Fish Stories |
Building a Crappie Honey Hole* (*OR - Has the Circus Come to Town?) This was my project for the day. . .I'm glad I started EARLY! SUPPLIES NEEDED: Roll of furnace wire and pliers from garage; three concrete blocks that Mr. Bob brought home; Christmas trees that have been "drying" (i.e. rotting) on the burn pile for about three years. BASIC IDEA: Drag all this stuff down to boat dock, lash it all together, throw it into lake, fish! Har dee har har! I drag all of this down to the boat, wrap furnace wire extensively through and around all three of the concrete blocks as a "base," then take one tree at a time and wire it to the blocks while it "sheds" worse than our dogs. I figured that I didn't need to singe off the needles, since these trees had been weathering for such a long time, and I am right, for now I have them three inches deep in the bottom of the boat. Also, a big, fat, black, HAIRY spider comes from the first tree's depths and stares while I mess with his home. I am happy that HE didn't crawl out onto my arm while I was dragging this tree down to the water. Not that I'm terribly afraid of arachnids or anything. . .it's just the thought! Repeat the above procedure with three more trees until a hulking mass develops, taking up ALL the space under the boat lift canopy. I wonder (fleetingly, of course) if this creation will rip the back end of said canopy clean off when I back out as I try to start the boat motor. . .Hubby would be a little less than tickled if something of this nature took place, wouldn't he? The boat motor does not want to get going. It is known to be cold-hearted, so I choke it once more and pray to the crappie gods, the honey hole gods, the brush pile gods, and gods in charge of preventing boat canopy tarps from ripping clean off. The big, fat, black, HAIRY spider is still observing, and I feel like Little Miss Muffet sitting on her tuffet. "You better blow this pop stand, pal," I tell him as the boat finally belches and farts to life, chugs for just a few seconds and then starts sounding like a real live boat. I back carefully out of the lift, eye-balling the top of the future honey hole as it slides almost perfectly out from underneath the canopy. Phew! Bethy, one; Murphy's Law, zero. So far, anyway! I break a twig off one of the trees, shove it at my big, fat, black, HAIRY buddy, who obligingly hitches a ride, and I obligingly catapult him over to the shore. I take off slowly and tilted slightly to the right out to the deeper parts of our cove, watching the depth finder for fifteen feet of water or thereabouts. When I get to the vicinity of the future location of said honey hole, I shove the boat into neutral and push said honey hole over the side. It floats merrily next to the boat and looks like the last thing on its newly created brain is SINKING! I prod it tentatively, wishing now that I'd brought a shovel or something that I could push it down with. I float a few feet away, deciding to watch it for a few minutes to see if it does any tricks like magically disappearing. Murphy's Law rears its ugly head then as the wind gusts out of the north and starts pushing the unsinking honey hole back toward whence we came. Muttering expletives to myself, I look up and see a neighbor woman standing in her yard watching. She is probably wondering if the wind will blow this THING up on her lake frontage. I pretend not to see her, and head back to the house for some rope, mentally castigating myself for not having thunk of that in the first place. "Don't even think about sinking until I get back with a rope," I threaten the pile of old, rotting, shedding Christmas trees menacingly. It bobs merrily toward shore without a care in the world, so I hurry home for more supplies. When I get back to the floating brush pile, we're only in about eight feet of water, but luck is on my side, as the stump of one of the trees is now sticking out just aching for a rope to be tied around it. This I do quickly, fearing that at any moment, my artistic rendition of what I think a fishin' hole should look like will start to really sink. If it does this in only eight feet of water, then I'm in a big stink of trouble since this is also a popular neighborhood swimming spot. I play out about twenty feet of rope and put the boat in motion, holding on tight. I know this sucker has got to be heavy, especially now that it's had a chance to get its feet wet. The rope tightens and I discover that, yes, I was correct, and yes, this sucker is heavy! Gritting my teeth, I hang on and start towing my prize like a dead skier. The rope tries to skitter out of my hands, so I turn forward