Jump to content
  • GUESTS

    If you want access to members only forums on HSO, you will gain access only when you Sign-in or Sign-Up .

    This box will disappear once you are signed in as a member. ?

Pre-Season Ego check........


cjac

Recommended Posts

Last week, as my winch strap broke on me at the landing, I was reminded I'm not quite as perfect as I'd like to think I am or as good a fisherman as I'd like to think.

That in turn reminded me that it's time for the annual pre-muskie season level set of the ego. It's a good time to think of the most stupid thing you've done or scene you've made. Time to ditch the thoughts of going out on Saturday and catching a fish in the first hour......and every hour after.

My best ego check was last Fall, exiting the boat at the landing, only to have a boot lace catch the front cleat, sending me headfirst over the side and face first into the water..... Classy move at a 'tonka access.

What's your best slice of humble pie story? Figure a post like this might help kill the next few days with a few good laughs......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last year, 4th of July weekend had caught some nice muskies. Sunday AM and I get about a 30 inch pike and proceed to tell my brother, "That little guy will just slime up our MUSKY net just grab 'em!" Well, that snot rocket jumped around as my bro was unhooking him and a #7 hook from the DCG ended up going through his thumb while the 8-10 LB fish flopped on the other end of the lure. Needless to say I'm glad I pinch barbs down but I realized then that every fish deserves a bit of respect. My bro also learned not to listen to his smart**s little brother.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too many to count! It's a common occurance for me to learn I got a lot of learnin' to do still!

A good one for me was when I told a new buddy that he'd love muskie fishing. I took him out and told him we may not catch anything, but I'll show him some nice fish (I was on a good pattern that had a lot of fish). Needless to say, I went out with him for about six hours and didn't see a single fish. A big ol' piece of humble pie was served to me! Serves me right- I'd gotten just a little too cocky on that hot pattern I was fishing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lost the Ol' S-16 right in middle of the road in the middle of the night. This made for a good time, dead center of the road so I grabbed the front sccccrrrrrrr, (dragging it to the side) run to the back sccccrrrr, run back to the front sccrrrrr oowwwww. The ow is for dragging it across my bare foot. Meanwhile during all this my buddy is in the truck trying to get the truck turned around and lined up. Only 2 cars went by, the first one was like the scene from fargo, ya see the lights coming at you then they see you, they then speed up!! The next was some local boys coming from the bar that were more then willing to help load the boat up!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"What do you mean you can't get a hold of the fish in the net, don't be a p**sy, just grab the [PoorWordUsage] thing."

I reach into the net, grab said fish, end up with my thumb in it's mouth and a nasty laceration on my thumb. 2 years later, still hurts and having tendon problems with it.

Never gonna live that one down.

How about the almost daily occurance of, "sweet no backlashes or line issues, i'm rockin it out". Next cast, 20 minutes of untangling...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In 99 I had the winch rope snap on me and like a rocket connect me right above the upper lip.

In 98 up on the Gunflint Trail, wooing a girlfriend and trying to look good for other people at the resort I had a master plan of a little momentum and back the boat into the water unstrapped and let her have a little float, then I was going to swim out and save the day. Forgot to put the plug in the boat blush So me and another guy walked her thru how to put the plug in while we waded out to retrieve the boat. That is how I learned the art of motor in gear gain some speed and pull the plug to drain water out vs. reloading onto trailer to drain it.

More to come grin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

a couple years ago, on BIG DL in October, they had taken the channel bouys out between big and little DL. Well there was no other people on the lake and I thought that if I follow my trail on my GPS, I will get by no problem. I must have forgotten that the GPS can be off by 30 feet or more and well you guessed it, at 45 mph, all I felt was the boat slow a titch and lift up a bit and bang. took half the skeg off and did't have much of a prop left and needless to say, I was very lucky. Now I slow down to a no wake speed no matter what...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a musky excursion I was on, but last year headed up a river in search of some better water than what we had been fishing. Didn't realize how much more gas a motor will chew up on a river. Ended up just about running out of gas - left just enough in it to motor the boat on the trailer. My two buddies and I took turns paddling with the one lame paddle in the boat back down to the launch. We ended up getting back about 3am-4am.

We were just do darn excited about the stuff we were seeing that gas didn't even cross our minds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, I've been there on running out of gas on a river too.

