Fishing Fun, Its About The Journey

Another Fraternal Fishing weekend has come and gone. Along with it my simple roll of assistant to my pop, the chairman of the derby. Dad stepped down as chairman of the derby and passed along the reigns to myself and another familiar face to the derby. Gone are the days of showing up, helping out because I enjoy that sort of thing to my co-responsibility for the how the event will be run.

I wasn’t really able to detox as I had intended, actually it seems exactly the opposite occurred. I need a break to recover from the weekend and know I made things worse for my mind. Back to the drawing board I guess.

was unable to help us, so we continued on to Rennie, where they have a marine shop. After the long trip to Rennie (reduced speed) we pull in to the marine shop to get the work We had two new comers to the weekend in our crew; my cousin Andy and a long time friend of mine James. Friday morning started out fine. We were well on our way early and met my cousin in Anola for brunch. We should have taken note of how our breakfast service went to give us a heads up for some of the peril that was to come. Our waiter was barely awake and did not seem to be in the mood for our very relaxed nature and attempt at humor. We gave it our best effort to be funny, but sadly only we found it funny. After firing shots across each others’ bows to lay the ground work that nothing is out of bounds over the weekend, we were off. Not too far up the road, just outside the town of Ste. Rita we noticed in our rear view that my cousin had unexpectedly pulled over to the side of the road. We turned our rig around to ensure everything was okay. Turns out the tandem wheel trailer that was pulling Andy’s 20’-25’ Lund fishing boat (it is a SHIP!) had burnt out a bearing! After some very careful deliberation, intelligent ideas and suggestions (visualize 6 guys on the side of the highway trying to make an executive decision!) we went with the plan of removing the one tire and running the trailer on three wheels until we got to Elma to have it repaired. We followed behind to keep an eye the trailer. The shop in Elmadone. While the trailer gets its bearing fixed we spend some time in the Rennie hotel shooting some pool and drinking a couple cold ones. Just when we think we are ready to be back on the road the issue of a dust cover seems to be daunting. The original dust cover was melted off and the cap lost on the highway somewhere when the bearing went. But after a bunch of bad ideas and some frustration our version of McGivor (Dad’s neighbor Charlie) rigs up a dust cover from a Kokanee can and some Tuct Tape!! So after channeling Red Green and McGivor we had a custom dust cover. Perhaps Andy should convert the other three dust covers to beer cans as well!! Needless to say 2 ½ hours later we are back on the road! WOW that was a long lay over! Thank goodness for leaving early and giving ourselves extra time.

Once we arrived we were thrust in to the organization of 55 guys for the weekend without any down time. Our early arrival is the time of the weekend I usually try and take an hour or so to detox. My role as incoming co-chairman was in full swing as fast as I could place my foot on the ground upon exiting the truck. But not all was a loss, here some of the highlights.

The big fish were a 12 inch Perch, 28 ¼ inch Walleye and a 30 ¼ inch Northern Pike and many reports of good fishing were filtering in throughout the weekend. It seems everyone was having a great time.

Friday night brought a great poker tournament that saw James, a relative new comer to the game of Texas Hold’em take down the title with some pretty strong play. He made some smart decisions and took a few educated guesses based on the pointers he picked up when having to listen to Gord and I ramble on endlessly about the game. I commend him on his play and hope he is willing to play a little more poker with us in the future.

I suppose the highlight of the weekend was Saturday night when one guys coming in off the lake for the evening made an attempt at parking his boat on the deck of his cabin! I was over visiting with some brother Knights when we saw this boat coming in hot and couldn't help but turn our attention to the potential disaster. The 19 foot Lund was screamin’ in to shore at an alarming speed. Usually the intent of this technique is to get up enough speed to have the boat land on shore far enough to avoid having to pull the nose out of the water manually. Those big boats are damn heavy! This boat came in so hot and so fast; it came to rest with only a foot and half of the boat still in the water! Amazing stuff. I was on hand to help try and get this beast back in the water, but it was only possible by turning the boat around. That was fun. Six guys trying to turn nose of a 19’ foot boat around in the sand and then push it back in to the water. Well we got it back in to the water and turned it in to the water and then had to pull it up manually to secure it safely in the sand.

Good times.

I believe it was one of the better weekends for the derby in years. The weather was outstanding and the fishing was good.

My Two Cents

Jamie