Planning
and “Getting Ready to Go Fishing” can motivate
us to overcome the adversity that we never would attempt with
a conscience mind.
I was spending the weekend with my brother when I was about 10 years
old, which I did quit often around this age. We were eating cookies and
milk on a typical Friday night in late March. A good friend of his called
him on the phone and told him, “The Ling are Running”. My
brother told me, we will get the boat ready tomorrow. I wasn’t
sure we still had a boat. The last time I saw it was in August when we
parked it under the Magnolia tree beside those huge Azaleas in the side
yard. This is where my sister in law insisted he park the boat so it
was well hidden. She didn’t think it was as attractive as we did.
The next morning we went to the garage and picked out the tools necessary
to recover our precious boat from the jungle and wake it from it’s
hibernation.
In the next 24 hours we performed a miracle. With very little money,
minimal skills and plethora of motivation, we resurrected what seemed
to me to be the finest sport fishing machine in town.
I am not sure where my brother got this boat but she had it all. It was
a X Navy patrol boat. She was about 20 feet long and the trailer that
came with it was about 16 feet long. A wide beam, a thick hull and two
navy surplus airplane seats. This was a heavy boat which made her ride
well and burn up clutches in a variety of vehicles. She was powered by
a 40 HP Evanrude. It wasn’t very fast, but it use to be. There
were two engines on it before we bought it. It was slow but just think
how much time and money it would have taken to keep all that horse power
going not to mention the gas. Besides we had our old reliable 9.5 Johnson
stored under the bow just in case.
The bow on this boat big. Perfect for Cobia fishing. There was no windshield
to get in the way, and it had a tall custom made bow rail at waist height.
(We built this hand rail last year the night before we went Cobia fishing.)
At the time this set up was considered to be a fine Cobia Fishing Machine!
Much better than standing up there with no more than a rope to hold on
to.
From
flat tires and rusted lug nuts, to shoveling leaves
out of the bilge we worked tirelessly looking up
at the clear blue sky and gentle winds wandering
how many fish were being caught out there right
now.
Somehow, facing overwhelming odds, the next morning we headed toward
Rusty’s Fish Camp with boat in tow. The tail lights didn’t
work because there were none. But when we would need to stop, my brother
would swerve back in forth to attract attention to following traffic
so hopefully they would not hit us.
I would look out the back window of the car watching the boat bumping
along and imagine catching fish. I was also hopping we did not have a
flat tire on the way there. It would be O.K. to have a flat on the way
home, just as long as we got to go fishing.
When we stooped at the gas station, I would look for reactions from people
looking at our boat. It looked so big behind our car. It was beautiful.
I was proud of this boat and I had butterflies in my stomach from the
anticipation of going fishing.
About that time a man pulled up to get gas for his car. As he was filling
his tank he looked over our boat. He then looked at my brother and asked
that loaded question, How’s the fishing?