Bald Eagle Lake on Memorial day probably 2000 I did my usual routine on getting boat ready, hey its a holiday keep the landing open. I backed the boat in, it would not come off the trailer. Backed in farther, wouldn't come off. I am dumbfounded. Standing on trailer, pushing with all I can won't budge. Brilliantly I decide to hop in, lower the motor and put it in reverse and gun it, still won't come off the trailer. After shutting off the motor and going to pull out to see what the heck a nice dude came by and pointed out my boat was still strapped to the trailer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 years ago I unload my boat at flake and wait for rebel9921 to get at the access finally he arrived as he walk up to me as I was waitin by my car. He asked me" hey did you put plug in the boat?" I replied " oh yeah I didnt forget this time!"

He say " well why is back of boat is half way in water?"

As I looked back to my boat there's back of boat sittin on bottom of shallow water with front of boat 5 feet up in the air. My boat was nearly half full of water... took me like 10-15 mins to drain whole [PoorWordUsage] thing n get out back on water.

Never forgot to put plug in after that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yopaul, you're the one we were laughing at! And only laughing because we've done it and have done it since smile I think as good as we all think we are, there's a little Bill Dance in all of us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Two summers ago my wife and I were camping on the shore of the Chippewa River in Wisconsin with a couple of friends. A buddy and I were out musky fishing until after dark, so when we got back to where we were camping we pulled the boat on shore as far as we could and tied it to a tree, since we didn't have a dock. Well wouldn't you know it we pulled it up too far which caused the rear of the boat to be just inches from the surface of the water. This is a pretty busy stretch of river so over the course of the night several boats went by and I can only assume that the wake from those boats came over the back of the boat and filled it with water. I got up the next morning and saw my 2 year old boat sitting on the bottom of the river 1/2 full of water. I untied the bow line and was able to get it to float again and after an hour of running the bilge and a good pressure washing it seems as good as new. I have done far dumber things in the past, but my wife is usually not there to witness it and constantly remind me of my stupidity.

53orbigger

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hiya -

Couple good bad ones come to mind...

A couple falls ago (mid-October) I got to the ramp very early like I usually do. Only one there, have the place to myself, going to be a great deal. I have launching my boat solo down to a pretty good science. Tie the bowline off to the dock, back in, boat floats off, I go park - it's all good. Wind happened to be blowing off shore that day, so even easier than usual...

So I back in, boat floats off, and as I'm pulling out I look in the rear view mirror and think "hmm...the boat seems awfully far from the dock." Look again and see about 3 feet of my bowline hanging off the dock, and the rest trailing in the water as my boat floats away.

So I'm the only on there, the wind is offshore... Only one thing to do. I jumped out of the truck, stripped down as fast as I could, and in I went... I was up to my armpits by the time I grabbed the bowline. I think I actually got the boat on plane dragging it back to the dock. Water was 49 degrees. Really, really cold water. Caught a 49-incher a little later though so that kind of made up for it...

The other one was more fish-related. I'd been on a pretty good run casting crankbaits on LoTWS and had the same bait on for days. The night before I'd caught a fish on my last cast of the day, so I was pretty fired up for the next morning. Got out to my first spot, fired a cast and as soon as I bumped the first rock the crankbait got clobbered. Great big fish comes flying out of the water and air mails the crank back to me. So I reel in all the slack and said a few choice words. You know how in hockey when a goalie lets in a soft goal, they look at their stick like it's the stick's fault... Well, I picked up my crankbait, and realized that the night before, I'd cut every single hook point off while I was unhooking the last fish.

Changed hooks, wrote 'moron' in magic marker on my forehead, and fished the rest of the day without another bite...

Muskie fishing is humbling enough without the wounds being self-inflicted...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right on RK. I managed last year to wrap my line around my boat light as I was loading up a cast, the tall one in back and launched it out/ripped it out of it's place, pretty ugly. I've hit that light many times and had almost done it before, but as my friend yelled at some guys we were golfing against when they kicked their ball for a better lie out of the trees........Admit you're a clown ! I'll admit that clown maneuver and a plug once or twice and a tie down strap here or there and a few hats/life jackets that have gone flyin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ha, good stuff!

