Happiness is a new fishing boat
I am as giddy as a kid with a brand-new all-day sucker.
I am the proud owner of a shiny new fishing boat — an 18 1/2 foot Crestliner Commander with every fishing bell and whistle imaginable to mankind. I have been saving for this new boat for two years.
It is a far cry from my first fishing boat, a salvaged 12-foot wooden boat. When I was growing up, my folks had a cabin on a Northern Wisconsin lake. One summer day I was fishing and exploring the lake in my canoe. I paddled into the weedy backwater of a deep bay and discovered an old sunken wood boat filled with water, weeds and muck. It looked like it had been abandoned for years. What a find for an 11-year-old boy.
It was a sunken treasure that begged to be salvaged. I quickly paddled back to our cabin to retrieve a brother, shovel, buckets and rope. After hours of hard work, we had resurrected the boat. It floated somewhat, so we towed it back to the cabin. Then I spent many days drying it out and scraping out years of muck and mud. I scrounged a gallon of bright blue paint from my dad’s garage and gave the boat several layers of paint to fill in the cracks. Some white trim paint gave the boat a first-class look. Boy, was I a proud boat owner! It was propelled by a pair of oars and boy power.
My next boat came 15 years later when I purchased a used 12-foot aluminum boat for $75 and a new 3.9-horsepower Mercury motor for $150. That small boat investment served our family well for over 20 years. We literally have caught thousands of fish on hundreds of fishing trips in that old boat. My wife sat in the front seat, the boys in the center seat and I sat in the captain’s seat by the motor. My wife still uses that old motor.
Then, 17 years ago, I bought a new 18-foot Starcraft fishing boat. It cost $15,000, which was more than I paid for my first house. That boat served us well for 17 years as we fished dozens of Montana, Minnesota and Canadian lakes.
About three years ago I began to have an itch for a new boat, so I saved my nickels in a special new boat savings account. Now, I must admit my wife was not overly eager to buy a new boat. She thought my precious boat money was better spent on a trip to Europe to look at thousand-year-old buildings and fine art. But that is not me. My travels are limited to hunting and fishing trips. I like fine art but I have never seen a Rembrandt or van Gogh that had a decent bull elk or deer in the scene.
One of the daunting aspects of my new boat is the learning curve I must endure. The boat dealer literally delivered to me a shopping bag full of owner’s manuals. There is a manual for the 150-horsepower four-stroke main Mercury engine, a manual for the 9.9-horsepower Mercury kicker motor, a manual for the boat, a manual for the trailer, a manual for the electric bow thrust motor, a manual for the front fish finder, a manual for the primary fish finder and other assorted manuals. This new boat cost more than my first two houses put together.
God bless America, the opportunity to prosper and a reasonably understanding wife.
On the first night with my new boat, I dutifully sat down to read the manuals. I quickly became bored after 15 minutes. I will use the normal American male approach of never reading an instruction manual until I am stuck with not knowing how to solve a problem. I figure machinery should be designed to operate intuitively.
So will this new boat help me catch more fish? Hopefully, yes.
But what is most important is that I will love and enjoy my new boat. Last Sunday, our pastor said that material things cannot buy happiness. Apparently his wife won’t allow him to buy a new boat.
See you on the lake.