And that's what Bryan and I did today. Bryan's also a local fishing guide, and we've talked about going out and messing around together on the river. And that's about all we did.....mess around.
I'm usually a plan it to the last "drift of my float" kinda guy. But today I was all whacked out. I got up later than I wanted too, because last night at 2am I awoke with a splitting headache.
Why a splitting headache, you ask? Because I drank a whole 3-4 beers yesterday evening, that's why.
I used to be the kind of guy years ago when I was much younger that could close the bar, or the bait shop with a 12 pack without even thinking about it. Probably consumed my fair share of "cases" at one sitting.
Not anymore. I'm over it. And have found that I get headaches after just a few, "SOMETIMES".
Well, I quit drinking beer to help with the carbs, and to overall save some dough too. Age has it's way of telling you....."hey dumbass, stop that!!"
But yesterday evening I was out at the summer kitchen I have behind my house barbecuing some country style ribs....mmmmm, they were good. And I had 3-4 beers with them.
And then 8 hours later I'm getting no sleep and have this headache that needed some aspirins. So I get up and chew 2 big ole Bayer aspirins, and hit the sack again. The alarm is going off at 5:30am so I better get feeling better quick. I end up rolling out of the sack at 6:20am and realize my headaches gone and I better kick it in high gear. Bryan's gonna beat me to B&M bait and tackle.
I get there we get 5 dozen shrimp, head for the boat ramp. With my big plan if ya wanna call it one. "Let's go to the jetties??" Why, I have no idea!!
We get out there anchor up, and I immediately set the hook into I don't know what. My float goes down on my 9 foot G. Loomis whoopin rod, and the reel dumps 100 yards before I can slow it down. The fish finally turns and I'm easing it back to the boat care of LOTS OF MUSCLE WORK. Remember, I was sound asleep 30 minutes ago!!!
Bryan, also sets the hook on his favorite float-rig rod and Abu Garcia reel and his line is also dumping off the spool at a high rate of speed. I get my fish behind the boat, I see a fin, nope I see my line breaking, instead. Plain ole 30-pound mono breaks.
I look over at Bryan, the fish is still dumping all his line......"Go ahead and just break it off, it has to be a stingray", I said. But Bryan does something, and I don't know what it was, but all I hear is KAW-SNAP!
HOLY CRAP...his rod breaks right
above the handle. And he looks like someone just stole his puppy! He exlaims,
"that was my steelhead rod from up in NY, ya know how many steelhead that rod has caught?? I can't believe it"And there was more un-fun fish.
But I'll move on.
So we then pull anchor and run down the beach
and I net some Pogies. We float-rig fish the Pogie Pods outside the Navy's beach front.
2 seconds into it, Bryan has a pogie on another float rod he rigged up, and has probably a shark rippp... the float rig, so badly I head his Power Pro line go ZsZsZsZsZsZsZsZsZs...float goes skipping across the water, and fish gone! "Wow, that was a viscous strike!"
Mean while I go bite less.
So after no fish (and if we catch fish it's on the float-rig only, today) we head on and up river to try a different seascape.
Trying a few great spots on the way........NADA!
Then, I take Bryan to one of my HOLY GRAIL spots.....just one of them. The tides still falling in the river, but on this spot it's DEAD. No water movement at all, and we have maybe 6 shrimp still alive in the well.
I'm experiencing "shortness of breath" , because I have not caught a single "fish", I mean non-shark, skate, or stingray, and we are now 18 miles up river from the jetties!
Bryan pitches out and his float goes down (with no current at all anywhere near where we were fishing) and catches a pretty 20" Speck.
Okay I blind squirrel finds a nut every once
in awhile. Then 10 minutes later as he's talking
to me has his rod almost snatched out of his hand
with another nice fat Trout.
All the while, as he's in the "I give up stage"
of our fishing day of disaster.
I catch ZERO on this spot. Because I
know how wrong we're fishing it and
how there needs to be some current, says Bryan.
And "Dave you care, that's why your not getting bit."
All our bait is gone, and we go back to the ramp, where a real Jackass I know is cleaning his Kingfish.
And he gives me the same "grief" about my Plate Alloy boat that he did earlier this morning before we left out.
"Contenders are over rated Clorox bottles, just like the rest." I say to myself, doing all I can to not stoop to the level of this local radio show host.
Why does my boat and what it's made out of concern others?? The only people that should be concerned are my customers. And they'll soon realize they are in a very safe, durable, stable, roomy, economic, fishing machine.
PS. My customers can also sit in big comfy deck chairs behind the leaning post. Can't in a 27' Contender, there's no room!
It was just one of those days......and a bit more planning would have gone a long way.
