When the fishing boat tries to set sail without us

“Break!”

I casted to the west off of the back of the boat at our second “spot.” I felt a thud and set the hook. The fish pulled hard and bent the ultra-lite hard. I flipped an eight and a quarter inch bluegill into the boat. Maybe I willed things to change.

We reposition the boat to make it easier for my better half, fishing out of the front of the boat, to fish the structure the fish preferred. A lot of you just started shaking your head, but we didn’t blow the spot out. The fish kept hitting with a fair amount measuring eight inches and some more.

The wind blew from the right direction. The barometer sinking slowly. The fish decided to feed, we sat in our boat catching fish. Our luck changed.

And thank God for that. This trip didn’t start out with good luck. At the landing that morning, I backed the boat down the ramp. The boss grabbed the launch rope and I slid the boat into the water and off the trailer. I started pulling forward and heard what no one wants to hear when pulling out of a boat launch: “Oh S#%&!”

I looked in the mirror and saw my wife attempting to catch the boat with her foot and holding a limp launch rope in her hand. The boat started floating out to sea, so to speak. I started pulling my wallet, phone, and other stuff from my pockets. Ripped off my shirt and entered the water. The surface temp sat at about 69 degrees after the recent rain and I started losing control of my breathing. I tried to acclimate to the water and wanted to start swimming out. I recalled something an old lifeguard instructor told me 45 years ago: “Don’t enter if you don’t feel comfortable. That’s how strong swimmers drown every year.” But it’s my boat, I thought. No other boats were even close and none at the landing. All my PFDs were in my boat. Swimming after the boat felt like it might be a reason women live longer than men. But I couldn’t just stand there like Kim Jong Un watching the Lori Ann float away. I started swimming out. Lori called out that the wind started blowing the boat in. I started treading water, it did look like the wind started pushing the boat back to the landing. I felt tired when my feet touched bottom again. By the time the boat made it in close enough for me to tie the broken launch rope to the boat again my breathing returned to normal. Nothing like an unexpected swim in the early morning.

Not sure if I would have made it the 40 or so yards out to the boat without drowning. In my younger years I would have, but Father Time seems to be catching up.

For 20 minutes I was “that guy” at the boat launch. But not a soul besides my wife saw it. I never did like that launch rope.

The ride out to our first spot felt chilly. We fished it for about 10 minutes and didn’t even catch a mosquito bite. I considered just calling it a day, but I wanted to warm up a bit before the long ride in. And I wanted some other boaters to be in the vicinity if the launch rope broke again. We slow boated to our second spot.

Around nine in the morning I set the hook, the ultra-lite immediately felt heavy. Like a good bass pole feels when you hook a twenty something inch smallie. This fish fought hard. Up came a “Lake Noquebay sized keeper” from my youth – a nine and a half inch bluegill.

We kept a nice mess of bluegill. The smallest we kept measured seven and a quarter inches – it swallowed the jig down past its gills. There was one 12 ½ inch crappie and my wife hooked two 13 inch bullheads that also hooked themselves too deep to survive. We caught a lot of six to seven inch fish that we released. Rarely did a cast not produce a fish.

I almost forgot about my early morning swim by the time the sun climbed high into the sky and the action slowed. We landed the boat about 11:00 a.m.

A bad day fishing beats a good day at work, but a great day fishing, well, that’s something special.

Tight lines everyone!

THROUGH A