person, never have been, likely never will be. I hear sun rises are spectacular but so is my nice comfy bed. I think that is why god created sunsets, for normal people to enjoy his wonderful work. Moving on, we stopped at a local fishing spot, referred to as the wishing well. The sunrise was pretty nice, but again no where near as nice as my bed would have been at this point. I snapped this shot:
After we put out some careless fools fire from the previous night, we continued on to baseops to meet Mud. Unlike me, Mud is a morning person. One of those that make the average normal person sick. He gets up at about 3am every work day to head off to work. I supposed if I had to get up I would, but thank god I don't. Mud was waiting for us boat and trailer loaded up behind the Mud Machine. Quick over view showed we needed some more gas mix for the boat motor. Unfortunately, 6am is not the time I do my best math, and the only mix we had was for a two gallon can... not the one gallon the boat has. So, I deferred to Mud and turns out he ain't so great at math that early in the morning either.
We got 'er done, hit the gas pump on the way and made it to the lake. A short line to launch went quick and in no time we were on the water. Back to the old electric pushing us out to lake, and the outboard not starting. I pulled the motor's cord a few times and then the cord locked up. Remember me not being a morning person? I am also not that great of a wrench turner. So we are floating on the lake, with a Nimrod trying to figure out why a motor, that he doesn't really know how it works, its not working. A few minutes later I put us back at the launch, and jumped in the water so Mud could take a gander.
For some reason, a round plastic piece that spins as another round piece turns with the pull cord, wasn't turning. Hence the cord wouldn't come out. Mud played with it for a few and it all started spinning again and she fired up. Sorry to get all technical with the descriptions of the pieces, but its the only way I knew how to describe it. I should note, unlike Muds failure to open the gas line, my problem was of no known cause by me. At least that is the story I am sticking to.
Back in service, we started back to the place I caught several fish, many years ago. The outboard was running good but I think our oil mix was a wee bit off for the gas, as it gave us a nice bug clearing smoke, but at least it had enough oil, and not too little.
We spent the next eight or so hours fishing and fishing and fishing. I was having a decent day, catching some nice Crappie, sunfish, and gills on a small jog and grub. All the while, Mud and Fidge were using the old stand by hook, worm and bobber. They were catching fish, and a lot of them. I would guess they caught around 100 sunfish and gills. Biggest being about 6 inches, smallest well smallest was about the size of the leaf worms they were using, 2-3 inches. The rest were in between those sizes
Overall the weather was great. While I would have rather been sleeping, it wasn't that bad. Spent time with some nice dudes on a nice day catching some nice fish, enjoying the nice holiday. It was nice. Only issue happened about mid day. We were fishing a point, in a rather wide channel, when two old coots can putsing up. Instead of utilizing the 150 to 200 feet of open water BEHIND us, they felt it proper to cut IN FRONT of us. Going no less than three feet from Mud and Fidge's bobber's they went in the 30 feet of water between us and shore. Later at the launch we noticed some red,white and blue PBR cans in their hands, but I don't think the beer had anything to do with it. I think they were just naturally the way there are.
Oh and Fidge acting like an elephant in the bow of the boat. I thought for sure his goal was to put us in the lake. But he did not and all was good.
After the day, we returned to baseops, and I promptly fell asleep. It was a nice marathon 30 hour day, but if I was gonna make it home after the fireworks, I had to get some precious shut eye. Fidge had a good time, as far as I could tell Mud enjoyed himself. It was nice.
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