Boating

The weather is becoming worthy of getting the boats on the water. Yesterday I was able to go boating with my friend in his 12 foot aluminum boat on Lake Lowell.  We decided to do a bass fishing trip and try out his new 15hp motor. It was a trip that started out with my pole getting broken in the back of my truck from my tackle box sliding around, luckily I had a back-up pole.  We got on the water about 10:15 and weather was great, slight overcast and no wind.  The engine fired up after about 10 pulls and we were ready to slay the bass. We headed over to the first cove we had our eyes on and dropped anchor.  I was coated with SPF 45 and ready to start the battle. Then I noticed a little more water in the boat than when we had started our journey. I mentioned this and my friend pulls out a big sponge and says this is plan B if the patch work didn't work. Mind you, it wasn't a lot of water but it was noticeable. I acted like I wasn't concerned pulled out my Droid and turned on the Hank Williams Jr. station on Pandora and made the first cast. The fishing was slow or should I say dead, because we got no bites after 3 hours.  After several cleansing of the sponge/soak technique headed back to the dock. The wind picked up and there were white caps on the lake and in a 12 foot aluminum it felt like an episode of the Deadliest Catch. We made it back to the dock and were a little soaked from the spray, but beat the storm that was soon to hit.  As I placed foot on the dock, I felt a huge relief come across me.  As excited I was for the trip to begin, I was just as excited for the trip to end about half way through it. Please don't rely on your boat coverage to be a sponge squeeze, soak, and wrench process for your protection. Make sure you are fully covered and there are life jackets for each passenger. That was one thing I knew we had on the boat and plenty of them. I know that tackle can be replaced but lives cannot.  Enjoy the warmer weather and if you make it on the lake for fishing, skiing, or just crusing make it an enjoyable experience for everyone. Boating season is a great attribute that Idaho has and let's keep it that way!