May 10th 2008 -- DARE Fishing Tournament

Okay, so most of you knew that Matt and I fish a lot. We had a tournament this weekend that benefitted DARE in Bartlesville! (Had fun Jon!!!!). So here is the story of our weekend...

Blast of was to be at 6 or safe light so our alarm was set for 3:30. This was a huge feat considering we didn't get to bed till after midnight 'cause we HAD to go to the monster trucks. (It was worth the late night though!!!) We got up, got everything in the boat, fed and took care of both of the girls and kenneled them and headed for the lake. We get there in plenty of time and I get out of the truck to go check in and get our number. I normally help him get the boat ready to unload but since I was getting the number he did it all by his self. I jump in the boat and we get it unloaded and I am waiting for Matt on the outside of one of the docks. We look in the floor board and there was water. It was wet with dew when we left but not with water in the floor boards!!!! so we trailer the boat back up and Matt takes the plug out and puts it in. We unload the boat for the second time and start out towards the mouth of Echo Bay. We hear the numbers called 24, 25, 26, 27, 28...We notice, yet once again that there is water in the floor board AGAIN... So....we hear our number called, number 30, and we drive back to Martin's and trailer the boat and have the bilge pump going. Matt looks and he had put the plug back into the same hole!!! So this time we take out to go and fish. All the other boats have blasted off already ( I missed another blast off this year, maybe next year!!) so we take off. We get to the other side of the lake and fish. Caught one first thing that measured and kept fishing. We kept moving around so the trolling motor was being pulled up and put back down. About 4 hours into it Matt was pulling the trolling motor up and busted the plastic prop off the trolling motor.... So we felt and heard vibrations for the next 5 hours. Then as we were leaving and coming back and the wind had picked up and the water was rough. About two minutes into the bouncing across the lake I felt a sharp pain in my right thigh. Well one of the lures that I was using was this gorgeous crank bait. 20 minutes later we pull into a cove that has the beautiful huge homes that are on Shangri-La's golf course. The types of houses that have windows that are as big as my house.... The people are rolling in the money and like everything just so. I look at Matt and ask him if we can pull the crank bait out of my leg. He starts freaking out, "why didn't you tell me?". Oh yeah, I can see us in the middle of the lake bobbing up and down trying to get that out.. I Don't Think So!!!! so we start looking. The only way that it can be looked at good is for me to pull my capri's down to my knees. so everyone by Shangri-La's golf course got to see that I was wearing pink underwear. So after looking we decided to push it on through since it was buried deep, past the barb. so each of the hooks had to be cut lose to get to the one single hook. So laying on the deck of the boat Matt took a pair of needle nose pliers and cut the hooks and the main part off them grabbed onto the single hook and pushed it through. Hurt like hell.... But it kinda felt like getting one of my tattoos....So we continued fishing and didn't catch anything but had one heck of a day!!! Maybe we will weigh in more that one fish next time....