Looked forward to fishing on a nice sunny day with light wind forecast. Going to use my new 2.5 hp Merc to get to areas the trolling motor would be to slow getting to. Was going to take a load of photos of fish caught on some new lure innovations. You've heard of Murpy's Law - anything that can go wrong will - and did!

First off the weather forecast was wrong. By the time on got to the lake the wind was around 12 mph with gusts. I needed to make accurate casts to weed pockets but instead the wind got the hooks caught on pad stems. I only brought a 10 lb anchor and it couldn't hold.

The motor started fine and I started out from the launch at a nice speed. But I forgot the huge rock ahead that was much shallower due to lower water and slammed the motor's skeg. Not sure of the prop's shear pin was broken but couldn't restart the motor to find out. Had to go all the way back to the launch against the wind (15 minutes) using the trolling motor to fish closer to the launch shoreline due to the high wind.

Forgot the camera at home but also forgot the spare camera behind the driver seat. Sure enough I found white perch in open water that bit a few of my innovations but with no camera on board to photograph them.

Called it a day but then got behind someone going 10 mph below the speed limit and no passing zone much of the way.

Oh, when I got home, I found a 50-lure bag of Crappie Magnets - more than half deformed by cramming that many in a small bag. I put the deformed lures in hot water on the stove but forgot them and then found a melted glob after the water got too low.

At least the motor started at home and the prop turned (shear pin fine). Too bad the weather is going to get colder with rain soon - though maybe that weather forecast will be wrong (but more often right when bad).