A Sign It's Been Too Long Since You Last Went Fishin'

Our phone conversation had gone something like this:

"Hey, Wayne, I couldn't get the trim 'n' tilt switch on the bow to work at all Sunday."

"When can we meet at the marina so I can have a look?" came the response from Wayne. "You busy this evening?"

"Nope," I said.

With that, we decided to meet at West Neck last evening, and just as Wayne had removed the "suspect" switch and was holding it in his hand, he said, "You know, the main power switch has to be 'on' for this thing to work."

The dumbfounded look on my face prompted Wayne to add, "Reckon that means we probably can chalk this up to 'operator error.'" And with a quick flip of the power switch, he had proven his point.

Forgetting something so elementary seems nearly impossible, but it's typical of what can happen when it's been two months since the last time you dropped your boat in the water. Reckon it could have been worse, though--I could have forgotten to install the drain plug before I launched last Sunday.

Fortunately, I was able to save a little face by asking Wayne if he would mind mounting a new bow strap for me. That way, the trip out there wouldn't be a complete waste of his time. FYI: The hook on the old strap had gone belly up some time back, and he had replaced it with a hook that he happened to have available at the time. Problem was, however, that it wasn't strong enough to work right very long, and I had had to replace it three times already. What I didn't realize, however, as I asked him about changing the strap, is that I was handing him yet another problem.

He quickly removed the reel assembly, only to find that the bolt preventing the strap from coming all the way off was so tight he couldn't bust it loose. This was the point where I likely would have just tossed in the towel, but not Wayne. As he thought about the situation, he took a look at the new strap I had purchased at Walmart and discovered it was far inferior to the one currently on the boat. He then handed it to me and asked that I check to see if the hook worked OK on the boat.

The new hook worked fine, so he asked if I would like to have him simply put the new heavy-duty hook on the old strap. I agreed, so he began making the swap.

Moments later, he had reassembled everything, tested it, put away his tools, and was on the way home.

As I, too, squared away things in my storage shed and readied for the trip home, I had a chance to think about all those little preparations I had been taking for granted only two months ago. Never have liked wasting a man's time, even when I'm paying him for it. Hopefully, it won't be another two months before I get on the water again.