I will try and keep it short and sweet. I was finally ready, I thought. I had been fishing all my life and I thought why not fish a Tournament. SO I asked a guy ...more from work if he wanted to go fish a Tournament with me at Lake McClure. The 2 hour trip to the lake was great and we were totally pumped. I asked him if he was cool with backing up the boat and he said sure no problem. This is the first lesson I learned. As he was backing up the boat he got too close to a sign and snapped my back light off the boat. Luckily I was so excited to fish I got over it so we moved on. We had to blast off last because we had no back light but I was still staying positive. So we headed out to fish and all was better. The next chain of events however were not so good. It started raining, and I was the only one with a set of Rain Gear so I let my buddy borrow mine. Keep in mind that he is not much of the outdoorsman. So now I am soaked but I set the hook and all is forgotten. As the fish gets close to the boat my partner goes to net the fish and steps on the rod in the picture but he netted the fish, so I dealt with it. As you can tell I am a fairly patient guy. The best is yet to come. It is now about noon and things have kinda calmed down. We have a limit, the rain has stopped, but I am soaked and it is about 40 degrees. Then out of the corner of my eye I see a huge splash in the water. It was my partner and he was overboard. Apparently he went to sit down and missed the seat. Now we are both wet, why did I let him use my raingear. I didn't have a ladder on my boat so I had to drag him to shore so he could get back in the boat. Not only did he lack outdoor skills but he is also not the most athletic fellow. It is now 1 PM and I go to start the boat, dead!!!!! Found out $300.00 later I blew the fuse for the alternator. So I started trolling us back to the weigh in. I figured that as long as I stayed on it we could make it back. I thought it was over. Lets just go back to the weigh in and move on. Lesson learned...Fish alone.......Pick better partners,,,take my kids fishing...The kicker is, as we trolled back for 2 hours he argued with his wife the entire time on the phone. Needless to say, I had a different friend back up the truck and the ride home was not as sweet as the ride to the Lake.
Repairs 350.00
Rod 150.00
Lesson Priceless