Women and Motors

They'll both cause you problems and cost you money. More about that at the end of this...
Started off the week at Lake James which is kinda the snooty lake in the area. Lotsa high dollar houses, for fisherman that means get off the lake by noon or meet the wrath of the pleasure boater/jet skier/waterskier. They will tear up that lake like it's their own with no regard for anyone else on it. Of course, I started early and got in 5 or so hours of fishing before the wavemakers hit. I was after the elusive pike but ended up catching alot of cookie-cutter bass. I couldn't manage to pick up a decent largemouth but I ended up catching over a dozen this size.

 They were small but feisty.
 Then there was the weekly trip to Erie, I launched the boat and started out of Catawba I noticed a bit of water dribbling out of the cable hole in the cowling. Thought it was odd but didn't give it too much thought. Off we go to catch my limit of walleye...

While I was trolling the Ferry boat traffic goes back and forth to and from the Islands. There's 2 or 3 of the big slow high wave Ferries that carry cars and trucks, then there's this beast that carries people only. I sure would like to know how fast it goes.

 Once my walleye limit was reached (10:30) I headed over to the closest Island, which was actually the one in the above picture, to fish for some smallmouth. When I fired up the motor I again noticed some water coming out from the cable hole in the cowling Hmmm I should look at that. I fished it for a half hour or so but all I picked up was a couple goo's.

These nasty things fight hard I was hooked up with this guy for 6 minutes before I got it to the boat. I should've weighed it but I'm guessing he went 4 or 5 pounds, I just wanted to get him back.

Once I was done with the goo's of Green Island I took the cowling off and fired up the motor. A fountainesk arc of water shot out of the top of the motor. The stream was fairly thin, like the width of a super soaker, and shot up about 4 inches over the motor. Well crap, that's not supposed to do that, and what do you do when something like that happens? That's right button it up, race it in, and hope for the best. Well, it made it in the mile or so I was out, doing 30 mph the whole way. When I got back to town I went straight over to the marina near the house. Found out it was an exhaust seal and on my motor, there's 2 of them, and they're going to run me 35 bucks for the pair. That's not too bad, but the best news is they're back-ordered until the 24th of June. So once everything starts opening up I gotta look and see if I can get one sooner or next week's trip is probably off.