How does this happen?

[RK]

Hiya,
So last night I finally got around to digging into my ice fishing gear in earnest - pulling out the portable, checking out all the gear, etc.

Now, when I put it away after the past trip last winter, I'd swear everything was in good shape - ready to fish at the drop of a hat.

So when I open it up I find all the rods and tip-ups - which I'd swear were in the rod tubes and wrapped up - are all lashed together in a lump of graphite, cork, hooks plastic, and a mile of monofilament. It's impossible to tell where one combo starts and another leaves off.

I also find:
- A petrified smelt which I'm guessing is from a late ice pike trip. This is troubling, because I don't remember using smelt last year...
- numerous well-preserved fathead minnow corpses, minus the heads.
- several little plastic containers of (very dead) maggies and wax worms
- three fingerless wool gloves - all left hands. Where are the matching gloves for the right hand? God knows...
- the globe for a coleman lantern, still in the package. This is unusual, because I don't HAVE a Coleman lantern...
- a little lump of rust with a plastic handle, which I think was a small hook file.
- A sealed (thank God) ziploc baggie with what may have been, at some point, a sandwich.
- a foam minnow bucket shut tight, with some very funky goo in the bottom that nearly flattened me when I opened it up. Into the garbage at arm's length, then a 40 yard dash with the trash can out to the curb. I considered a written apology to the trash haulers for the stench...

So how on earth did my stuff go from in order and ready to go to completely trashed? I have my theories. I think maybe it's a covert PETA campaign - they sneak in and trash fish houses during the off-season to frustrate anglers into giving up and taking up bowling - you can't get a bowling ball tangled up with much of anything. Or, it's the ghosts of all the fatheads with pinched off heads haunting my fish trap and getting their revenge by tangling up my stuff and stealing all the right hand gloves.

Instead of setting up my shack in the garage, firing up the heater and making sure the seat was still form-fitted to my butt, I spent the evening peeling petrified minnows off the floor of my trap, tossing rusted jigs in the trash, untanging rods and reels and tip-ups, and dry-heaving from the stink of those former minnows.

But I still swear it was all neat and tidy when I put it away last year...

*sigh*

RK

[Jarrod32]

Meanwhile, somewhere else, someone who has the same kind of portable you do, has opened it up and said..."hey, where's all my s#!7? I could've sworn I left it all in here last spring...."

[This message has been edited by Jarrod32 (edited 11-06-2003).]

[pj4]

i say you had too much fire water on your last outing and brought the wrong shack home. by the way, where is mine?

[EBass]

Nice story - I got LOL outa it

[LOWinEYEin]

HEY
You have my shack!!!!!
LOL

[IceNutt]

I hate to tell you this but it sounds like the work of a "sentry fish" gone mad.

[MNice]

RK, GREAT story, I did LOL.

Jeff

[SpikeRoberts]

Now I'm afraid to open my box of stuff

[richstick]

phew! I thought I was the only one that happened to!! Great story, you are a great writer, I ROTFLMAO!!! Thanks!

Richstick

[can it be luck?]

If the cats show up, get one of those mouse catcher things ST posted in the Equipment forum, just make it bigger! Bait it with things you find in your shack or pieces of the shack itself. That smell of fish permiates(sp?) into the shack as well as our nasal passage and brains, we're immune to it! PS: Besides the fish smell, woman can smell unfamiliar perfumes much better than men also!

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http://groups.msn.com/canitbeluck

[This message has been edited by can it be luck? (edited 11-06-2003).]

[dfv87]

Canitbeluck,
thanks for the info...LOL
I know I have a problem with the fishing thing, so I won't try the new perfume thing.

[CornPirateKiller]

I've been glancing at my buckets of gear sitting on the shelf, thinking about getting it out and organized. After reading this story, though, I'm a little scared to look in the bottom of those buckets. What exactly did I leave in there last spring? This maybe the plot of a future cheap horror flick... "The Thing from the Bucket"

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Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

[kslipsinker]

I had a similar bait bucket experience about 30 years ago. Had minnows in one of the old steel strainer buckets, that I stuck in a storage closet in the apartment building where I was living. Forgot about them for a few months. It was the worst smelling bucket of grey goo that I had ever smelled! I pitched the bucket into a dumpster.

[can it be luck?]