and put it over my shoulder for extra leverage, secretly glad that at least I did remember to wear gloves. The two of us reach our destination, and I shut down, pulling myself backwards a little toward the pile which picks this precise moment to start sinking with a vengeance. . .which would be great but for the fact that my stupid rope is still tied to it! And now, since the rope is wet (and I tied a GOOD feminine knot that wasn't learned in Boy Scouts!), I'm trying to undo the rope with one hand while the other hand tries to hold up what feels like a ton of trees and concrete blocks. Shoulda brought a knife, you dummy! A SHARP knife! Hey, stupid! This thought flits through my mind. The pliers are laying right there on the passenger seat! Cut the rope with them! Duh! The thought adds a cartoon light bulb at the end just for emphasis. Just in case I don't get it. If the fish were watching (and, of course, they were. . .as anyone knows who has ever fished that they actually have little video cameras down there to keep an eye on us ridiculous two-legged creatures to see when our minds wander and we start looking at the birds and stuff so that they know when it's safe to snatch the bait off the hook), they surely were laughing their little fins off. They were probably down there painting signs that say "KEEP OUT! SHE ACTUALLY THINKS THIS THING LOOKS LIKE A HONEY HOLE! WELL, WE'LL SHOW HER!!" I cut the rope while imagining all this and watch my new honey hole sink out of site, throwing a couple big chunks of rip rap on top of it just to make sure it won't come back to haunt me. Smiling to myself, I putt slowly home. Next time I build a fishin' hole, I'm gonna sell tickets and beer! And next spring, I'll have to dive down there and get rid of all those signs! *** |
Fish Stories Har de har har! Mr. Bob and I love to go fishing, and, as with all sports, hobbies, or whatever that human beings have anything to do with, hilarious and stupid things are guaranteed to happen while we on these excursions. For some reason, the Murphy's Law Guy really likes to go with us. What else is funny is we often say if you want an afternoon's entertainment, just pull up a lawn chair and a cooler of tasty beverages right by a boat ramp somewhere. However, sometimes it's not so funny when it's YOU who's screwing up! Case in point: When Mr. Bob had his old john boat, the infamous Eye Bolt Story took place. This boat was old and decrepit but serviceable, especially after I put gutter seal on the rivets, and we used it a lot the first couple years we hung around together. We got a routine going, too, where I would back the boat down the ramp with Mr. Bob at the helm, drop him off, take the truck up to the parking area, come back down to the dock, and off we'd go. We'd done this one day, had a pretty good day of fishing, and didn't really want to leave the lake. I went and got the trailer, backed it down the ramp when it was our turn (there were maybe five other boats waiting in line to get off the water), and Mr. Bob pulled the boat up on the trailer and yelled at me to remember to run the rope through the eye bolt first which was right below the winch. I already knew this, but gave him the "OK" sign and looked under the winch. There was no eye bolt. "Honey, the eye bolt's gone!" I said to him. "Look again, Bethy. It's right below the winch!" I looked again, thinking, OK, maybe I missed it. No eye bolt had magically appeared or reappeared since I last looked. "Bob, the eye bolt's gone!" Even though I was in the back of the truck, I could see the steam start coming out of this nice fella's ears. I could even imagine what nasty things he was thinking about me which I won't go into here! "Dammit!" he exclaimed impatiently. "It's RIGHT BELOW THE WINCH!" Okay, I thought to myself. I will look ONE more time! Which I did. Still no eye bolt. Not even the GHOST of an eyebolt! "Bob, I'm a sheet metal worker! I know what a damn eye bolt looks like!" I told him rather loudly. In the meantime, I wondered what all the people who were waiting to get out were thinking of these two dumb asses yelling at each other on the boat ramp, taking up a perfectly good slot for another vehicle. "Dammit, use your EYES!" he bellowed, gritting his teeth, talking to me like I'm his kid. "The eye bolt is right BELOW THE WINCH!!" "Hey!" I retorted, getting a little hot under the collar myself. "There is no F***ING eye bolt under the F***ING winch!" Bob had a fit, stood up angrily, and stomped to the front of the boat, knocking the tackle box over on his way. He looked under the winch, and, lo and behold, there really was no eye bolt, just like I