Trying to be patient.
Okay, so nobody told the fish it was spring. Do I have to do everything? We found our way back to Lake Henry already after scoping it out just yesterday. For the third time in the my life, I drove through Turkey Ridge two days in a row. We had considered waiting until a little later in the week but the impending rain and wind due to hit us on Thursday and Friday convinced Dad that we ought to go today. I’m easy, so off we went.
We had to start off with retraining ourselves in how to hook up the boat. Securing the hitch, dropping the 2nd axle and making sure we undo all the little winterizing things that were done when the boat was parked very late last fall. I think we survived the ordeal and neither of us lost any important body parts. Not that either of us as noticed yet anyway.
The winterizing process includes a light spray of oil in the cylinders of Dad’s 225 Opti Max. Lake Henry is a no wake lake so after going through the hassle of fouled plugs of 2 years ago, we figured a quick blast around Wall Lake would not only burn the oil from the cylinders, but entertain the Wall Lake home owners as well. Wall Lake still had ice on it! Maybe we are going out just a little early. Here I am in shorts and sandals. I have claimed many things but being sane has never been one of them.
We decided to not run the big motor at Henry and just use the trolling motor. Lets just go fishing. I finally decided to take Sadie, our Rat Terrier (and my buddy) bass fishing. She has gone to fish catfish with me many times before and as fishing catfish goes, we toss the line in and wait. I relax and she explores. When it is time to reel in the line, many times there is a fish. Catching a fish really gets her excited so when the pole jumps and moves, she knows there is a fish. I should have set her down and explained the difference in bass fishing. Bass fishing involves casting and reeling or chunking and grinding depending on if you are a northerner or the southerner.
Sadie spent the entire day thinking we were going to have a fish each and every single time we reeled the lure back to the boat. Bass fishing is simply not her forte. She is actually very disappointed in both Dad and I as we did not catch one single fish all day. I guess if it was easy, it would be called “catching” instead of “fishing” and everyone would be doing it. It sure was a beautiful day to be on the water and after a long tough winter, catching fish today would have just been a bonus. Alas, no bonus for us today but the bright side to that is that we know for certain we are not a week late this year. If we had showed up and caught 40 fish, we may have kicked ourselves for a couple weeks thinking we should have been out here last week instead of sweeping snow off the porch. Last week however, we would not have needed the boat, we could have walked out on the ice.
All in all, it was a great day to be on the water. I would do it again, everyday, all summer long with the same results and not be the least bit disappointed. I guess that is just the way I was hammered together. If there was a cure for fishingitis, I would avoid it like the plague. The only day that is ever wasted was the one spent on the couch. The big bonus for the day was wearing Sadie out so that I do not have to throw the ball to her all night long.
It's a hard life!!!!
