06/30/2026
I miss racing... I am having to go fishing. For some that sounds like a reward for almost 50 years of getting up and giving someone else your life for money to feed kids, habits and a racing addiction. If fishing is relaxation for you ,then you are doing it wrong. You first have to get your equipment. A 14 foot v-hull aluminum boat that magnifies movement ten fold. So if you are trying to tie on a new # 8 hook with transparent 2 lb test line, while the guy in the back of the boat is eating a bologna sandwich, his chewing will create enough motion to extend this task to at least 12 minutes. A lifted Jeep that is non conducive to 65 year old fat guys entrance and exit. A 1968 Holtsclaw Bros. Model C-750 trailer that is so rusty you have to run a ground wire all the way from the left tail light housing to the hitch receiver for the right turn signal to work. Chinesium fishing poles that on about the 15th cast will set free the retrieve handle nut letting the handle fall to the floor of the boat, as Jaws grabs your fresh redworm and starts unspooling 150 yards of line before you can find the handle. Jaws will eventually find the secret of how you skewered said red wiggler on your hook, and remove it. So you are left with a bare hook, no fish, the task of reeling in that 450 feet of line trying to hold the retrieve handle on, with a torturous sunburn forming on legs that had been shaded by pants legs for years. Some of the other fun things were... The Jeeps gas tank evaporative system goes into turmoil when you fill the tank and causes flooding and rough running. A bobber on a new pole stored in the boat, whipping around in the wind as you drive to the lake, will eventually get down around the boat trailer axle and mufungo your new pole. Launching the boat with the drain plug removed will also set you back an hour or so. The panic induced thought process of saving the ship, will clutter up the order of materials and processes ideas needed for success. Like the applying of sun screen and getting your sandwich out of the Jeep. Yes... It was a long night with the pain and blisters. As Donnie Baker would say "Anybody wanna buy a boat?"