Just My Luck.

[jdmidwest]

I got a text last Monday morning from my long time fishing buddy in TN, Lets Go Fishing This Weekend on Pickwick. I was all in. Was all fired up all week.

We made it to the lake with about 30 minutes of daylight to fish on Friday nite and headed to the spillway to make a few casts before dark. I caught a nice skipjack, he landed a 14" largemouth just casting from the bank.

Sat. morning, we launched the boat for the first time of the new season. We had talked about the boat the night before as we were prepping it to fish. He was worried because he saw some water in the boat from our last trip out last season. I reminded him that we fished heavy swells that day and were tucked in under the windshield trying to stay dry, the boat was not leaking. I parked the truck and trailer and made my way back to the ramp. I hopped on board at the dock and he stated that he had found the leak. I raised the lid on the inboard 4.3 Chevy V6 to see water spouting from the starboard impellor housing. There was a nice busted seam gushing water and antifreeze into the hull. We puttered around for an hour in the cove on trolling motor and picked up a couple of largemouth each. I was not getting any action at first, so I put on a Ned and nailed mine. Put the boat back on trailer and headed back to boat doctor.

First question out of the boat doctor mouth was "did you winterize it?" . "Yes You did" my buddy replied. Come to find out, both sides were cracked. We still have not found out the full extent of damage, but it looks like winterize failure.

Went back to lake house and packed. Stopped at Shiloh Battleground and paid our respects to the fine Confederate Soldiers that fought in that battle. We headed back to his house to get the other boat ready for a backup trip to Reelfoot on Sunday morning. The jonboat has sit idle for a year under cover. One battery was dead and seats were moldy. We sprayed the seats down with bleach gel and got the mildew off. My buddy had to turn the water on to the pool house so I could spray the bleach off the seats, which I did. About a half a beer later, he made a dash for the shutoff again. Seems like there is a relief valve in the poolhouse that sticks open sometimes, that is why he keeps it shutoff. It was definately stuck open and water was pouring out the front doors and around the baseplate of the building.

Started out fairly early this morning after a good nite sleep. We were at the gas station filling up when he got a call. It was a reminder that he was supposed to be at work an hour earlier. He makes his own schedule, but forgot what he had scheduled. We parted ways at that point, him off to work, me towards MO.

I called another friend and was going to meet him halfway to St. Louis with my boat and fish a lake. An hour later, he called back and was worried that the radar was showing an incoming rain storm. We changed that to meeting up and heading out to St. Francois county to look for mushrooms. After a nice drive thru what used to be Forest Service land that is all now marked "NO TRESPASSING" courtesy of a few "Hunting Clubs" we found some nice public land. A few hours later and only 3 thumbnail grays and 1- 2 inch gray, we called it a day.

What a weird weekend with some good friends. A campfire story we will tell for years.

[Guest]

I love that pick wick tail race at Florence.

Caught my PB smallmouth there on a rainbow trout bomber 5A

It was the same color as those skipjack.

[jdmidwest]

I have been wanting to hit that upper part, just have not made it there yet. The lower part that we fish has produced some nice smallies.