May 1, 2002

•   I’m not going to try to censor myself here; this is about a bunch of guys on a boat. So if you’re sensitive about what is said and how, keep in mind:

  
  

  ·        We’re only taking showers to keep from being denied service for lunch

  
  

  ·        When describing the clothes we’re changing into, ‘dry’ is more important than ‘clean’

  
  

  ·        Burping and/or belching are an Olympic-Class event

  
  

  ·        Farting while sitting on the hull of a floating boat makes a really cool echoing sound

  
  

  …well, you get the idea.

  
  

   

  
  

  Day One: And for my next trick....

  
  

   

  
  

  I’ll start with our arrival at the lake, since the events up to that point were rather mundane. This lake is big; Toledo Bend is on the boarder between Louisiana and Texas and could probably hold two of any other man-made lake in Texas. But, as in any profession, hobby, pyramid scheme, or even infomercial advertising…specialization is important. That being so, the spots we DO fish are few and specific lending a SETI/Contact atmosphere to the finding of a fishing spot in this lake. Hmmm, now that’s an odd comparison to come up with…well I’ll not bore you with interpretation of my own anecdotes. To continue:

  
  

   

  
  

  Tips on gettin’ the boat wet:

  
  

  1.      Don’t start drinking beforehand. This can cut a fishing trip short and finding a wench to put a grounded boat back on its trailer is not only embarrassing, it’s about as likely as finding a stale Twinkie.

  
  

  2.      Know the weight capacity of your boat. Nuff said.

  
  

  3.      Boat ramp pavement ends…usually out of sight from above the water. Know this and be prepared for sharp rocks and debris, particularly if barefoot, wearing sandals, or after violating rule #1.

  
  

  4.      Be mindful of your goal, to get the boat in the water. This is not about being slick, or cool, or fast. Take your time, cuz swimming back to shore holding 5 fishing poles isn’t even on the same planet as ‘cool’.

  
  

  5.      You may want to load the beer first, but don’t let this get in the way of stuff like fuel and other passengers, particularly if they helped buy the beer.

  
  

  6.      Check to make sure the drain plug is back in its hole. I know, you checked it before you left. Check it again, Skippy.

  
  

  7.      Check any critical equipment before putting the boat in the water. It may have worked for 12 years without a hitch, but when it breaks…emphasis on the word WHEN, it will do so when the boat in the water, away from shore, and it is very dark.

  
  

  8.      When the engine is in gear, make sure you can see the anchor rope. ALL of it.

  
  

   

  
  

  Putting the boat in the water started..well..badly. A full five feet off the trailer, the bow line (see rule #8) got spun up in the prop so tight, it stalled the engine. So, after a puppetmaster display of trying to pull a lame boat by the remaining bow line from the loading peir to get it close enough to the fuel dock to get to the motor, we ended up shortening the brand new length rope by about 5 feet. This, we learned, did NOT keep the other ropes in the boat from getting an attitude. But you’ll be happy to know that the short lengths of rope that resulted from the prop surgery were salvaged by yours truly to tie off the minnow buckets later…but those weren’t bought until Day Two.

  
  

   

  
  

  With the motor now enabled to do its job, we tried to lower it further into the water only to find the 150 bucks we spent to have the power tilt/trim fixed was evidently not enough to ensure it *stayed* fixed (see rule #7). This only proved my theory that the guy was a pansy to begin with and did not shed any blood while working on the motor, thus ensuring that the job did not stay done. (For those of you who don’t know this, if you’re working on something and you don’t have extra parts left over and a wound that needs tending to, it will not stay fixed. Period. Trust me.) Now the engine is running, but very rough…like a camel trying to cough up an 80 lb. hairball, and stalls again trying to get it into the slip. The wind is getting faster as the boat stalls yet again. The only thing missing at this point is the organ music, scratchy film, and a black and white image sped up about 1/8^th too fast. Well, this one was easy, the feed bulb on the gas line was sucked flat, I had forgotten to open the vent valve on the gas tank and the motor was doing that thing we all do when we get a chocolate shake from Sonic and the straw is too small. Turn, turn, pump, pump, crank, crank, cuss, cuss…the boat is now in the slip. And there was much rejoicing.

  
  

   

  
  

  The bait is bought, the boat is loaded, the passengers aren’t, and we’re ready to go. Now luckily, the power lift won’t work, but the prop is in the water anyway and we don’t have far to go. So we head out across the lake, argue about which tree to tie to and finally select one. I’m taking a moment to mention that, when several hundred yards from a bush, it’s easy to say “Tie off to that tree”. But when you are floating in water and actually pull up in and amongst  the branches, this can be painful, bug and spider-ridden process that will truly test your resolve. It did mine. I would have been cleaning off spiders and bugs all night, had it not been for the next event.

  
  

   

  
  

  We back off from the tree, feeding out rope until we get far enough away from the shore to drop anchor. Drop anchor….from the back…of the boat….yep, it happened again. Only this time, we are in the middle of a cove, the anchor is set and we can’t get the slack out of the bow line. Now my dad’s friend is leaning over the transom to try and untangle the thing, but Zane is taking of his shoes and socks because, well troubleshooting for a living, one has to know when to stop tweaking and when to start getting manual. I humored them for about fifteen minutes, but we were losing daylight setup time and the way the trip had started, it only seemed inevitable that someone was getting wet. Me being the young buck in the boat, I knew my place. My shirt was off and I had one foot in the water when the first ‘Damn it!’ came from the back of the boat. Once in the water, I got little comfort from the fact that I was sharing this job with a dead catfish floating near my head. And of course, I had to make mention of how worthless they both were and that this wasn’t all that bad of a knot and why couldn’t they get it untangled this easily (throwing the rope back in the boat). Now, this being a fishing boat, and me already taunting them, they had to taunt back with the question of how I was going to get back into the boat. There wasn’t landing on this boat, it wasn’t for skiing or water sports of any kind. But one foot on the back of the high-riding, unable to lower motor, and I’m back in the boat along with the portion of rope that should be, but with soaking wet underwear and not a dry towel in sight.

  
  

   

  
  

  The rest of the night went like clockwork, me sticking to two poles so that I could keep track of my rigging, the older ones insistent that more is better when it comes to fishing for Crappie (yep, it’s spelled that way…it’s pronounced ‘Crah-Pee’..but yes, we were Crappie fishing. Fits, huh?) but never actually equating that with the fact that once every hour they would end up with a tangle of tackle that looked like a torture device out of Hellraiser. At about two o’clock in the am, I expressed my testicle’s desire to get into a dry pair of underwear before they leave me for another man and we head in with close to 50 keepers. The return was uneventful, though the anchor had to be muscled from the mud…my hands are still in protest over the rope burns from that.

  
  

   

  
  

  Stay tuned for Day Two: Bugs, bugs, and Bugs!

  • 11:46 pm
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