Lake Carlyle - 8/23/2009

Just got back from across the border. Made my way to Illinois this morning to meet up with my buddy Jay to do a little fishing. Carlyle is about 15 minutes from his house so that was today's destination. It's a shallow lake. We were fishing in 3' - 5' of water out in the middel of the lake. There are deeper spots, but we were after white bass. We started on a large flat near the center of the lake and caught one or two. I was using a crank bait or a rattle trap. Jay was using crappie jig looped about 18" above a weighted spoon. This was the "local" favorite, as told to him by the bait shop. We fished a few more spots and had about 4 landed total. Watched one guy using the same rig Jay was using, but with a crank on the end of it pull one after another in. We couldn't get it to work. On our last area, there were boats nearly running over one another, everyone using the same setup. I finally tied the rig on with a crank bait 18" below the jig. And wouldn't you know, I had about a 15" white in the boat. It flopped out before I could pick it up or measure it. that was the last fish caught and we headed for the house.

Mississippi River - 8/2/2009

Matthew and I headed out on Sunday morning about 7:30. It was a beautiful morning. Crisp air and so much fog coming off the water that you could only see about 50 yards or so. The plan was to fish a few new spots Matt picked out by looking at Google Earth. With all the fog and limited visibility we decided to try the back side of a dike that he had marked. It was close to home so we wouldn't have to fight the fog too long. We came up on ths spot and it looked great. Some nice slow backwater and a great current break around the tip of the dike. We started at the current break throwing spinners, but nothing. So we worked the dike slowly back to the shorline and then down the shorline around some laydowns. We pulled one short off the dike and nothing off the laydowns. We fished the area for a little over an hour and around 9:00 decided to run North up towards Winfield. As the dam was coming into view and we were nearing our second fishing spot something was happening with the motor. As I slowed down it started violently vibrating. We killed the engine and raised the motor to have a look. Matt says "Well that's the problem. You're missing the tip of a blade on the prop. How in the hell does this happen. We were running along, 20+ feet of water, no 'thump' no 'shutter' nothing. Just a little vibration, and then a lot of vibration. So we decided we could take our time and limp home on the trolling motor, and fish at the same time. As we are making our way out of the main channel to the Missouri shorline, the trolling motor decided to stop working. Yeah, we are now having one of those days that happens to every boat owner, it's just a matter of time. We ended up tying up to a dock in Winfield and called Bryan to up and pick one of us up. He took me back to Riverside to put the Wellcraft in and go get the fishing boat. Of course I didn't have the key for the hitch so we had to run back to my house to get the key to unlock the Skeeter trailer so we could hook up the Wellcraft and put it in. We finally did and 2 hours later we had both boats back on the trailer and were headed to the house. We were home by 2:30. Wow, what a day. Now the question is, how much will be under warranty. I'm hoping they realize there was something wrong with the prop for this to happen.