Thursday, May 13, 2010

May is here and Muskie Season is Near!

I left off with the boat.. oh yes we need the boat and in short order.
It seems for most people that when we put the boat away for a long winter nap that sometimes it is in well less than perfect shape. The fact is that we have fished it all year and even though we try and keep up on things and contain all the messes that well it is a never ending job. It gets even harder when we are fishing in the late fall for those monster muskies and when we return to the marina they have shut the water off for the season, whether we are done with it or not! So now the spring is upon us and we head down to get the boat ready to go back intyo action for another season and we find that there is a seemingly mountain of work ahead of us.
We pull the shrink wrap off to find that someone must have snuck in over the winter and trashed this thing...WTF! We rub-out and wax the whole boat and then clean up the interior and put another coat of paint on the bottom then put another coat on all the miles of teak wood. Well that doesn't seem that bad.. for an army of people. Well it can be a time consuming and labor intensive project to say the least!
So now the boat is water bound.. yes finally there well only to find a punch list of all the stuff that has gone wrong or broke or just needs attention from the previous years use and abuse. So onto all that work.. well after it is all dsaid and done you just want to sit back and have a few cold ones and admire all of the hard work that you have done to get things ready for another season. Sometimes i catch myself thinking man is it really necessary to cover this bueatiful boat in muskie slime, blood, spilled beers,etc. Well that is how it is and when everyone gets to the boat they think that the magic cleaning elves just left as things appear showroom new yet again..
So the moral of this little tid-bit story is that when you get to my boat take a minuite and look around and realize what goes into getting this vessel ready and how it looks and smells. Noone is here to follow you around and pick up after you and fix the things that you break, so go slow and pay attention and be careful. Treat it like you would your own house unless you live in a pigpen.. then treat it like your mothers house! For all of those that do come and take care of things and help out.. hats off to you as the only magic elves that are around and the captain and mate!