Man, I think I'm about ready to give this stuff up! When is this weather gonna change?
I spent all week-end shiverin, lips were blue, fingernails were blue and the fingers they were attached to wouldn't even come close to working properly! I went to cast and threw one of my best fishing outfits right into the water...hands didn't know I was holding onto it!
Everything on me was movin, I sounded like someone was jiggling a can full of change! Speaking of jiggling, the way my second fishing rod was movin, you would have thought I was ice fishing!
All week-end it looked like a spider had strung a web from my nose to the boat seat, no matter how many times I wiped it with my sleeve! And I might add, my teeth are all busted up from chattering together!
I never was able to put on a live minnow....my hands were shaking so bad, I wound up sticking the thing about 20 times before I got the hook in the right place! Poor minnows looked like they had been shot with a snake load!
Same with the leeches...they wound up lookin like a limp piece of licorice that had been left on the dashboard in the hot sun! Deader then a door nail they were, with about 30 holes in em...a couple of the jumbos looked like someone had hit em with an Uzi!
I was tryin to drink some hot coffee from the thermos to keep myself alive and I was shakin so bad, I wound up throwin it in my eyes and down my shirt! I burnt my adams apple and my eyelids blistered and made navigating even worse! Man, I'm tellin ya, I don't know about this opening day fishin stuff?
In the cold and pounding around in that rough water, about 2 hours into the adventure, I had to go! And I mean, my bladder was the size of a basketball! I couldn't stand it anymore, I couldn't stand up, the circulation had long since left my blue legs and wet feet, so I pointed the boat for a wooded area on shore and after about 20 minutes of fighting the whitecaps and the swells, I made a nice sideways landing in the large rocks that dotted the shoreline.
I grabbed hold of the bowline, and crawled over the bow, through the surf and across the rocks...I did have the strengh to tie the boat off on a solid piece of driftwood that was wedged between the stones and mustering the rest of my strengh, managed to get myself into the upright position and walk into the woods, all the while lookin like Charley Chaplin on speed!
In no time flat I found a suitable tree and then the fun began...I was about one click away from hypothermia and my hands were shakin so bad it looked like I was churnin butter!
Believe it or not, even in that condition, I was able to get all 3 zippers down, fight my way through the shirt, tee shirt, long thermal top and two pair of underwear, but from there on it was useless....it was like huntin for a .22 short in a pile of leaves, it was in there somewhere, but it was to late! I figured what the heck, I had given it a good shot, I was wet anyways, at least for a short time I'd be a little warmer!
To make a long story shorter, I was able to retrieve my boat, plug the biggest hole up with one of my socks, the other smaller holes weren't leaking to much water, so I made a run for the landing.
After trying for about an hour and a half to get my boat on the trailer and backing up traffic, this one fella had pity on me after seeing two or three other fisherman and one fisherwoman, punch the blue guy around the parking lot a couple of times and got me loaded.
This opener wasn't much fun for me, I think next year I'll stay home and watch Mr. Lindner do the fishing thing on T.V.?
To be perfectly honest with you, I never even went out
my wife and I went and played cards with another couple...stayed nice and warm and dry to! Just felt like writing.
