It's always an adventure with Andrew

Well, this weekend was opening weekend for many lakes and streams in the area. Andrew and I decided to go up to Howard Prairie since it was recently stocked with trout. Andrew has fished here many times in the past and swears by drowning power bait. Big surprise.... today was not our day.

Andrew's new boat is great, but it isn't totally set up and we don't have our system for carrying gear down yet. Last minute we decided to take the fish cooler as we intended to keep our catch for the day. I threw it in the back of the boat and we were off. We were on a tight schedule and were in a hurry to get to the lake and start fishing. Luckily we arrived to find nice calm water and beautiful sunshine. Andrew backed the boat in and I held the rope. While he was parking the truck I tied off and jumped in to ready the gear. As I cleared the middle seats and went to lower the motor I noticed water in the back. Next big surprise was that the water was moving... er.. rushing in. We forgot to put the plug in. I scrambled my way back to the dock and evasively flipped the boat around. It seemed I had caught it just in time and was still able to get the rear of the boat high enough on shore to slow the swamping. Andrew had to pull the truck back down and take the boat out to drain the water.

Of course Andrew's new 20hp four stroke starts and runs awesome. He put the boat on course for the big island while I started tying up our gear for the afternoon. That's when it hit me. We had way too much room in the boat. "Andrew, where is the cooler for the fish?". Turns out we lost the cooler somewhere between the house and the lake. It must have blown out or something??

The power bait choices were green or pink. Andrew went pink (girly-man) and I went green. After an hour or so of nothing, but smelly hands and florescent stains on our pants, I talked Andrew into doing some trolling. We set out from the island towards the dam and after a little while I got a bite. After 20 or so feet of cranking I lost the little planter. Andrew hooked up and landed our first fish in the new boat. A few more bites, a few more fish, and a ton of lost fish. We lost at least twice as many fish as we caught. At least that's how it seemed. Andrew hooked up on a nice little trout and put in nearly in my lap when pulling it out of the water. Our lines had been a little tangled on the way in so we switched poles. While untangling Andrew started to hand me my rod back. As I reached for it Andrew let go thinking I already had a hand on it. I watched as my Ugly Stick and everything attached bounced off the side of the boat and into the water. By the time I made it to the edge I could just see the faint outline of the rod fade into the green water.

The wind kicked up as we trolled our way back towards the boat ramp. We both needed a quick break and stopped on the shore. I soon pushed us back out into the water as Andrew fired up the motor to reverse our way out from shore. A loud rattle and a ton of dirt splashed out from behind the boat. Apparently it was a little shallow. As Andrew grabbed for the tilt, a large wave enveloped the transom. All that work to drain the boat before we set out on our voyage and it had already been undone.

At the end of the day we were one cooler and one fishing pole light. We came home with 6 planter trout and one large mouth bass. It was a great time. I don't know how we do it, but each trip seems to top the last in catastrophe.