I have left the straps on once, never actually did the plug gig, but I did go in for a swim at WBL when I went with my Dad quite a few years ago. There was a guy taking his time, and I was impatiently waiting to put it in. Finally I backed in the boat, and was going "to show this clown how to launch a boat" and I usually would walk out a bit on the trailer and then jump in the boat and it took like 5 second tops... well, my foot hit a roller, I stumbled and pushed the boat and I fell in the drink, in April, and off the boat went like a rocket. Ha! I went for a swim, and the guy on the dock was just shaking his head!

I learned a lot that day! ha! Life is too short to get impatient over the little things, and no matter how much you think you know, or "how good you are" at something, you can screw up. Too bad that wasn't that last day I ever learned those things wink

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great stories, my buddy reminded me of one more I have to share. About 3 years ago I upgraded my eagle fish finder to a hummingbird. For me, I was more excited about the upgrade then the overall installation. I removed all the stuff for the Eagle and put in the hummingbird. So out on the lake for opener we went, not too long into the morning noticed that the boat was more full with water than expected. You got it, didn't plug the two transducer holes of the Eagle when I removed it

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just last year in August I was invited to go on a Musky trip to LOTW. Having never been musky fishing, I decided to pick up a combo along with a few lures as a little B-day present to myself. So away I went to Nestor Falls...first day out I get a 33" a few hours into the day. This day also happens to be my birthday so I'm real excited here. My friend lands it and high fives are exchanged, hooks are out, the fish is measured and it's time for the kodak moment, my first musky. I pull the fish out of the water from the net and smile.

DSC_0397.jpg

The fish was a bit camera shy and thrashed around a few times. The first thing I thought about was "...hold her tight, don't drop it." So I tightened my grip on the gill plate and left my thumb open and exposed...She racked her mouth across my thumb leaving some pretty gnarly war wounds. A good amount of blood began coming out of the wound...so we headed in, which was about a 45 minute boat ride. Bleeding persisted so we went to find a hospital. Unfortunately on the weekends nobody was around in Nestor Falls so we had to drive all the way up to Kenora which was well over an hour from the resort one way. I don't know if anyone has ever dealt with Canadian healthcare as an American but it was awful. Waited in the emergency room for 2 hours before I was called in to see the doctor. At this point I'm dehydrated, losing blood and feeling noxious. I get into the doctors office and proceed to take a 35 minute nap, wake up and the doctor was still not there! Finally, 5 minutes later he strolls in. Put's 2 stitches on these fairly large gaping wounds and sends me off with a nice 600 dollar hospital bill. Luckily, health insurance covered it. So the rest of the week I had a few half open cuts on my casting thumb that were generously coated with marine goop (great stuff). After a night of self-medicating (a la Labatt's)I was ready to go for the rest of the week.

DSC_0402.jpg

In retrospective, I probably would have avoided the trip to the hospital all together. There's nothing that a little Marine Goop and Labatt's can't fix! I'll be making the 2nd Annual trip this year over the 4th. The lodge owners said they are all stocked up on gauze and bandages for my arrival. Live and learn, just be smart about it! wink

Link to comment
Share on other sites

RK, your story reminds me of my friend Steve, who was out on Pelican on Leech with a big storm buiding. As usual he pushed it too close and as the big winds came up he decided to make a run to Stoney Pt and tuck in the little harbor there. He made it, tied up to the dock, and went and stood under one of those big pines on shore to keep from getting soaked. Well, when the lightning started he figured under the tallest tree around wasn't the safest place to be, so he ducks into the two-holer right there at the access. As he's sitting there looking out at the boat he said it was like Wizard of Oz - a big wind came up and dang near picked the boat out of the water. It came loose from the dock and was headed toward the pile of rocks on the outer edge of the little harbor. He said you shoulda seen me come flyin' outta the crapper. It was just like Dock Dogs - he hit the end of the dock and launched himself, landing with his chest right on the edge of the boat. Well he kept the boat from piling up on the rocks, but figured he fractured a couple ribs in the process and had to troll the rest of the day after the storm blew through.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote:
Well, I picked up my crankbait, and realized that the night before, I'd cut every single hook point off while I was unhooking the last fish.

LOL, I hadn't ever thought of that but I can see how it would be very easy to do!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now ↓↓↓ or ask your question and then register. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.