told him! And do I need to even say that, by this point in time, I was so pissed off at him that I was ready to bop him one? Probably not. . . ! Gritting my teeth then, I resisted the impulse to push his ass over the front of the boat into the drink. He shrugged and looked at me. "Hmm," he said nonchalantly. "The eye bolt musta sheared off!" "No shit, Sherlock!" I said acidly, biting back actual tears of anger. "You're a jerk, you know that?! I don't appreciate you treating me like I'm your damn kid!" I stomped around to the passenger side and flounced into the front seat. I stared straight ahead stonily. "Isn't fishing fun?" he asked when he got into the truck. I wasn't too sure about THAT, but I don't think I was imagining things when I heard a lot of applause coming from all those other boats that had waited so long for their turn to get out of the water! ~ ~ ~ On a rather chilly October morning we were back at the lake getting ready to fish for crappie. For some reason, Bob was backing the boat down this time. (He must have known what was going to happen!) I had tied the boat's rope to an upright on the trailer so when he tapped the brakes, the boat would slide off easily into the water. Then I'd grab the rope and move around to the other side of the boat dock to get out of the way. The best laid plans of mice and women. . .Bob tapped the brakes, the boat slid off the trailer just like it should, the rope grew taut and then snapped in two, and the boat started floating merrily AWAY from me. The wind, of course, was helping push it out to deeper water. "Shit!" I said to no one in particular, the boat getting further and further away with each passing second. It was looking more and more like I was gonna have to go in after the damn thing. It was not going to magically reverse direction, nor was the water magically going to warm up to "bearable by human standards" temperatures until next summer. I looked up the ramp, hoping that Bob had seen this disaster and would come dashing back down to the water like Prince Charming on his trusty steed. He was no where in sight. I looked out on the water, hoping to see Prince Charming in a passing boat who would grab the rope and drag the boat back to me. He wasn't anywhere in sight either. There wasn't a soul for miles. "Shit!" I said again, hurriedly taking off my shoes and removing my wallet from my pants pocket. "Shit, shit shit!" I said as I waded into the lake, trying not to think of the mud squishing between my toes. Hoping there weren't any errant fishing lures down in the muck. I missed the wayward rope once as it swayed provocatively just beyond my fingers, kinda like in the movies where the pistol is just out of reach. Finally, boob deep in the lake, I managed to grab it and drag the boat to shore where I stood, teeth chattering, waiting for Prince Charming. Pretty soon, there he was, lollygagging down the driveway. When he saw me and AFTER he quit laughing, he asked me if I still wanted to fish. By then my clothes felt like they were frozen to my body. "Why go home now?" I asked, shivering uncontrollably. "My pants should be just about dry by the time we're ready to leave this afternoon!" I ended up putting my rain suit on over my other clothes to keep the wind out, and the fishing gods looked up me that day with pity, letting me limit out and thus insuring that, of course, I would be back for more fun later. From that day forward, I always kept some spare pants stashed in the truck, too. My buddy Murphy didn't seem to pick on me as much if I tried to thwart him from the start. ~ ~ ~ On a weekend when we didn't have the kids, we decided to go fishing at Lake Shelbyville and treat ourselves to a night at the resort there. Besides that, we had just gotten the boat motor back from receiving $286 worth of tweaking and adjusting and wanted to make sure it worked before the thirty day warranty was up. The motor worked like a charm just long enough for us to get about five miles away from where we'd put in. When we wanted to move to another honey hole, the damn thing was deader than a door nail. Bob mumbled to himself and pulled the rope till he had a couple blisters. (Cuss words deleted here.) I mumbled to myself and tried until I had a couple blisters. (Cuss words deleted here, too.) Finally, he pulled so hard, he yanked the rope right out of the motor. (Delete cuss words here, please.) At least the wind was cooperating that time, pushing us toward the bank. We always kept spare rope on board, too, so we tied the coil to the boat, played a little bit out, and started walking back to the boat ramp. The floating chunk of aluminum full of