sf

Not Soon to Be Forgotten Saturday

As is the case with most people who decide to create their own web page and update it regularly, I've fallen way behind. I blame Jordan for making me decide to use moveabletype which I've yet to setup. In the meantime, I've been getting heckled by my few loyal readers, so I'll write all about my 'not soon to be forgotten Saturday'. Hope you have a few minutes to read it. Its so long it deserves it’s own page, but its here for now.

Saturday, Joe, Trent, and I went fishing on the Zumbro River. Its supposed to be the 5th best place in the state to catch Smallmouth Bass, so we decided it would be a good place to fish. I spent the night at Trent and Joe's Friday night, so we could be ready early and on the river by 11:30.

Trent and I woke up at 7. Trent made a nice breakfast of eggs and bacon (I love bacon). We were slow to start, but ended up leaving their apartment somewhere after 9:00 AM. We are taking 2 cars so we can drop one off upstream and one off downstream to retrieve the upstream vehicle. Trent and I drive to Trent's parent's house to get his good fishing rod and some life jackets and boat cushions and Joe drive's to his parent's house to get the canoe and his gear. We spend nearly 40 minutes at Trent's parent's house looking in the rafters for the life jackets and boat cushions, but to no avail. We did manage to snag 2 Ziploc bags from his parent's to put our valuables in if God forbid the canoe should capsize. We finally leave there and head to Joe’s parents, about a 15 minute drive.

Its now nearing 11:00 and we’re way behind schedule. We finish loading up things at Joe’s house (luckily he had a few extra life jackets) and start to head out. Trent and I were in my car and Joe was in his with the canoe. We hit the road and decide to stop in Cannon Falls for lunch which is about 20 miles away from the place we planned on dropping the canoe. We found a bar that served food and I had a hamburger with lettuce and onion and bacon. We spent probably close to an hour there before we finally headed on to Zumbro Falls.

Keep reading, I promise its worth it.....

We found the downstream canoe landing site without a problem. We dropped off my car there and went to look for the upstream landing site. We were driving for a good 15 – 20 minutes when Trent asks Joe if we’d passed CR7 yet. Joe informed Trent that we had indeed passed it nearly 15 minutes ago, so we turn the car around and head back from where we came. We finally find CR7 and start heading down it. It takes us a bit but we find the upstream landing place which is on a lake at the head of the river. We unload the truck and load up the canoe. When I look at the lake the first thing I notice is the dam straight across the lake. I wondered how we were going to get to the river, but I figured Joe and Trent knew what they were doing, so I didn’t say anything. We paddle across the lake to the dam looking for a way to get to the river. Trent gets out of the canoe to look for somewhere that we could portage the canoe across. There was nowhere that where we could get a cone through, so we paddle all the way across the lake and begin to unload the canoe and load the truck for a second time. We each grabbed a couple handfuls and loaded it back up pretty quickly. I grabbed Joe’s (very expensive) paddle, and bring it over to the truck and put it in the back. I’m really thirsty at this point so I decide to take a drink of water. As I’m drinking, Joe says to me, “When I saw you pick up that paddle, I felt my rectum pucker. I thought you were going to drag it across the pavement.” I lose it and shoot water out my nose and begin laughing uncontrollably. Honestly, where did that come from? I regain my composure and we’re off. We find another spot by a bridge back a ways to launch the canoe from. I leave my wallet in the car, and pack my stuff that needs to be protected from water (cell phones (I was on-call), license, some gum, etc.) in a Ziploc bag. Unload the truck and load up the canoe for a second time. We take off and Trent and Joe and I begin fishing. The Zumbro has a pretty strong current and there are quite a few obstacles in it, so Joe, the most experienced canoe person, decides to paddle while Trent and I fish.

