Another Birthday Gift

Eric was out with me last season for sturgeon and back again today with two others for pike & walleye. He was treating his son Nathan to a half day of fishing for his birthday and his friend Eric came along as well. We met at the ramp before 7:00 and to my surprise, it was blocked at the water by barriers. This year has been a roller coaster for launching that needs to end, real soon! They had put the docks in this week and the company they used hadn’t fastened some of screws that hold the deck panels in place. Needless to say, they floated away leaving a bunch of holes where you should be able to walk. It’s hard to find good help! A couple of boats were launching so we created a passage and dropped our rigs in. Enough is enough!

I wasted no time getting the kids into fish and before we knew it, everyone was on the board. It was a little difficult due to the overcast skies and cool water temps once again but by covering water, we found them. Both pike & walleye were falling victim to the trolled baits and the numbers were starting to climb. We even had a double header as I passed over a small gravel spot that produced one big walleye and a smallmouth. Several firsts were had by young Eric as he managed to land all three species! Not having fished much before made today even more special as the action was non stop. They literally caught fish from the start to the finish! At one point in the morning I changed locations and got into more fish again. It was here that Eric landed his first ever walleye after seeing the others bring plenty of their own on board earlier. Although this may have been a present for his son, Eric enjoyed the day as much as the kids. Everyone fought & landed plenty of quality fish in the 5 hours on the water. Time definitely passed quickly today and noon arrived before we knew it. Back at the ramp, we noticed that many others had launched during the morning too. I guess they were fed up as well because now there were several more trailers in the parking lot.

I thought I was going to have a smooth ride home with plenty of time to do work round the house. Unfortunately that was cut short as I was about to find out! As soon as I got off the highway and was travelling on a main road, the trailer ran over something laying in the street. Not long after, I could see in my mirror that the tires were losing air. I pulled into a gas station a little further and when I stopped, they were totally deflated. Yuup, two flats! With only one spare, I had to call a buddy to bring me his spare as well. What a total pain in the butt, changing two tires at once. I eventually managed to get it all done and the spares put on the trailer but not in record time. Some of the lug nuts were on so tight that I needed the help of another person just to budge them. Looks like I will be buying some new tires this week as I don’t know how big the holes were. All I do know however is they both lost air real quick. In less that three minutes they were completely deflated. That doesn’t sound good to me! Great day of fishing but I didn’t like the surprise that followed!!