useless fishing gear and complete with a non-working motor was as stubborn as a new puppy learning to walk on a leash, and since we had to follow the shoreline, it wasn't straight as the crow flies, trust me! When a cove hove into sight, we got back in the floating chunk of aluminum complete with a non-working motor and used conveniently spaced trees to pull ourselves across the water, finally starting to laugh at our predicament, getting out a couple of tasty beverages to ease the pain a little. Do you think there could possibly be another boater go by who could tow us? Not in a hundred years. It was almost dark by the time we got back to the boat ramp. I went and got the truck and trailer and backed it down the ramp, extra deep in the water this time so, hopefully, the recalcitrant chunk of aluminum complete with a non-working motor would float right on. The truck's tail pipe was under water this whole time, and we thought THAT would be the next thing to become a useless chunk of metal, visions of calling a tow truck dancing through our thoughts like dainty ballerinas in tutus. Nothing else went amuck after that, but I know the people at the resort weren't too happy when we came in and dripped all over the carpeting. Oh well, what did they expect, anyway? This was a FISHING resort, was it not? The dummies should have installed indoor-outdoor stuff! "Gee, isn't fishing fun?" I asked Bob as we went to find our room. (Delete cuss words here, please.) ~ ~ ~ The fun didn't end when we got home, either. I lugged the non-working motor and receipt back to the place that allegedly tweaked and adjusted it in the first place. The owner of the business looked at the receipt and frowned. "Oh, I FIRED that guy!" he said. ~ ~ ~ And the fun doesn't end when you get a new boat, either, you just have a more expensive piece of equipment to try to fuck up! When we got a new bass boat, it didn't take us long to go through the list of "Stupid Boat Tricks" listed in the owner's manual like "what happens when you forget to trim the motor down but take off anyway." (The boat shoots almost straight UP out of the water.) Since Mark Twain Lake was only two hours away, we were ready for our first Fishing Trip From Hell With a New Boat. We went there for several weekends in May with virtually no trouble. . .and we also caught some great crappie if you can imagine that! Things had been going way too smoothly, however, so the next weekend that we went, in a few short days, we managed to 1) try to sink the boat; 2) fill the battery compartment almost all the way up with water as we were trying to sink the boat which corroded the little metal thingamajigs on the battery cables which left us powerless until we got our pocket knives out and scraped them clean; 3) tear up the prop at a boat ramp with no dock; 4) almost lose Bob's adoring wife (me!) in the lake when I grabbed a tree we were going to tie off too when he forgot to take his foot off the trolling motor pedal (and then had the nerve to laugh at me and say I looked like the "Travelodge Bear" clinging to the tree); 5) break the tip off a brand new fishing pole; and 6) get caught in the worst thunderstorm I had ever seen where we thought we were going to die and in order to breathe had to hold our hands over our noses so the WALL of water raining down on us wouldn't drown us. But at least we didn't run out of beer! ~ ~ ~ Mark Twain again, different week. In fact we had taken the week before Memorial Day (which is SUPPOSED to be when the fish are spawning!) off to spend fishing. That entire time we had no snafues to deal with, although the fish were acting like they'd never seen minnows or jigs in their entire lives. They were going to have to get with the program if they were going to spawn at all! We decided to fish for awhile Saturday morning, then pack up and go home so we'd have a couple days to unwind before going back to work. Saturday morning the crappie started spawning with a vengeance. The shore line was frothing with their activity, and since I'm such a sap anyway, it brought tears to my eyes to witness this wondrous spectacle of Mother Nature at work. However, the crappie had waited so long to start making baby fish that they were paying no attention to the bait we threw at them. Indeed, we could SEE the little devils about three feet deep on their way to the shoreline, so we'd drop minnows right in front of their faces, and they ignored us. The fish finder beeped so much that it sounded like one continuous tone, and we finally shut the stupid thing off. All it was doing was annoying the hell out of us, reminding us of what lousy fishermen we were. Of