Greetings everyone. Glad to know everyone keeps coming back for more edge of your seat nothingness here. So everyone sit down, shut up and hang on for the latest ride in the diaries.
Mud got a 4 day weekend from work and he and the fam came out for the weekend. They spent Friday at the Zoo with Red and Tough Enough. Then they spent Saturday morning at the local car museum for their anniversary. Not sure how he swung that one, but I have to give him a thumbs up for one of the coolest ways to spend your anniversary!
Friday night, Mud and I snuck in a fishing trip to the same lake we spent 4th of July on with Fidge. The weather was perfect, if you were a duck or inside. It was raining and raining. A check of the RADAR showed it was going to be raining most the night. But we don't get out that often, and the sunny days certainly weren't proving very successful so why not go out in the rain and play ducks?
On the way to the lake, Mud was complaining about how I sent Murph home with him after their last visit. I thought it was a wonderful idea to pack him in the Mud Machine when no one was looking. I had a great week with out him around. Sounds like he behaved himself most the week. Fool gave himself away though, when Mud was packing up the fishing stuff for the weekend, Murph hid a few things from Mud. But Mud, being the ever vigilant man he is, did a second check of the fishing gear and noticed the missing items.
We got to the lake, launched with no problems, motor started with no problems. There were a couple redneck yachts racing around the lake, but they mostly stayed away from us. It was fun watching them trying to pull a redneck on a tube, and barely moving them. But we had bigger fish to fry... err rather catch.
It rained steady for the first hour or so. Between the redneck water sports and a rather good crappie bite, we barely noticed. We were pulling up halfway decent crappie every few minutes. I should say Mud was pulling up decent crappie every few minutes. I was getting skunked pretty bad. Then I had the hit of all hits. A monster. The gargantuan beast took my green/yellow grub on a 1/16th ounce jig like a semi hitting a deer in its headlights. My super stiff ultra light rod bent in half and the fight was on!
A few seconds later we landed the whale and got it safely into the boat. I was exhausted by the long fight, but knew I had to make sure it was a legal fish. I brought out the ole De-Liar scale/tape combo. Man if that thing could talk. Countless stories of all the big ole fish ole Nimrod has measured with it. I bet it could have its own BLOG diary. I stretched it out to the legal 14 inches and compared it to the whale in my hand. I took a double, then a triple take. I looked at Mud and then back at the fish.
She was just a hair shy of 14 inches, I mean like 13 inches and about 99/100ths. Just a hair short of being legal. I about cried. I then recalled some of the Yooper tricks Yoop talked of from her youth. I tried but nothing gave that fish the extra oopmh it needed to be legal. With tears welling up in my eyes, I put the fish back in the water. Maybe they weren't tears, it was raining ya know, nonetheless I was not happy to put back the Goliath.
We fished on. Mud continued his assault on my manhood, amassing about 6 fish in the basket before I had my first keeper. However, I did get the biggest, and the smallest fish of the day.
We received a call from Book who asked if it was raining. Dumbfounded Mud said yes and ended the call. A few minutes later it was Grey Beard calling. Again asking if it was raining. Grey Beard confirmed the RADAR indicated it was going to be raining for a while. News flashes even when we're on the water! But not five minutes after Mud disconnected with Grey Beard, the rain stopped and did not start again.
By time we pulled anchor and went toward the boat launch, I had started a comeback on the creel. Since numbers really don't matter, I won't bore you with those details. Lets just say Mud and I had out best day of the season. Not saying much, but at least we are moving forward not backward.
Looking back I realized we somehow had left Murph at baseops when we left. I am certainly not complaining but Mud and I each found out later Murph was not happy with us. On their return trip, Mud and family experienced an odd situation with the Mud Machine. They were cruising down the road when they heard what they first thought was a backfire. Turns out Murph had rigged the Mud Machine so a large amount of gas vapors got trapped in the muffler and at a set point ignited. Making a pretty spectacular boom. Blowing the Mud Machines muffler to pieces. Wish I could have been there, it sounds like it was a blast!
A few days later, I was putting new brakes on the Yoop machine. Got the corner in the air, tire off. I got up to go get some stands and tools, I walked about five feet and Murph jumped out of the bush, gave the Yoop machine a big ole push right off the jack onto the ground. I stood dumbfounded at first. I couldn't believe my eyes. When all was said and done, and simple 45 minute job turned into a 2 hour ordeal. I'll be damned if I am gonna let Murph keep me down.
Back to the drawing board. I thought I had pawned Murph off on Mud. I expected Mud to pawn him off somewhere far far away from me. But NOOOOO... he brings him back to my house. I had it all planned out and then the joke is on me. I will get rid of him one day, soon I hope there are only 48 days left until bow season, and I really don't want Murph as a hunting partner again this year.
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