A sad day and a happy day

It’s sad because something has ended. My very close friend, Don, was my inspiration to buy a fishing boat. He always shared the operation of his boat. He always made me feel welcome to use his boat at any time (except for that first week when he was in Oregon see “Don buys a boat”). I have often written about Don’s boat as a disaster, but it was always an enjoyable experience. Many were less than successful, but none of them were anything less than fun. Being with Don made any fishing trip the highlight of the day or week.

Fishing with Don isn’t ending. We had several trips already this spring and summer. However, most of them were shake down trips. This is the annual practice of bringing a buddy to help discover what you screwed up while trying to work on your boat to prepare for fishing season. The buddy can run the kanewter valve while you try to repair the bat stretcher. There was always something not functioning correctly and this was often because we are the furthest thing from competent mechanics since the invention of a floating log raft.

This spring the shakedowns were to make sure Don’s boat was functioning safely so he might sell it to someone and they would not die using his boat. Why multiple shake downs trips? Let’s just leave that to your imaginations. If you can’t imagine anything see any of the posts “Adventures in Don’s, Rick's, or Paul’s boats”

Why the “happy day”? The old adage is the happiest days in a fisherman’s life are the day he buys a boat and the day he sells it. Boats are a pain in the ass. Something is always breaking. No matter how careful you may be some part works loose, breaks, needs replacement etc.  In the 13 years I have owned my boat I have replaced the trolling motor, the trolling motor lift rope (3 times), the fish locator, locator transducer ( twice), 2 anchors, four anchor ropes, both batteries (3 times), the winch strap, the trailer hitch, the trailer tires, the trailer lights (twice), the fuel tank, the fuel connectors, the wheel bearings (twice), rewired the running lights,etc., etc, etc. There is almost no paint left on the sides and there are more dents than found on a Tobin's Pizza delivery car.

With all of us owning some type of watercraft, Don simply wasn’t using his much. He decided it was too big an investment to keep in his garage to store lawn chairs in the winter. (He really does that. One winter I offered to let him keep it in my garage while we were in Texas, so his truck wouldn’t have to sit out. He declined because he had no other place to store his lawn furniture.)  

So he put it on the market this spring. By the way, “On the market” for a guy from Dupo means he put a For Sale sign on it and set it in his yard. More precisely, since the town of Normal prohibits putting something for sale in your yard, Don pulled it out in his driveway whenever anyone in the neighborhood was having a garage sale. I don’t believe he helped pay for the neighbor’s garage sale ad, but he isn’t cheap. He put up a regular "store bought" sign, not the typical southern Illinois “4Sell” version written in crayon on a pizza box.

After multiple weeks of garage sale advertising, he found a buyer in Kentucky! Don’t ask me to explain that, but I suppose there is some red neck communications pipeline (like the internet, but without typing, or words)

So for Don it is a happy day and for me a sad one.

Thanks buddy for including me in your happy days

Weather might be the problem

Don suggested that we might have a problem with weather. If you think about it, we all complain about it. Perhaps we should place our lack of success on the weather, you know, like politicians blame each other.

Paul and I went fishing at Boulder Junction in September. This was years before Paul met Neal. This was our second trip that year. During our first trip in June, we arrived in a thunderstorm. Paul had booked a cabin on a lake. There was no office, and the owner had told Paul to go into a specific cabin as the cabins were unlocked. It was raining so hard we couldn’t read the numbers on the cabins. Paul’s boat cover filled so deep with rainwater, we were afraid it might break the cover. I got out to walk the area to try and find where we to stay, while he tried to get the rainwater off of the cover by driving back and forth and slamming on the brakes. After I found the cabin, I told Paul “let’s stay someplace else”. It was somewhat better than the “Shangi-La” and several notches below “Almost Holiday”. We decided to stay in town, at a hotel near a bar.

By the time we arrived at the hotel, the weather cleared and it was beautiful. We went out right away had a great day of fishing.  We had great success the next day and tried several lakes. The fishing was terrific everywhere. We even had a muskie follow one of Paul’s lures all the way to the boat.

We decided we had to return in the fall. This is why we were back in September.  Paul booked us in the hotel. We arrived early enough to go fishing that evening. We had great fishing and great weather. The next day we were formally introduced to the vagaries of upper Wisconsin weather.

The day started with a hearty breakfast. This was a big mistake for me. As I have gotten older, I occasionally forget that my stomach can’t take all of that food. It was cool that morning, so we dressed in bad weather gear to keep warm.

By the time we arrived at the lake, my insides were in terrible stress. Needless to say, I don’t know what a bear does in the woods, but I know what I did.

As we worked our way out the narrow channel from the dock, the wind picked up. Paul was driving the boat, so he headed for shelter from the wind behind an island. As we approached the island, it began to sprinkle.