course, then it was time to drop some of our "guaranteed to catch crappie" pellets in the water, which I did. They only served to attract a big turtle who proceeding to beg like a green, armor-covered dog and some kind of water snake who had a big bulge in his middle from being a better catcher of finned beings than we were. I'm not sure that a side of beef dropped over the side of the boat would have helped that day. We headed back to the boat ramp around noon. Even though it was Memorial Day weekend, it was still cool weather wise, and we both had on our Carhartt overalls. When we pulled within sight of the boat ramp, I was surprised that the place was packed for as chilly as it was. People were milling about on the landing area, and a line of trucks and boat trailers stretched out of sight up the curved driveway awaiting their turn at the ramp. Landing the boat had never been a problem, since Bob and I developed our routine of me jumping off the front and running to get the trailer while he putted back out to deeper water to get out of everyone else's way. We had been through this procedure a thousand times. When the boat neared the dock, Bob put it gently into reverse to stop its forward motion, and I jumped onto the dock, just like we had always done. However, I must have landed on the slippery rubber edging nailed around the dock's perimeter. I started to stagger drunkenly in a vain attempt to regain my balance. In the meantime, I let out a surprised cry, and my pin wheeling arms did much to attract unwanted attention to myself. (Hey, everyone! Look over here at Dufus dancing around on the boat dock!) It didn't take long for me to realize that I was going for an unscheduled swim. Resignedly, I quit fighting it, and did a neat sideways crash into the water - or as neat as it could possibly be with Carhartts on. I'm sure there was a huge, dramatic splash to punctuate my embarrassment. I came up sputtering, feeling immediately to make sure I still had my glasses on and heard Bob yelling helplessly, "Are you all right!?! Are you all right?!" Only after I hoisted myself up on the dock did it dawn on me that everyone within a square mile had seen this spectacle and were now staring at me open-mouthed. One nearby gentleman asked me if I was okay and I nodded mutely, looking around for the Candid Camera guy, what was his name, Alex something or other? And then I did the only other thing any self respecting catcher of fish like myself could do who had been caught doing something stupid. I did several bows, long and low, in every direction. Then I went wetly to get the boat trailer. My only question was, and still is, why couldn't I have fallen in the lake earlier in the week when there were only three other vehicles in the parking lot, and no one around to witness my humiliation? Only my hairdresser knows for sure. ~ ~ ~ Fishing is a lot like construction work when you are of the female persuasion and have to go to the bathroom. The man has it easy, although fish always seem to know when he gets his other rod out, and they take that opportunity to steal unguarded bait. Many times it's been possible for me to just, as I fondly say, stick my ass over the side and be done with it. We also have a coffee can for emergencies or crowds, and I've become quite adept at looking like I'm NOT peeing when indeed I am! You can easily appear to be searching for something in the tackle box. Then there was the time when not a whole lot of people were out on the lake, so I used my ass over the side technique. This time, however, it was over on the driver's side since it was facing the shore and there was less of a chance of me mooning someone. Imagine my chagrin, if you will, when I somehow got a leg stuck behind the gear shift in mid stream and started honking the damn horn! Look over here, ya'll! Moon's out! You don't see that a lot in the middle of the afternoon! This devious gear shifting device had also suddenly become a sentient being with a working brain, and the more I struggled to get away (or at least quit beeping the horn!), the tighter it clasped me in its clutches. Over water, I'm sure the sound of a horn carried far and wide, but not nearly as far and wide as my embarrassment! So much for being non-obtrusive! These are just a few of our humorous stories. Believe it or not, sometimes several minutes go by without anything like this happening. That's why we always go back for more! |
There's bound to be more fishin' stories where nothing can go right, so please visit again! Thanks and hope you catch a lunker! |
Click on the crappie to the left to see some of the ones that DIDN'T get away! |
