The Saga of the Boat

In this neck of the woods, there are two kinds of fishing. Summer fishing and ice fishing. Ice fishing is a pretty easy sport and although of course a person can spend plenty of money, tons of money, on gear and specialized equipment, on a nice day in January any yahoo can cross his fingers and drive his vehicle onto the lake, drill a couple holes and toss a line in.

Summer fishing consists of shore fishing, which, like ice fishing, any yahoo can do on a nice day, and boat fishing. Boat fishing requires a boat.

It seems at first, as you get acquainted with the sport, that a boat really isn't necessary to fish. What the heck, you ask, is wrong with doing what all those other guys right there are doing, standing on the shore? They seem to be catching fish. Now, let me just say right now that there is none of that fancy-ass fly fishing done around here, the kind where you see the guy in his waders, walking up a creek, constantly casting out and reeling in, over and over. We don't have those kind of fish in these waters. We're fishing for walleye, mostly, but also perch and crappies, not trout.

Now, you can catch walleye, perch and crappies from shore. It can be done. But it's usually done by elbowing into a space between two other guys, getting just enough room for your lawn chair, and trying to keep your line from crossing theirs. And that's after you find a place to park and schlep all your gear over. Unless of course you own some land along the shore of a lake. But even then, if you're fishing from shore, all your bait does once you cast it out is .... hang there. You've rigged your gear up so that it's dangling from your floating bobber, sure, so it's hanging there dangling, but it's hard to really even jig it when you're shore fishing.

Ice fishing is a jigging sport since you're standing right over your hole and you can interact with your line anytime you like, just give it a quick upward pull, real quick, makes your bait look more like... fish food I guess. And you can also jig from a boat. But from shore? Not really. Just a minnow laying there looking, well, less like fish food.

If you have a boat, you can escape the land-less rabble and go anywhere on the lake you like, although guys still seem to cluster if they think there's a spot where others are actually catching fish. And if you do spend a while trolling a lake only to find a really hot spot where the perch are just biting a mile a minute, with a boat you can anchor in that exact spot and just sit there and catch fish!

The point is, if you're going to be a "real" fisherman in these parts, you need to have a boat. If you don't, you're just some yahoo.

It all started when my brother decided to get married in Europe. Well, that's not quite true, it really started when my ex was a kid. He'd known ever since he was young that he needed to own a boat to better enjoy fishing. If there's one thing that man likes to do, it is fish. He could fish all day, every day and he'd be annoyed that he had to sleep. So, see, he knew he needed a boat long before we ever even met.

But it didn't look like it would really happen until I got my brother's wedding invitation. He was to be married in Europe and of course I couldn't miss that. I love to travel, I love Europe, my parents were going, couldn't miss my brother's wedding....I was so excited to go. I tried to talk my ex into coming along but he would have none of it. He had no passport, no money, no vacation time... why would he want to go?

Now here's the deal. I knew I could afford to go, but I felt guilty about it. This was, of course, back in the days when I was still very actively trying to think of us as a team. And the perverse part was, he didn't even want to go. And I was still consumed with guilt to spend that much just on me, no matter whose money it was. The obvious answer, of course, was to spend that much on him too, and make things even. So I bought him a boat.

It was a sweet 16 foot Lund with a 35 horse Johnson, perfect for fishing. It wasn't the kind of boat you're ever going to pull some kid with on his tube, but it can putt along nice and slow on all the lakes around here. Well, it can once you get a trolling motor. Yes, accoutrements were soon necessary and the ex fixed up the boat. He replaced the flooring and made all the lights work. And for a time, we were happy. He fished all the time and I went along sometimes. It was a good boat. And there is nothing as peaceful, really, as being out on the lake all alone in your little boat when the water's as smooth as glass and the sun's setting... it was good boat.

But then things changed and it started to look like a small boat. A simple boat. The boat, perhaps, of a poor person. I'm not sure exactly, but one day it was no longer good enough. It still worked just great but needed to be replaced with a faster, shinier, nicer boat that would hold more people and could even, perhaps, pull along teens in tubes! And guess what? He'd seen just the boat along the side of the road for sale. So he sold his boat and got a loan to buy a new boat.

Now this new boat was much larger and cost much more. He went to work right away on this boat, same as he had with the first boat, replacing the floors, recarpeting, making all the gadgets work, installing rod holders... customizing it and making it his. And pretty soon he took it out on the lake. And.... dang... the motor didn't quite work right. He barely got back to the boat dock without getting stranded on the lake! And that is when it began. He took it to the shop and they looked at it, charged him a pile of money and it still didn't run right. Or, I should say it ran ok, it just wouldn't idle. And then it wouldn't start back up again. He took it to the shop again. It was a frustrating series of events: they'd tinker with it, he'd take it out, it wouldn't idle right, he'd barely make it to the dock, he'd take it back to the shop, they'd tinker with it... over and over until one time he came home with the news that they now knew what was wrong with it. And he could have them fix it over the winter and it would be $1,500 or he could try to fix it himself or he could just sell it.

Since he couldn't afford to get it fixed and didn't really know how to tinker with it, he decided to put it up for sale, with the caveat that he'd tell who ever went to buy it what the deal was. That poor boat. I never did even get to go out in it. It didn't get to pull kids on tubes, it barely even got to go fishing. It didn't see happy groups of people, as was intended. Well a time or two it may have, but it was for sale more than anything. It sat on the lot but people really aren't that interested in buying a boat that needs work. Even if it is a deal, and it wasn't. The ex couldn't afford to sell it too cheap because he "had a lot into it," what with the outrageous purchase price and the new floors and all. At least he finally got the loan paid off, so then all he had to get if he sold it was a decent price, he didn't have to cover any debts.

Eventually he paid the boat shop guys more money to fix the motor, and it ended up being a lot less than they'd said it would be and he got it so it ran fine. He kept trying to sell it, though, which I thought was just bizarre. I mean, for a long time he'd made payments on this boat and then he'd paid a lot to fix it... use it already!! Wasn't that the point?

He found a buyer for it finally, just after we broke up. He got way less for it than he had insisted he "had" to get. But at that point, he needed the money because he owed me for the computer "we" gifted his son as a graduation present two months after we broke up and he had to find a place to live and stuff like that. And by "and stuff like that," apparently, I mean "buy a big screen tv," because that is what he did when he sold his boat. He sold it and bought a giant-ass big screen tv. He did not find a place to live, make a first and last month's payment, he did not pay me back for the kid's computer that he had insisted he would pay for. Eventually. And he didn't even pay down his visa. Nope. He bought himself a big screen tv.

And like everything, there's a funny twist at the end. He's gone now, living on his own in some house, paying rent like the rest of us do, with his big screen tv. But he now finds that he can't afford cable. So he has a big ass tv that he gets no reception for. I wonder what he'll sell it for? hm...