Salmon

Last night Jason (Jackass) and I got together for some Skeeters Chicken Wings and Beer.
It had been too long..
Life can do that to you if you are not careful. It is tough to keep in touch when life is a warzone and I really hope things settle down enough in the near future for us to pick up somewhat where we left off.

I miss the fishing we used to do together.

Back when we were all a tight knit group J-Mike talked me into buying a boat with him....he used to talk me into a lot of shit.....all of which usually turned out to be a lot of fun....and invariably had us in and out of the matrimonial doghouse.
This boat purchase was no exception...taxed with the hairy eyeballs we'd get from wives and inlaws...
I miss the boats.
We had some catching up to do last night and it made me realize how much I missed his company.
Over coffee this morning I decided to take a trip down memory lane.
Some of the pictures had me laughing out loud.
Fuck I have aged...

Here is a picture of our first boat...LOL...
If I remember correctly boat,motor and trailer cost us $300.oo.

All of our Boats were Christened "The Blind Squirrel".....
As in "even a blind Squirrel will find a nut if it looks long enough".....


Well maybe at the beginning but towards the end we really had our shit together ...so much so that we smoked the Izumi team in the Tournament of Champions....
I think we came in 11th out of fifty or so boats...
Not too shabby.
;o)
...oddly enough this first boat leaked.
LOL
Come to think of it all of our boats leaked....but then thats why god gave us bilge pumps....and CBs...
:oO
Here is our second boat.


I think that this boat was my favourite even though it almost sank on us out at the shipwrecks....geesh ...there is an irony there I had never considered before!
LOL
I got the biggest salmon of my life in this boat and I will never forget it.
I had just put our first line down as we were pulling out of Port Credit..
Pop goes the rod and it just starts singin....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz....
By the time we got the boat turned the linecounter read just under 500 ft!
Screamers indeed.
I have tried like hell to locate the picture and I haven't given up either.
I had dug it out last year because I was sure that it was going to make the TOP TEN list but decided at the last minute to leave the salmon out of it.
It was an oinker that went just under 22 lbs....
Fun stuff.
The biggest fish we ever took in any of thses boats was a King from Lake Ontario.
We'd arrived at Bluffers to the thickest fog anyone had ever seen.
Rather than exercise common sense we went out anyway....Fuck it...we had the GPS...what else did we need!

This is a pic of Jason on the bow....you can't see two feet into the distance.
we hammered fish that day and that fish was just a hair under 30LBS.
Dumb ...but made a great story.
Over a two - three year period we went through 5 boats upgrading each time.
Here are the photos..and to be honest I can't be sure of the chronology!


Memory is a funny thing.


The last boat we drove deep into Quebec for only to run into an irate Francophone that could barely communicate to us that he'd expected to be paid in US funds!!!
Always drama and always a story...


Man I hope that fucking guy is dead.
Life...
We finally got the boat of our dreams just in time for kids to come along and place all of this on the back burner.


Distant memories now...but very good ones.
At some point I will own a boat again.

I have been thinking a lot about salmon lately...mostly because we were counting on Jeff Stuhan for some roe!!!
...and were bitterly disappointed.
That stuff was awesome this year and I have just under one trip left of it.
The poor old salmon don't get a whole lot of respect and I remember the quest to find a loose one at the beginning of every season.
It was never too hard...they were everywhere.
When I am with roe and on the prowl for Steelies I don't miss them much.
Do you remember how the rivers used to stink in the fall?
If not just make a trip to the Oak or Dirty B in late Sept/OCt....
There are still few Tules kickin about down at this end of the lake but it will never be like it was....
And ...anybody who has had a high teens fish take a bait in early spring will never look down his nose at the KINGS again.
Heres to em...