Given the way my morning started, though, I will admit I had a few reservations. On Saturday, I had checked over both cars and found that all the tires needed a little air, so I had hooked up my 12-volt pump and topped 'em off. Everything was great--or so I thought--until I was loading my van this morning. Suddenly, I noticed that the right rear tire on my wife's car was, to borrow an old phrase, "flatter than a flitter."
My first thought was that the seal between the tire and rim might have been broken, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the tire quickly taking air and holding it after I had tightened up the valve core. In no time, the tire was full of air, and it passed the old saliva test, so I finished loading my van and headed to the marina.
Given the fact it had been more than a month since I ran the SX-170, I decided to fish from it today. It seems a pretty safe bet that I'll have to alternate between it and the SX-190 until someone hopefully takes the former off my hands. I'll just have to keep a record on my calendar when I run each one, because history has proven I can't trust my memory that far.
Once on the water and clear of the channel out to the main creek, I turned and headed for the point where I had made my last trip of 2014--the same one where I had recorded one of my best days for the whole year. With all the gear out of my old boat, it popped on step in the blink of an eye, and I was off and running.
It was almost as though I never had left the spot a month earlier. Using the same firetiger Bomber Square A that had produced for me then, I soon was catching fish again. My best of the day was the one pictured above, which weighed in at 1-10. I also caught a 1-7, 1-0, and a 0-14. Everything, even down to the feel of the bites, was the same. And, like the earlier trip, I again missed a few because I failed to distinguish the difference between a stump and a bump. I also missed one that had picked up my ultra slow-moving crankbait and was swimming with it before I realized that's what was happening.
On a day when I would have been perfectly content just not to record a skunk on my first outing of the new year, I got that one, plus a bonus of three more. For that reason, I didn't hesitate to pull the plug after only three-and-a-half hours on the water. The bite had quieted down, and the coffee no longer was working very efficiently in keeping my innards warm, so I headed to the ramp, recovered, wiped everything down, stowed it, and came home.
The weather will dictate my next trip, which, from the looks of the forecast, won't be for several days. In the meantime, my only concern is going to be keeping my tootsies cozy.
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