Just a Really Odd Day...

[OCdockskipper]

My daughters boyfriend was going to join me fishing yesterday and I planned on it being a pretty good day.  He hasn't done alot of bass fishing, but is enthusiastic and a quick study.  Weather and water temperatures had been dropping for the first time in months and the forecast called for an overcast morning, so I figured topwater and moving baits may be the ticket for the first few hours until the fish moved deeper or under the docks.  What I hadn't anticipated was one of the stranger days of my life, not all of which involved fishing.

I woke at 4:30 am and noticed my wife wasn't in bed with me.  I figured I must have been snoring and she fled the scene, but as I went to the bathroom, she came into the room fully dressed.  Apparently I had slept through her getting a midnight call that her Raider-like brother was drunk at a club, her picking him up and bringing him to our house to sober up, him going outside to smoke a cigarette but then forgetting which house was ours, him knocking on the neighbors door asking to be let in, him falling down & busting his head open on the neighbors planter (resulting in the police, fire & ambulance showing up), him getting stitches at the hospital and then walking out before they were done examining him, she picking him up 2 blocks from the hospital bringing him back to the house again, him going out to smoke again (this time in the backyard) and then once again falling over & cutting the other side of his head.  All this between midnight & 4:30 am.  Yes, I did sleep through all of that, my wife is an angel.

So I got dressed and took all the gear down to the dock.  I realized I had left a flashlight I use in our other car, (it is still dark outside) so I went out to retrieve it.  I had parked the car up tight to a hedge to avoid potential door dings on the other side and as I tried to wedge myself in, I lost my balance & fell into the hedge.  Had they neighbors been watching, they would have thought I was the drunk.

I get the boat set up and as daylight begins to approach, no sign of my daughters boyfriend.  I know he works hard during the week, so I figured he overslept.  I sent him a text to let me know when he arrived & I would double back to the dock.  I got in the boat, went to a point and fired out a cast with a Zara spook.  As anticipated, I immediately hooked up...with a bluegill.  I figured it was a good sign nonetheless, until I went the next 90 minutes without a strike.  I cycled through different baits, different type cover, shallow & deep nothing.  Then, when I was working a jerkbait over a weedbed in 7 ft of water, I realized as i looked at the depthfinder that the weed bed was no longer there.  What I ended up finding out later was that days before, the HOA had treated the lake with some kind of weed killing chemicals and had dredged (by hand) some of the more problem areas.  The cover I had been fishing no longer existed...

Not knowing exactly why the weedbeds were gone, I made some adjustments and caught a few fish.  My daughters boyfriend had indeed slept through his alarm (he hadn't missed much), joined me near 8 am and I was able to put him on a few fish (we even had a double).  However, as we were working a couple of docks, a party boat came towards us being driven by a women in full muslim garb.  There were a half dozen other women dressed the same way and single man in the boat, so I am assuming they were his harem.  I know nearly everyone on this lake and they kind of stuck out because I had never seen them before.  Apparently they didn't know me either because they drove their boat between us and the dock we were casting to, laughing & taking pictures.  I was going to say something, but realized from their chatter, they most likely didn't speak English.

Near noon, my daughters boyfriend had to leave and the sun had popped out.  I put on my buff & sunglasses and headed over to another cove to flip, pitch & skip some docks.  As I made it to the back of the cove, a woman came out of her backdoor, intently staring at me with her arms crossed.  I waved hi but she didn't flinch, staying like that for a good five minutes.  I know I might look like a criminal with a buff pulled up, but I have been by her house over 50 times in the last year.  She is just now noticing me??

I work out of that cove down to another and once again, a different woman comes out her back door looking at me.  This time, she is chattering with someone inside in a foreign language.  As I pass by their dock, a man comes out & in a heavy accent says "Please do not throw your line into my boat".  I may not be an Elite pro, but I am a much more accurate caster than that.  I assure him I won't and he retreats back into the house with his nagging wife in tow.

By this time, I am completely spun out, unable to figure out what in the world is going on.  As if to put an exclamation point on the days adventures, another smaller party boat again filled with folks that are speaking a different language, comes down the cove between me & the docks I am fishing.  However, since I was skipping the docks at this time, there wasn't much space between me & the dock. They manged to fit their boat in between, at full speed nonetheless.  I loudly said "Hey!!" as they passed, to which they smiled & waved.  Ugh. I put my rod down, went back home & took a nap.  

[Gundog]

Your brother-in-law sounds like my brother. Ughh. I can't believe the HOA would kill the weeds. Are you the only fisherman in the HOA? If not get together and make sure you and the other anglers express your anger. Legally of course. Its funny about the burka boat parade. They won't allow women to drive a car but a boat is ok.

[Reel Guy]

I'd say that was much more than an odd day but really at a loss for words how to explain it. That's a lot more than you obviously expected! You seemed to get through it ok and for that...congratulations!

Edited August 29, 2016 by Reel Guy
mispelled word

[IndianaFinesse]

2 hours ago, Gundog said:

. I can't believe the HOA would kill the weeds.

Unfortuanately this is very common in Indiana.  They treat the lake I live on with weed and alagae killer every single month, and twice in the summer if the weeds finally get thick enough to make a suitable weed mat to throw a frog into.  It even sometimes makes a second "thermocline" here if it kills a lot of alegea from all of the decomposition sucking the oxygen out of that band of water which really messes up the fishing.

[Gundog]

41 minutes ago, IndianaFinesse said:

Unfortuanately this is very common in Indiana.  They treat the lake I live on with weed and alagae killer every single month, and twice in the summer if the weeds finally get thick enough to make a suitable weed mat to throw a frog into.  It even sometimes makes a second "thermocline" here if it kills a lot of alegea from all of the decomposition sucking the oxygen out of that band of water which really messes up the fishing.

Can you fight it? Run for HOA president on a platform of "Free the Weed"! You'll get the fishing vote and the pothead vote all in one. 

[Hez]

14 minutes ago, Gundog said:

Can you fight it? Run for HOA president on a platform of "Free the Weed"! You'll get the fishing vote and the pothead vote all in one. 

Got my vote!!

wait...what are we voting about again?

[OCdockskipper]

7 hours ago, Gundog said:

I can't believe the HOA would kill the weeds. Are you the only fisherman in the HOA? If not get together and make sure you and the other anglers express your anger.

Out of the nearly 300 homes that border our lake, there are literally 3 people who fish for bass seriously enough to want the weed beds around.  There might be a dozen or so folks who don't care while the remainder want a lake that looks pretty.  Remember, this is Southern California - for most people who live here, the outdoors and hunting/fishing are mutually exclusive .

The HOA wipe out the weed beds about every 3 years or so, when they get large enough that homeowners can see them from the docks.  After a week or two, the bass that had been living in the weedbeds adjust and start using the other cover in the lake (docks, undercuts in the concrete seawalls and the planted brushpiles).  It actually makes the dock fishing better, I'll often find 2 or 3 fish under a dock instead of solitary ones.  

[N Florida Mike]

You get my vote for best story of the month.

Did I say month?I meant year.