Why does it seem my luck has taken a turn for the worse? This was the second time that I’ve experienced an automobile breakdown on the side of the road in the last 2 months. The first left my car crippled in a small Illinois side-of-the-highway town over 120 miles from home. Two different tows and two repair bills and the car is still having problems. I currently still have a friend doing some work on the vehicle as we speak to stop an oil leak. Both shops never fixed what was actually wrong with that car (a loose hose above an O2 sensor) and my friend saw the problem with in 10 minutes of looking at my engine. A couple turns from a screw driver and the car hasn’t died since. A good mechanic is worth their weight in gold.
This time I shredded a tire on my wife’s truck while traveling the 90 expressway heading north to the driftless area. It was 5:30 in the morning when I had the left rear tire blow while driving. I forced my way onto the shoulder where cars were flying past me with out even moving over. I was forced to keep one eye looking over my shoulder at all times. Finally the Wisconsin State Police showed up to give me a hand with an industrial jack and some traffic control. We get the new tire mounted and time to hit the road… Guess what happens now? I go to turn the car on and the battery is dead. 40 minutes later the tow truck shows to jump my truck and 79$ later I am back on the road again!! Even though my brain said to turn for home after the blow out I pushed forward.
My 2 hour and 20 minute ride turned into almost 5 hours. On the way I stopped of to do a little recon of a small stream just to south. Rumors of big dumb trout carried me there. In the middle of the summer the overgrowth looked almost unmanageable. The creek was skinny and cold and looked like it had some major potential. I will have to remember this for next year in the spring…
 |
| a beautiful driftless creek |
Finally I made my destination. All this hard work and I had only 2 hours to catch something. The water was up 2 or 3 feet still from the heavy does of rain we received earlier this week. It was also stained a nasty rust color. I already made the decision to fish the closest park to the headwaters to find the best water quality. I fished a pool in-between a bridge and a set of riffles. I did see some fish rising to the opposite bank and it kept my interest for an hour and a half without any strikes. I moved upstream and spent the last 30 minutes fishing a serious bend that dumped in to a slow pool. A series of cast to the pool turns nothing up. I moved closer to the tail-out of the bend and one long cast resulted in a long overdue strike.
 |
| fishing stained water |
This is my second trip where catching even one fish came down to the last 15 minutes. I kept my head on straight and fished hard and it worked in my favor. Maybe I didn’t slay them but catching one fish on a day I could have caught none is a victory to me.
 |
| rainbow trout success!!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment