My buddy J (names changed to protect the guilty) calls two weeks ago to invite me on the maiden voyage of his new Weldcraft (very nice boat by the way), unfortunately I couldn't make it. As it turns out it was a not so pleasant first trip. On the way to the Fishery an oncoming driver fell asleep at the wheel and sideswiped his boat/trailer. Did I mention this was the first trip out??? :shocked: Well after several minutes of cussing, and a call for the tire repair man (minor damage to the trailer and boat, but man it sucks to have your brand new boat ran into!) they were back on their way. The rest of the trip went well, they had a very good day of catch and release on the gators. Now back to my story, J calls me Monday and invites me on the second maiden voyage. Did I mention this guy has the worst luck with boats??? Last summer J junior took a short float down a nameless river... I say short float because the drift boat was left on the bottom! So J calls and asks if I want to tag along, after a call home asking the boss for permission (her only question was if J junior was the captain or not :grin: ) I agreed to go. We make the usual plans, J would be providing the boat, J junior would bring the smelt, and I would bring my famous Italian octopus (octopus smothered in garlic scent). So with the usual weeklong smack talking about who was the best fisherman (me of course) the day finally arrives. We arrive at the ramp in the pouring rain, load up everything and head to J's "hot" spot he heard about. Turns out J's "hot" spot has been fished by everybody and their brother and is not so hot today! Of course this could also be that shortly after anchoring J asks J junior what he did with the smelt
? Junior responds with "I thought you were getting the bait"! Well no problem, my old faithful smelly eight legged friends will pull us through the day...yeah right! So spot #1 is a bust, we load up and go down to Kelly point, to MY favorite spot. Oh yes I forgot, no bites in hole #1! So half an hour later and still no bites in hole #2 we move to #3. And like magic about five minutes into hole #3 J junior remembers he has a couple of squid in the bait box, I say magically because there is only enough for him!!!! And yes, you guessed it, he proceeded to catch fish! Well after about an hour of watching junior catch fish, it's time to move on to a (hopefully)more productive spot for the rest of us. We move up and anchor off the mouth of the Willamette. Now this has always been a very good spot, and it was today as well......for the boat next to us that was fishing with smelt!!!
I mentioned to junior several (20) times that if we only had smelt we could be catching fish like those other guys. So we watched them catch fish as quick as they could hit the bottom, while our rods continued to just sit there, not even a nibble!!! Except for junior who was still nursing that little bit of squid. Well nine hours in the rain with leaky raingear was enough for J and I (junior didn't want to leave as he was busy playing with the sturgeon), but we had had enough!
So now I'm sitting at home dreading going to work tomorrow, because I know I will have an e-mail from junior bragging about all the fish he caught! I swear I will never talk smack again!!!
Well that's my story, time to go over to the Sturgeon challenge thread and join in the conversation! :grin:
No more trips on new boats for me! Hope everyone had better luck this weekend. And it wasn't all bad, good fishing (not catching) with good friends, what more could you ask for.....except maybe a bag full of smelt...sorry still a little bitter :grin: Just kidding junior. I understand when you are young and hungover it's a little hard to think about anything but yourself!
There is always next time......
Happy fishing,
Scott
New boat Jinx !!!
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