Every now and then in life you get yourself in little situations. Usually the first thing you (I) do is look around for someone to pin the blame on. That's not really true but It is nice when you can find someone to at least share the blame with you.
On a recent trip to the lake with friends while casually riding around on their pontoon boat I made the statement that ,as much as I love fishing and boating, It seems that for every one day I go fishing I spend three or four days cleaning the boat.. repairing tackle.. charging batteries etc. This is just a fact that I've learned to accept and in a way I guess I like messing with it. It wasn't two days later I'm back on Clendening lake by myself just fishing my little heart out and having a ball. This lake ,being a small lake , has a ten horsepower limit on gas motors. Of course my boat has a ninety horse motor which means if I start it up...I get to pay a fine . Ahh but as long as I fish a small area I can use my electric motor on the front of the boat to get around. (yes ..the same one I destroyed last fall)
I caught several nice fish and played around with a new fly rod I purchased a while back which is a different kind of fishing for me, but I had a good time learning to cast and fish with my new longer rod.
Ok the sun is setting and it's time to head back to the ramp. It's a quiet evening with only the whisper of the electric motor and a few frogs in the lilly pads to break the silence. I get to the dock and tie up the boat, climb out and go to get the truck and trailer. With skill and agility I back the trailer into the water..set the parking brake and walk back out on the dock and climb in the boat. Now I've done this a zillion times by myself and never had even a small glitch. I hop in the boat.. fire up the 90 hp motor (They allow you to use it to load on the trailer) line everything up and push the throttle to glide effortlessly up on the trailer for a safe ride home. Here's where things get a little fuzzy.
Remember that electric motor on the front of the boat that I used all day? They really..really must be lifted and locked in the stowed position before attempting to load the boat. I know that. Somewhere in the evening air came a loud crunch! The boat is no longer gliding effortlessly on the trailer...parts are flying in the air... things are splashing in the water. Immediately I realize my mistake.
Now I'm going to take a second here to state that I have been making great strides on cleaning up my 'mill language' in recent months and was doing really well. Just let me say that there is a boy scout camp about five miles up the road and I'm sure there were a couple boys asking some vocabulary questions at the campfire that evening. That being said as I looked around there was not one sole to share the blame with. I picked up what parts I could , finished loading and headed on down the road.
This little episode happened about four days ago. I'm now seven hundred dollars closer to being a pauper "BUT' I have a new pal in the motor department at the Marina..a shiny new motor on my boat and a lesson indelibly etched in my brain on the proper use and stowing of trolling motors. Now if I could just be sure that no scouts were scarred by my hissy fit..I'd say it was almost a fair trade off.
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