A funny fishing trip...

This doesn't have much to do with the farm, but it was so funny that I have to share my fishing experience from yesterday.

I grabbed a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and the dog and loaded up my jon boat into the back of the farm truck and went down to this little lake near us that they just opened a public access for, just to see what it was like.

As I was putting the boat in the water , I noticed this ENORMOUS inflated thing on the beach on the south side of the lake. It was hugely huge, had to be at least 40 yards long and 15 feet high. This will come into the story later.

I fished along a weed line for about 30 minutes and had nothing so I rowed (no motorized boats allowed on the lake) over near a bunch of cattails. I caught a nice walleye and a couple of good sized bluegills over the course of about 40 minutes. Not too intense, it was turning into a nice relaxing afternoon, which is exactly what I was after.

All of a sudden about 50 kids come shouting and hollering down on that beach, they push this huge inflated thing out into the water underneath a tall diving board. Then they line up on the dock and start jumping on to this thing and bouncing off of it. They are making the most godawful racket and a lifeguard is constantly shouting at them through a bullhorn. My serenity wass destroyed, but I was still catching the occasional fish so I decided to tough it out for another half hour or so.

About the time I decided this, I reel in one of my two lines to cast it back nearer the cattails. I notice half the nightcrawler got nabbed, so I reel in the other line to cast it near the cattails and then I will change the crawler on line #1. As I am doing that, I hear a rattling in the front of the boat, I look over just in time to see fishing pole number one thrashing around and go over the side of the boat! That half a crawler was dangling in the water and a big old walleye nailed it and stole my fishing pole!

By this time I am just laughing like crazy, what else could go possibly wrong!? I decide to call it a day. I had some water in the boat that I wanted to bail out before I started rowing to shore, so I dump the fish from my bucket onto the floor of the boat so I can use the bucket to bail water. I'm bailing the water, watching the fish flop around in the boat, when the one really nice walleye that I caught, about 18", gives a tremendous heave and jumps back into the lake! I was laughing so hard I was crying.

To top it all off, as I was rowing back to the dock, Cash the dog decided he wanted to go for a swim so he jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. That gave me the opportunity to spend time with a soaking wet dog in the cab of the truck, and of course he wanted to lay his head on my leg while I was driving home!