We are fishing for a few hours and hadn’t caught a thing. We’re going along nicely and I hear the sound of rushing water. I tell Joe and Trent what I hear, but they think nothing of it. We turn the bend and see some small rapids ahead. Joe tells Trent to grab a paddle and told him to paddle hard when he tells him to. The rapids were at a bend in the river, with a downed tree and a limestone wall to the right. I put down my pole, preparing for the worst. We hit the rapids and Joe is yelling “paddle, paddle, paddle” and Trent is paddling for all he’s worth. Somehow we get turned sideways, and somehow somebody (Joe and/or Trent) do something wrong, and we flip. All three of us come up from under the water right away and we immediately flip the canoe back over, keeping some of the stuff inside. We quickly grab anything we see floating and Joe and Trent move the canoe out of the water to a little washout sandy area that was next to the rapids. Meanwhile, I’m standing in the river, still a little in shock, and I look down at the water in front of me and I see this small green thing floating about a foot under the water. It occurs to me that I was fishing with a green Rapala, and upon further inspection it was indeed a fishing lure. I grab the lure and follow the line up only to find my fishing pole buried in the river. I retrieve it and join the boys on the shore.

We decide to take inventory of what we have and what we’d lost. At first glance, it looked like we had recovered everything. I had a needle nose pliers and a hood remover that were sitting in the bottom of the canoe that had somehow managed to stay in the canoe during the whole ordeal. My clippers was not so fortunate and is now sitting somewhere at the bottom of the river. I looked at my tackle box and noticed that bottom tray which contained all of my larger lures was missing. I looked down river for it, but figured it was long gone. I was a little upset, but hey, that’s life. I took the bag out of my pocket that contained the cell phones, etc. to make sure they stayed dry. Trent also took out his camera that he had placed in a Ziploc bag. Little did we know that Ziploc bags weren’t waterproof. Mine had a little water in it, Trent’s had quite a bit more. I was most concerned about the work cell phone. It appeared to be no worse for the wear. Mine however was pretty wet and had some moisture behind the LCD screen. It was at this point we decided the best thing to do was the dry off a bit and have a beer, because what else can you do at this point? So while I’m drinking my beer I notice this dark gray plastic tray, sitting right near the shore. Upon close inspection I realize that it’s the drawer to my tackle box. I put it back in my box, and empty the gallon of water out of my box. After about 30-45 minutes, we decide to get going again. We have no idea how far we’ve gone or how far we have yet to go. We start out again and after a bit I catch the first fish. It’s a small Smallmouth Bass, my first one ever. I have Trent take it off the hook because he was in a better position for it and I’m not too good at taking off fish. Trent is pretty upset because I caught the first fish (in fact, the last 2 times I’ve fished with him I’ve outfished him….he was skunked both times). After a little bit further, I get my second fish on the line, another Smallmouth Bass, this one pretty decent size. Again he takes it off the line for me. We continue on some more, and I feel another fish on my line fighting something fierce. I figured it was another Smallmouth. We get it up to the boat and I bring it up to Trent and we take one look at it and realize its no Bass, it’s a sucker fish (Carp). Trent is not happy to take it off and I’m freaking out because I hate carp. He takes it off the line then thinks it would be funny to try and touch me with it. I’m not amused and start yelling at him. This only encourages him and he drops the frickin thing in my lap. I freak and open my legs to let it drop to the bottom of the canoe where it flops around and Trent proceeds to pick it up again. He faces forward and throws it over his head, nailing me in the head with it before it lands in the water. Needless to say, I’m not a very happy canoer at this point. I decide the only thing to do is kidney punch Trent a few times to pay him back. During this whole ordeal I managed to nearly tip us over again, but not quite.

We continue on our merry way without catching any more fish. We cross under a bridge and we realize that we are nearing the end of our trip. Joe decides to cast a few more times to see if he can pull anything in the last few minutes. We approach the landing site and Joe decides to have one last cast. He opens his bail, reaches back, and casts, and I yell a fierce yell because he’s managed to embed his Rapala in the side of my neck. At this point we’re about 10 yards from the landing site which has a really strong current in front of it. Joe wants to land at the site but Trent and I convince him to go behind the rapids to where the water is calmer because I’m not too thrilled with the idea of capsizing again, this time with a Rapala attached to pole embedded in my neck. We safely land the boat and Joe cuts the line and I get out. They take a close look at it and inform me that two of the hooks on one treble hook are embedded, one just barely in and one all the way in. Neither one of them thinks it’s a good idea to try and remove it ourselves. Joe goes up to the canoe rental place to see if there’s a local clinic around to bring me. They tell him that there are two EMTs that work for the fire department just down the road a bit who might be able to help me out.

