A not so pleasant Day

Last Thursday was not a good day for me.

I had planned to go fishing early in the morning at my usual fishing spot by the Lockport Dam, five minutes from our place. I like to go at daybreak because then I have the place to myself most of the time. There are certain spots along the river which are more productive than others. Regular visiting anglers know these spots. And it seems everyone wants to fish on ‘my spot’. On some occasions at certain times of the year I fished practically shoulder to shoulder with other anglers. Some of them can get quite aggressive and will move in as soon as you vacate your spot to change lures.

Usually the first anglers arrive at around 8:15 AM and it can get crowded in a short time. I like to be gone by then.

Thursday was a cloudy, dreary looking day and I was feeling jittery when I woke up. I should have crawled back to bed

.

When I got to ‘my spot’ there was already a young man fishing there, but he left about ten minutes later. He had his limit of four Sauger. That’s what I was after also—Sauger.

It started already with my first cast. The bait on my Shimano reel didn’t work anymore and my line balled into a ‘bird’s nest’ on my reel. Fortunately, I had a second rod and reel along. So instead of wasting time with the tangled up line I decided to change to the other rod.

When I cast my bait again into the water, the bail didn’t work, either. I could see the jig dangling in front of me. I reached out to grab it but my hand seemed to go right through the line. I couldn’t grab it. I tried again with the same result. Now you have to remember it was a strange day, overcast and the light was eerie; things were difficult to see clearly.

After a few unsuccessful tries to grab the line with the jig at the end I panicked a little. I looked around if I could see a body lying among the rocks—my body. I honestly thought I had died. I had left the land of the living and was now a ghost. You know, you’ve seen movies like that.

That feeling lasted only for a short time when discovered that the line had wrapped itself around the rod and the jig was dangling not from the tip of the rod but from the middle. I also realized that I had picked up the rod with the Shimano reel again. That’s why the bail didn’t work.

I got the other rod and tried again. I caught a few fish, mostly small ones which I released back into the water. Everything was going fine except for that jittery feeling that didn’t want to leave me. When I had four keepers I cast the jig out one more time, hoping for a larger fish.

My jig got caught between rocks, which happens a lot there. I usually lose one or two jigs to that rocky bottom of the river. That is something you have to count on. I tried to dislodge it. Not looking down, I stepped onto a wet rock, slipped and fell—right on top of my reel. It could not bear my weight and the ‘foot’ that holds it to the rod broke off.

 

That was my Daiwa reel; not as expensive as my Shimano but a good, reliable and great little reel that has given me years of trouble-free service.

I went home not a happy camper.

The Daiwa reel was beyond repair, but I was hoping to fix the Shimano. When I opened it up, I saw that the bail guide had broken off. It is an old reel and parts are not readily available, if at all. I made a bail guide from a nail. The bail sort of works—sometimes. You can’t make a piece of precision-component from a nail with a coarse grinder I built using the motor of an old washing machine; it just won’t work.

I resigned to the fact that I can’t use it. It is finished, kaput. It is important to use equipment that works properly and smoothly, not something that is now a piece of junk that’ll drive me crazy.

Desperate, I bought a couple of used reels and rods from some guy who advertised them on Kijiji, but they are not my old, reliable Shimano or my Daiwa. What was I thinking? People sell stuff at Garage sales or on line because they want to get rid of it, stuff that doesn’t work properly and stuff they consider garbage. If it would still work they wouldn't sell it. I might just have to sell them again to another unsuspecting desperate angler, and then spend the money and buy something descent and new.

Why is the Universe so cruel?