minner, Wheeler, Blue, 4/5/09, Solo

[FishNews]

<br /> Well I got out for a little bit yesterday. I plugged up my batteries before I left for church and they had about 3 hours to “top off” before leaving to go fishing. I left a miffed wife to go wet a line; evidently 72 hours notice isn’t enough time for her to make plans. I should have known then about how my day would go. I hadn’t had MY boat out in six weeks so I expected to have a maiden voyage experience. (any boater knows exactly what I am talking about. You see boating is like exercising, lay out for 3 or more weeks and you are right back to square one, your equipment gets out of shape and so does your routine). Anyway, I loaded up and headed south to the river. I got out, put all my gear in the boat, and realized I hadn’t forgotten anything, “Hey maybe this won’t be so bad after all” so I thought. Well I go to the rear of the boat to take the transom saver off the motor and hit the trim switch and……..nothing. Uhhhh Ohhh… Not to worry I’ll jump it off with my TM batteries and leave the jumper cables in the boat. I finish launching and go to get back in my boat when I ripped the crotch right out of my favorite pants, now I am getting a little ticked. I start up and motor out to the river. I thought “well I should probably go up river since I have a bad battery, but my best hole is down river… So what is a catman to do?” Well I head down river of course, after all I only have about an hour and a half to fish so let’s roll the dice. I get to my spot and it looks promising. I throw out my anchor and it won’t hold, I throw out my anchor and it won’t hold, I throw out my anchor and it won’t hold. #%#^^$ finally it holds after dragging through my hole a couple times. I chunk some bait out on five rods and let them soak for about 15 minutes and get nailed. Woohooo. At first I thought it might be a yella the way is was battling me. After a few minutes I get her alongside the boat and net her and bring her in. As I am unhooking her a second rod goes down…I thought “it’s about to be on.” This fish starts hauling anal fin down river (toward a snag). It’s ripping drag from my Quantum Cabo with 30 lb line, I put a little pressure on the spool with my thumb to slow it down but let off thinking I better let it tire first. About that time the fish ran under a snag and broke me off. I have no idea how big that fish was but I’d say it was pretty good size compared to what I just went through with the fish in the bottom of the boat. Now I turn my attention back to the first fish and go to get my digital scale. Nope, battery is dead in the scale! I had to use my big spring scale. She tipped the scales right at 66lbs. I tried in vain to get a good self pic but it didn’t turn out to flattering. Oh well, I let her swim and went to retie another rod when I realized I had a busted ceramic eyelet on one of my favorite rods. About that time I hear my Huminbird SI start singing and the screen went dark. I tried to repower but every time I tried it would give me blue screen then start cycling and the alarms keep going off. NOT GOOD. Then to top it all off it started to rain. I sat in the rain about 15 minutes then decided to pack it up. Oh well a fairly successful trip in a short time, disregarding all the mishaps. <br /> Once I got home and got the batteries to charging again I decided to try the fishfinder again, thinking it may have been caused my low voltage from the dying battery, luckily it started right up so I guess I learned a lesson there, low voltage= not good for the SI.