Meanwhile, I go to get the Ziploc bag from my pocket to get my car keys. I pull the bag out of my pocket and open it up. My keys are not in the bag. I check my pockets. The keys are not in my pockets. We check the canoe. My keys are not in the canoe. At this point I’m freaking out because 1.) there is a Rapala embedded in my neck, and 2. ) I’ve just lost $300 worth of keys and have no way of getting into my car or my condo when I get home. Joe goes back to the canoe rental place and asks if anyone could give us a ride up to the EMT’s house. The bus driver told us to hop on the bus and he’s drop us off there (they have a bus for picking up canoers and tubers downstream). We find the EMT in his back yard and ask him to take a look at it. He takes one look at it and tells us its in there pretty deep and he thinks they’ll probably need to cut it out at the hospital in Rochester. At this point my wallet with my money, my credit cards, and my insurance card is locked in Joes’ truck some 15 miles away. I’m not thrilled about driving 30 miles to Rochester to wait in the ER all night. I asked him to at least cut the hook from the rest of the lure so I don’t get hooked by another hook. The cuts the lure off and somewhere between the canoe and EMT’s house, the hook that was barely in there freed itself, so there was only the deeply embedded hook remaining. I asked him to try and get it out. He went in the house and came back with a needle nose to see if he could move it at all. He grabbed the hook and started to back it out. He asked me if it hurt. It didn’t hurt bad, so I told him to keep going. The hook was coming out without a lot of resistance. I told him just to keep going because I just wanted the damn thing out of my neck. He kept going and ended up being able to remove it. It wasn’t even bleeding this entire time. We looked at the hook and one of the 3 hooks had a very dull barb on it. We figure this was the one that hooked me and that’s why it was so easy to remove. We asked him if he had any rubbing alcohol to clean it up with. He checked his bag. He didn’t. His partner checked his bag. He didn’t have any either. At this point, the neighbor lady comes out to see what’s going on. The EMT asks her if she has any rubbing alcohol. She goes in the house and comes back with a bottle of it in her hand. The EMT grabs some gauze pads and cleans the area.

We thank the EMT and head back to the canoe rental place to see if we can find somebody to give us a ride back to get Joe’s car at the upstream site. We ask the bus driver when he returns if he can give us a ride. He said he would, but we’d have to wait until he was done shuttling people back to the site. He comes and goes 3 times and its 9:00 by now and we’re getting impatient. We see a guy who works there park the van with the canoe trailer. We figure he’s done for the night so Joe asks him if he’d give us a ride up there. He’s reluctant because he’s already an hour late for dinner but he says if the guy behind the counter would give Joe a ride, he’d stay and help unload canoes when the next load came. The guy behind the counter agreed so Joe took off with him. Trent and I started moving stuff from the canoe up to my car. After a bit Joe shows up with his truck. I get my wallet from his armrest and look in the backseat and notice beneath a pile of seatbelts my keys were laying. I was thrilled. My mood did a complete 180. I was so happy to find my keys that it didn’t matter that a few hours before I had been snagged in the neck with a fishing lure by a good friend of mine. We finished packing up the stuff and headed out of there. The sun was just a few minutes from setting. We headed back to Cannon Falls to get a bite to eat since we hadn’t eaten in nearly 11 hours. We stopped at Country Kitchen because I figured we could all find something to eat there. I ordered the Classic Lasagna with a cup of Potato Soup with guess what on top? Bacon! I had bacon for all 3 meals that day. It was a first for me. We finished up our meal there and decided to cancel the plans we had made to hang out at the beginning of the meal because we were all exhausted. Joe and Trent took off in Joe’s truck and I headed off, very happily, in my car. I ended up getting home a little before midnight.

I’ve told this story 7 times today already. I figured now that I’ve written it down, I can just tell people to read it. Hope you enjoyed hearing about my ‘not soon to be forgotten Saturday’.

P.S. I outfished Trent again. Once again he was skunked (he did almost catch a tree or two, but they got away). And the only thing Joe caught was me. I rule!

Posted by sf at June 16, 2003 01:57 AM