Do I Always Have to Limit Out?

I'd been out of state for two weeks, flew home on Friday and had the Scooters Youth Hunting Camp all day Saturday. Then Sunday after Church I had three seminars at a local store so by the time the seminars were over I wanted to see my family. Katy helped me with the Kids Camp on Saturday so I got to see her then but my youngest daughter wanted to go fishing.

I was hoping the crappie were in full swing. I'd met TJ Stallings with TTI-Blakemore Fishing Group at the Professional Outdoor Media Association convention in South Carolina last month. One thing led to another and he sent me an arsenal of lures to drill the crappie with so I wanted to get him some good publicity.

Kolby and I went over to a spot I have in southeast Oregon and we caught some fish but didn't get in to the crappie like I wanted to for her. The next day we headed up to Cascade and borrowed a buddy's boat for that event and left mine at home.

The perch were hot. We'd just seen a guy at the bait shop that had a 5-gallon bucket and his live well full. My gosh, they were huge. We got to the dock, unloaded and fired up the motor. I threw it in gear and nada! The gears were stripped out. Oh no, we'd packed and driven all the way up there and the motor wouldn't function.

So do we jump off the cliff or make the most of what we have? Granted it's frustrating when you have boat problems but I refuse to let circumstances dictate if I'm happy or not. Or pretty soon where do you draw the line? It's raining. Ok, I'm not going to be happy today. The fish didn't bite too well, not happy again. It's cold, not happy again. Pretty soon you're not happy but a few days out of the month.  

My daughter had a better attitude than me. She said come on daddy, we can run out a ways with the trolling motor. We made a day of it and had fun. Where else can you bond with your daughter like that? You sure can't in town competing with the TV, internet, friends, etc.

I fish from Alaska to Florida and this was one of my best fishing trips ever and we didn't even net a fish. I can always go back and get TJ some publicity. I can always have a bomber trip that I can get multiple articles out of but I don't always get a chance to be out in God's great outdoors with one of the top three girls in my life do I? I'll be dang if I'm going to let a few setbacks ruin my day and dictate if I can have fun or not. Besides that, we're already planning our next trip. This time we're gonna smoke 'em!