As we stopped to fish, it began to sleet. We worked around the back of the island, and  I could see back where we had entered. Paul was facing the opposite way. I started to laugh. Paul asked “Why are you laughing?” I told him to turn around.

The entrance to the lake was not visible. Snow was falling so hard, one could not see ten feet. By the way, we had not had one strike. We decided continuing was unwise and headed back to the dock, moving slowly in the heavy snow.

To wait out the weather, we decided to go in to the Boulder Beer Bar. We had lunch and a few beers. There were some other men there and they were drinking a lot.

After an hour the other men had the bartender fill a couple of growlers with beer from the tap and then they left. We asked where they were taking so much beer. The bartender said they were going fishing. Paul and I decided driving with those guys on the road was unwise. Also we thought the weather was still too bad, so we stayed at the bar. More beer was needed to wash down the bar food (You know, deep fried everything). We then returned to the hotel for a nap.

By evening, the weather cleared. We decided to go back out at a different lake. By the time we got to the lake, Paul was struck with my same ailment from the morning and he also did an impression of a bear in the woods.

Another hour on the lake produced not one bite. It had to be the weather, right?

And on a nice day....

One warm day in January, Paul said “They are catching muskies down below the dam at Lake Shelbyville. We always enjoyed the lake so we decided to drive down for a day trip. Along the way we stopped for lunch just south of where we usually turned off to visit Almost Holiday. We were heading south towards the dam.

As we were waiting to be served, several people came into the restaurant. They described how they had seen a tornado pass just south of our location. Imagine if we hadn’t stopped for lunch?

We decided to continue on, as the weather had cleared.

We didn’t hook a single muskie.

I returned home to find that my dog, Rhett, had tripped Connie while she was walking him. I had trained him to walk on the left, and he was on her right, tried to get to her left and wrapped his lease around her legs. She tore her rotator cuff and ended up with shoulder surgery. She would never be able to pitch in the majors.

She didn't  think I was funny when I said this. 

I should have stayed home.

This is the last post until July 31.

They call it Evergreen

We most often fish Lake Evergreen. It was built in the 70’s before I moved to the area. However, old timers like Don and Paul recall when it was built. I don’t know why it was named Evergreen, but I have a hypothesis.

Lake Evergreen has become the source of much loss and some downright tragic events. It is the final resting place of two of my anchors, one of my rod and reels, numerous hats, more fishing lures, jigs, and fishing line than I can ever summarize.

Unfortunately it also claimed some lives. I don’t wish to make light of the loss or offend any family, but I don’t believe the number of tragedies is caused by the design of the lake.

A family rented a canoe and went out for ride. The Dad put life vests on his kids, but didn’t wear one himself. When one of the kids fell in, he dove in to save them. He didn’t know how to swim. The kid was fine, the Dad was not. The county still rents canoes and boats, but few adults wear a life jacket.

A group of kids where drinking and driving fast one winter night. They probably had music playing loudly as they passed over several warning strips and signs that the road ended ahead. It ended in the lake and so did they. All of them drown except for one girl. She crawled from the lake and found refuge in a 50 gallon garbage can a quarter of a mile from the lake.  This prompted the county to put up flashing warning signs.

A young man, one of my former students, parked his car on the ramp. He was found in the car the next morning. The county took out part of the road and forced people to drive around the barrier to get to the ramp.

A guy rolled his car into the lake. He left town. Connie and I came upon the roof of his car when launching the next day. Unfortunately we didn’t recognize it as a car roof, because it appeared to be an orange saucer just under the surface. Since the fish biologists use orange markers for habitat research areas, I assumed it was theirs. Someone else called it in. Apparently the owner was trying to ditch the car, possibly from illegal activity. He was found in another state.

An elderly woman was looking for Interstate 39 at night. She became confused where she was. She ended up driving over the warning strips, past the warning signs,  around the barrier, around the part of the road removed by the county and into the lake. The county put of flashing signs to mark the direction to I39, removed more of the road, rerouted the road to the ramp through the parking lot, and removed about 10 parking spaces. They didn’t replace any parking.

A guy driving at night on the other side of the lake drove off the curve, almost hit the pumping station and drove into the lake. He, of course, drown. Since this was not at the ramp modified so many times, the county didn’t know what to do. I have a feeling they will add some more barriers this spring or summer.

I noted that there is a crop dusting business that frequently flies over the lake. Obviously the pilots are at risk. I suggested the county place a dome over the lake and place an armed guard at every possible access point. People may be killed, but it won’t be in the lake. We had a saying when I was an engineer, “Nothing is fool proof, because fools find ingenious ways to get hurt” Stay tuned.

My hypothesis why it is called Evergreen? It was named after the final resting place of Adlai Stevenson, Evergreen Cemetery in Bloomington.