08-31-2008, 10:57 PM
Sorry this is late -- been kinda busy. Fished Strawberry Friday with my wife, and I will not forget that day anytime soon. Got to The Strawberry Marina parking lot, and readied the boat. We took a trip to the restrooms and on our way back to the Suburban Kathy announced, "We have a flat tire." I missed the "We" part, so I thought that she was talking about the folks parked next to us, so I wasn't too concerned, until I looked over and saw that she was talking about our Suburban. [frown] Got the hydraulic jack out and the breaker bar and I was determined to fix it quickly and get to fishing. Jacked the boat trailer up to take the extra weight off of the Suburban and then proceeded to take the lug nuts off. I quickly discovered that when the young men at Big O Tires mounted my tires, apparently they were having a contest that day to see who could tighten the lug nuts the tightest, and the young man who worked on my Suburban surely won. I wasn't sure which was going to give first -- the lug nuts or the breaker bar. I would stand and bounce on the breaker bar in order to get enough leverage to turn the lug nuts. I noticed that one nut was particularly difficult to turn and even after turning it several times it wasn't getting any easier. I looked at it more closely and realized that the entire bolt was turning!![[Image: beaten.gif]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/images/gforum/beaten.gif)
I realized that this situation was hopeless, so I tried to find a nail in the tire, so that I could attempt to patch it while it was still mounted. I couldn't find a nail, so the next plan was to try to pump the tire up long enough to at least launch the boat. I soon realized that the air was escaping as quickly as I was pumping it in. Kathy decided that it must be leaking somewhere on the back of the tire, so she looked and felt around the backside and quickly discovered our problem. The air was escaping out of a hole on the back of the tire, just off of the side of the tread. I got my trusty tire patch kit out, that I have been hauling around for at least a couple years, and made quick work of patching the hole. Kathy didn't have as much faith as I did that the patch would hold. It seemed to take forever for the pump to inflate that large tire to 40 pounds of pressure, but it eventually got there and the patch was holding just fine.[cool] Looked at my watch and we had been working on the tire just over 1 1/2 hours.
Launched the boat and turned the key to start the main outboard only to discover that both of my batteries were dead. Apparently, I had left the ignition key on and forgot to switch the Perko switch to off. First time I have ever done that, and hopefully I never do it again. Grateful that my old 100 horse is usually easy to start with the pull rope. Gave it a couple pulls and it fired right up.
Headed north of Mud Creek (now it is after 9:00 AM -- so much for getting an early start). Got to the area we wanted to fish with great trepidation, because I realized that bad luck always comes in threes. I only had to wait less that 2 hours to find out what the third bad luck situation would be. I took my watch off and strapped on the wireless-remote controls for my electric trolling motor to my wrist. Strapped on my life jacket and proceeded to climb on the bow of the boat to drop down the electric trolling motor. Grabbed for the hardtop of the boat to steady myself, and somehow missed. Lost my balance and take a plunge into Strawberry![frown] This was my first time I have fallen off of a boat, and hopefully my last. As I was totally under water I was certainly grateful that I was wearing my life jacket and vowed that I would never climb on the bow again without putting it on. Kathy first panicked and then got a great laugh out of my misfortune. Got back on the boat without much difficulty, just before getting a bite and landing a nice cutt. Kathy was kind enough to dry out the contents of my wallet (I almost always take my wallet out of my pants and put it in a safe place on the boat when I am fishing, but of course I didn't do it this time.) Tried to rescue my cell phone, but I figured it was toast, and especially after seeing water inside of the screen. Purchased a new cell phone yesterday.
I could rest easily now after the third misfortune. The only other challenge was that the batteries would run down after about an hour of using the fishfinder, to the point that the fish finder would shut off. Fortunately, for some strange reason, I had taken the Vexilar along on this trip, so i just put the Vexilar transducer over the side of the boat and I was good to go again.
On to the fishing report -- fishing was good considering we missed the best time of the day to fish. We found most of them in about 30 to 35 feet of water and caught them on the bottom up to about 10 feet off of the bottom. All fish, except for one that I caught on a Berkley Gulp Minnow drop-shotting, were caught vertically jigging with white or light-colored tube jigs tipped with chunks of chub minnows.
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I realized that this situation was hopeless, so I tried to find a nail in the tire, so that I could attempt to patch it while it was still mounted. I couldn't find a nail, so the next plan was to try to pump the tire up long enough to at least launch the boat. I soon realized that the air was escaping as quickly as I was pumping it in. Kathy decided that it must be leaking somewhere on the back of the tire, so she looked and felt around the backside and quickly discovered our problem. The air was escaping out of a hole on the back of the tire, just off of the side of the tread. I got my trusty tire patch kit out, that I have been hauling around for at least a couple years, and made quick work of patching the hole. Kathy didn't have as much faith as I did that the patch would hold. It seemed to take forever for the pump to inflate that large tire to 40 pounds of pressure, but it eventually got there and the patch was holding just fine.[cool] Looked at my watch and we had been working on the tire just over 1 1/2 hours. Launched the boat and turned the key to start the main outboard only to discover that both of my batteries were dead.
Apparently, I had left the ignition key on and forgot to switch the Perko switch to off. First time I have ever done that, and hopefully I never do it again. Grateful that my old 100 horse is usually easy to start with the pull rope. Gave it a couple pulls and it fired right up. Headed north of Mud Creek (now it is after 9:00 AM -- so much for getting an early start). Got to the area we wanted to fish with great trepidation, because I realized that bad luck always comes in threes. I only had to wait less that 2 hours to find out what the third bad luck situation would be. I took my watch off and strapped on the wireless-remote controls for my electric trolling motor to my wrist. Strapped on my life jacket and proceeded to climb on the bow of the boat to drop down the electric trolling motor. Grabbed for the hardtop of the boat to steady myself, and somehow missed. Lost my balance and take a plunge into Strawberry![frown] This was my first time I have fallen off of a boat, and hopefully my last. As I was totally under water I was certainly grateful that I was wearing my life jacket and vowed that I would never climb on the bow again without putting it on. Kathy first panicked and then got a great laugh out of my misfortune. Got back on the boat without much difficulty, just before getting a bite and landing a nice cutt. Kathy was kind enough to dry out the contents of my wallet (I almost always take my wallet out of my pants and put it in a safe place on the boat when I am fishing, but of course I didn't do it this time.) Tried to rescue my cell phone, but I figured it was toast, and especially after seeing water inside of the screen. Purchased a new cell phone yesterday.
I could rest easily now after the third misfortune. The only other challenge was that the batteries would run down after about an hour of using the fishfinder, to the point that the fish finder would shut off. Fortunately, for some strange reason, I had taken the Vexilar along on this trip, so i just put the Vexilar transducer over the side of the boat and I was good to go again.
On to the fishing report -- fishing was good considering we missed the best time of the day to fish. We found most of them in about 30 to 35 feet of water and caught them on the bottom up to about 10 feet off of the bottom. All fish, except for one that I caught on a Berkley Gulp Minnow drop-shotting, were caught vertically jigging with white or light-colored tube jigs tipped with chunks of chub minnows.
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