Uncle Pete was over visiting us yesterday. And as was his custom, he was down by the dock trying to hit the fish on the head with the lure. So.. on the last cast of the evening, he finally hits a small pike. The pike, as is normal for them, heads directly to the lily pads (you know.. those stupid terrible pretty things that Joe intentionally planted!)… Anyway, the pike deftly weaves his way in and out of foot thick lily pad stems. He ends up being stuck too far out to reach with the net.
Uncle Pete, being the thoughtful, intelligent, resourceful person that he is, did not stoop to using the portable phone to call somebody up at the house for help. Nor did he use the laptop that was on the board to IM somebody for help. In his wisdom, he decides that the great white fisherman can handle this on his own. All he needed to do was swing the pontoon boat around and that would put him within reach of the pike… Which is still using the opportunity to knit himself a scarf for the winter by winding the line around the lily pads…
Now.. pulling an 18 foot pontoon boat around a 90 degree turn with one hand holding a fishing pole is not a simple matter. But.. our Uncle Pete finally gets it lined up.. And even remembers to tie it back to the dock so that it doesn’t float away. He’s felling pretty proud of himself about now… Just get the net, lean over, and pull fish and a mess of lily pads up and everything will be cool.
For those of you who have not seen our pontoon boat, it has a “sun deck” built up in the back, over the motor… So, Uncle Pete was actually about 4-5 feet off the surface of the water when he was leaning over to net the fish. So he had to hold on to the little railing that ran around the back as he leaned WAY over to net the fish.
Well, one thing that Uncle Pete forgot (for a while at least) was that the little railing is attached to a cover. And this cover is designed to be opened by somebody standing in the boat, so it tilts up and OUT. Uncle Pete remembered this as he leaned over far enough so that his weight caused the cover to open, which in turn shifted even more of this center of gravity over air (which is not a good support material). There is NEVER a camera around when you need it, because the sight of Uncle Pete doing a two pi off the back of the pontoon would surely have won the America’s funniest home video award.
He also learned that you cannot fold a fishing pole in half without breaking it… And that glasses are impossible to locate at the bottom of 2 feet of muck.