Way tooo funny!!! I have the same problem with gloves, all lefts and no rights. I think I have a one armed amputee breaking in my house when I'm gone stealing my gloves!

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http://groups.msn.com/canitbeluck

[dfv87]

great post...LOL

My 5 year old daughter and I set up my portable in the garage last night as a "fort", She always likes to help with forts but not my fishing stuff(always thinking!) ANyway we get it set up and the first words out of her mouth are "smells like fish in here." Must be a female thing as I smelled nothing except old cigar smoke. My wife gets home and says why does the garage smell like fish? I must have spent so much time around fish stuff I don't notice the smell? Anyway there weren't any neighborhood cats hanging around the garage door this morning so it cannot smell that bad. Bring on the ICE!

[Guest]

Build an equipment locker and you wont have that problem
1 Rubbermaid or container long enough for your rods
mount regular rod holders on the sides
all other gear will fit in the middle heaters tackle box etc.I really find mine to quite useful.
Mine is cheap veresion of the rubbermaids
but it wokrs great I toss it and the house in the car and im off in 5 min. it also fits in a plastic sled for the walk outs.
I could get a pic and post it for you
it costs under 20 bucks and saves alot of frustration.

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Pies and Eyes for all.
Stay dry and on the fly if you find them they will bite..

[Uncle Grump]

'minnow

Please do post a pic. I have a similar tub for which I store all my "odd ball" gear. I use a rubber bun-gee cord to keep the cover
fastened.

Good idea.

UG

[can it be luck?]

I use 3 bun-gees to fasten the lid on mine, while 1 fat guy stands on top to squeeeeze it all in!!

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http://groups.msn.com/canitbeluck

[fireman182]

Do you ever put your gloves, hats, ice cleats all together and put them in a spot that you "won't forget" where you put them and now in the fall you can't remember where that easy to remember spot was. I've been searching for a week now and can't find any of that stuff.

[Guest]

Fireman
If you have looked and looked it's time to do what the wife would do if she lost something, go buy new (and some new toys also) I usually put all of my gloves etc in my rod locker a little shereaded cedar and all smells wonderful in the fall.
I will post a pic of the locker soon
The lid snaps on no need for bungies lots of room.

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Pies and Eyes for all.
Stay dry and on the fly if you find them they will bite..

[This message has been edited by frozenminnow (edited 11-13-2003).]

[Guest]

Anyone know how to post pics? I have a couple of the locker.

[Guest]

Dont know what happened there folks. I submitted it once said something about flood control try later tried again and again I didnt think it would post 3x

[Rick]

You were click happy, that's why you got the flood control warning. The system goes after flood makers

[RK]

Hiya,
Actually the mess wasn't so bad. Gives me somethign to do between deer hunting and ice fishing...

I actually have containters and some add-on side trays in my Trap - but it's the re-organizing between trips that gets me in trouble Rods were my biggest bugaboo when it came to getting things sorted out, but I just got one of the new rod bags from St. Croix. I know the Croxton Pond bags are big with a lot of the folks here, and they're pretty nice for sure, but I liked the St. Croix bags a lot. A rigid channel for the rods, and a shoulder strap, and nice padding. Can stuff 4 combos on there I think. Hopefully will save some tangling.

Fireman - I know that tune. I have about 40 pairs of fingerless wool gloves floating around the planet somewhere. Probably off keeping the socks that get eaten by the dryer company. My worst loss though was courtesy of my ex-wife. While we were still married, I had a big bag stuffed in the closet that was FULL of polypropelyne long underwear - long johns, shirts, turtlenecks - the works, in various weights for hunting and fishing. She was on a cleaning kick, and decided that for some reason the clean clothes in the bag needed to be washed some more. Soooo, she threw them in the washing machine (hot water) then in the dryer. Everything shrank to nothing of course, especially the arms and legs, so I had about $150 bucks worth of long underwear the perfect size for a midget with a huge butt.

When I told her it needed to be replaced, she told me she didn't understand why I needed all that stuff in the first place. I replied with some unfortunate comments about the number of pairs of black shoes in her closet, and it all went downhill from there

Cheers,
RK

[Guest]

RK

I hear ya on the fingerless gloves. I always end up buying about 2 or 3 pairs a year. every now and then a pair turns up, but most are gone forever.

Scott