Hi all. Had a really nice Memorial Day. Somehow managed to shake off the cobwebs enduced by rampant socializing Sunday night and rolled out of bed at 7am. Got a little breakfast and such and received a textie from Jason who had a fishing jones. We had discussed the possibility of hitting the lake the previous evening but neither of us were sure how we'd feel about it in the morning. Decided it was a go so I gathered up my trout pole and tackle box and set out for his place. We goofed around for a little bit and ran into a logistics problem. We could have taken his truck and towed the boat over to the lake but that would have left Melissa without a vehicle for a number of hours so that wasn't going to work. I backed my truck up to the hitch only to discover that my tow ball was slightly too large for his hitch. Answer? $8.99 at Kragen Auto Parts for a new ball that fit. Dashed over to Kragen and back in about 20 min. Now mind you Jason has a pretty decent set of tools in the garage so I grabbed the required socket and a monster torque wrench and had the existing ball off the bumper almost instantly. Slapped the new one on we were ready to roll. Heck even the trailer lighting set up worked perfectly. Jason picked up this aluminium fishing boat and trailer for the amazing low price of um, let's see... Zero.. from his brother who wasn't using it at all.. Gotta love that deal. Just need to make a few repairs to the seats and maybe beef up the trolling motor situation and it'll be perfect... Maybe get another battery and run dual motors fore and aft and source an aftermarket prop or 2... Those little twin blade props that come stock on the trolling motors just don't cut it...
Motored out around the bend after launching and started dropping poles in the water. Got hit about every other cast all the time we were out there. I would estimate solid fishing from roughly 10 'til 2. and though we got some little ones there were plenty of big bass in between. I've attached a phone cam picture of the largest one which Jason snagged. And of course there was a monster that jumped off of the line at one point. Nothing better than setting the hook, playing with the catch for a little bit and then having them run on you.. My pole was bent below the water level on several occasions. One of the larger ones actually got up to the boat and then took off with a bunch of line. My drag was set relatively lightly and I had a blast watching him take the line... Jason was getting hit pretty regularly and we estimated 20 some odd fish were caught during the course of the day. We made it back to the house around 2:30ish and then just kicked it by the pool for another hour or so and had a couple of beers. Also got to spend a couple of hours with the lovely Miss Lolli Laura in the afternoon. She's always a gracious host and just plain fun to be around. A nice relaxing holiday to be sure...
Can't wait to do it again...
-Scott
