07-16-2006, 03:26 PM
[size 2] I should have stayed in bed. After not being on the pond for over 3 weeks, I was anticipating lunker activity for when I could get out. I called my cousin ##### and he agreed to meet me at 3:30AM for our 1 1/2 hour ride to Oswego. I checked the weather report on Friday evening & it called for a chance of thunderstorms starting around 11AM. What the heck, we'd have enough in the boat by then, why not. It started after I got up and started out the door. One thing after another delayed me (forgot my coffee thermos) and I ended up meeting ##### 10 minutes late. Not too bad, we ended up at the launch around 5:30AM. We could see about 20 boats off in the distance already trolling. Anxiously, we launched the boat & ##### pulled the truck up into the parking area. He came back to the dock & found me standing in 1/2 inch of water in the back of the boat and rising. "Go back and get the truck" I said, I think you put the plug in the wrong hole. Luckily there were a couple of guys on the dock who gave me a hand getting the boat back onto the trailer. We pulled the boat & checked & found my battery hold down had snapped and the battery fell into the bilge area and onto the live well hose, breaking the pvc plug that goes out the back of the boat causing the water to pour in. "No problem" one of the locals said. There's an Ace hardware store just up the road that opens real early and will have what you need. A clap of thunder and lightning interupted our conversation. Boats were scurrying into the harbor and it started pouring. We trailered the boat up the road, found the store and waited for it to open. 6:45 the store finally opened. We looked around the plumbing section, couldn't find a piece that would fit, and ended up buying an adjustable bung that could plug the hole till I could get to the Starcraft dealer back home. Got back to Wright's landing and waited for the lightning to stop and rain to let up so we could set up the bimini enclosure. Around 8:30 we finally got on the water & headed for productive water. Yeah, right! Marked a few bait schools around 135' but no hooks. Ate sandwiches, doughnuts, and drank coffee in between cleaning the fleas off the line every half hour, zig zagging out to 200' and back to 100'. ##### came back under the bimini after checking lines and sat down in the passenger seat and sent him tumbling to the floor. The seat mount broke. Moved the seat to the rear pedestal mount and continued to fish. Ended up in front of the bluffs of Fair Haven SP in 75 fow and ##### landed a small brown, the only fish of the day. On another turn of mine to check fleas, I pulled in the port rigger and grabbed the line release. The release came apart in my hand and parts fell into the water, drifting down into Davy Jones's locker to probably end up in his junk drawer like mine at home. Wind was kicking up and we started pulling lines. The starboard dipsy came in with just the dodger, no fly. Something had hit it and it was gone. We ended up heading back to the launch around 2PM. Got back to the dock area and were organizing the tackle and cleaning up the doughnut bags, sandwich bags and coffee cups and ##### went up front to get the deck line. He stepped on the front battery compartment door and broke thru. Loaded the boat and got home around 5:15PM. I gotta say even though it was a haphazard day we had some good laughs and I'm looking forward to getting out again, after I do some major refitting.
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