What makes you go out on the water?

Last night while watching a TV show a memory hit me and it felt so good. It was while sitting on a boat about ten mile off shore, at night, on Lake Erie, not quite sure of my location. So you get your chart out then look at the shoreline to see the flashing lights on radio towers and water towers to see the color and the rhythm of the flash. Once you spot one you look at the chart and match them up and they tell you your location. The chart will give you a color (R for red) a... 2 and a 4 (2 seconds on and 4 off). Once you find your location, then take parallel ruler and get a fix on your location, move the ruler from the compass rose to the port you wish to find and the ruler will give you a compass heading. Put your compass on that heading and then just watch for the channel marker lights (red on right returning). Out on that lake at night with all those stars and with darkness so dark you can hardly breath, you get an uneasy feeling. With the boat secured at the dock, and you've mad it back home, telling your wife and boys of the day, you get a smile on the inside. Your smiling because you were able to accomplish something, something non tangible. Love to do that again. That memory is what keeps me on the water.

Thanks slabseeker1 . Nice post! I really like that saying " you get a smile on the inside". I like it even better when it happens to me. Two weeks ago I went out to fish and almost turned around when it started raining. Got to the ramp and it quit raining. The clouds where on the deck and quite as a mouse in church. I launched and noticed a lot of birds flying and started looking around and there where 8 bald eagles flying. Made it to my fishing hole and the eagles just seemed to hang around. Tried to fish but something inside just said to be quite and watch. Well the eagles put on a show I will never forget. Diving and playing like there was no tomorrow. I just sat there watching and to my amassment 3 eaglets came out of the trees and joined in. It was so quite you could here their wings singing in the wind. In the distance I could here an owl hooting , a wood pecker pecking. Saw deer, turkey and about every kind of bird I have ever seen on the water. I could not fish for over an hour. Kind of like in a trance. What a day on the water. Smiling on the inside!!

I had a fella tell me once that being on the water was like having malaria, you can put it into submission but never be fully cured. So glad that God planted that seed in me.

I fish alone most of the time. For me it's a time to ease my soul back in and reflect. I've solved a lot of problems on the lake fishing.

for me it is like therapy. Just get out relax, watch and enjoy His creation. Catching fish is just a bonus