Last week I tried to run off the shack nasties by telling you guys about my funniest fishing trip ever. This week, I'm going to go the other way and tell you about a terrible trip. I thought about calling this thread the worst trip ever, but as I recall from my english lit. classes in school, Ahab had a fishing trip even worse than this one. At least his ended up much worse, I'm still here to bore you with my trip.

We just got back from this trip last night, so the details are still painfully fresh.

Day 1

We start out for Florence Marina State Park in GA. According to Google it was a 7 and a half hour drive. It took 10. My little boy got sick and had an accident right before we got on the interstate. Luckily we had stopped to use the restroom and managed to get him taken care of.
Then we got stuck in traffic on the loop around Atlanta. There had been a wreck and we were stuck in traffic. I don't like being stuck in traffic, but I'm not fussing, we weren't in the wreck and I'm thankful for that. I hope who ever was is OK.
Then we got lost. We missed our exit stopped at a body shop and they ALREADY had directions printed out to get us back to our exit. Apparently we weren't the first and the City of Atlanta needs to have better signs up for Exit 61 coming from Northbound on 285.
We arrived at park, exhausted and in bad moods. We then rode bicycles with our 5 year old son, and suddenly the day was ok. Though we didnt' get to start fishing till the next morning.

Day 2

I had a new 3 wt from Albright that I couldn't wait to try out. Only one problem. I left the reel at home. So I got my old 5 wt out and used it.
I should mention that this was the first real chance to try out my ODC Classic from Creek Company. Great boat, but not so great in the wind on an open lake. I rigged my toon up with an anchor and pulley system before we left. I used zip ties to hold the pulleys, in case I needed to move them. They were heavy duty zip ties. But they all broke but one. I had pulleys all up and down my anchor line. Aggravating, but no big deal. Then disaster did strike. I had built a rod rack to hold my rods and net on the back of my toon out of PVC. A zip tie holding it broke, fortunately the other 2 held and I didn't lose my rod. The old digital camera my Mom gave me got wet. Then the rod holder I bought at bass pro came lose, I did however manage to grab hold of it and secure it to the back of the toon. By this time I had had enough, so I started rowing back across the marina to the boat ramp. Rowing that direction I noticed a sign that I hadn't seen when I rowed out. It clearly stated "No Fishing in Marina Basin" Which is of course where I had stayed the entire time because of the high winds. Then I noticed the 3 nice gentlemen in uniforms on one of the docks. As I rowed by I spoke to them and asked them how they were doing. They were very nice and I didn't get in trouble. By the time I got back to the boat ramp, I was ready to sell my toon give up fishing and start riding bicycles with my son. Then I got back to the ramp and there was a fisherman already there taking out his boat. He must have seen I was not having a good day. He had caught some nice bream and crappie early that morning, but when the sun came up the wind went up with it and he didn't catch anything after that. He then offered to let me have some of the fish he caught. I told him thanks but I didn't want any. As I walked back to the truck I thought about how nice he was and realized that there is alot more to fishing than just fish. I didn't catch anything, I didn't have a LDR or even a bite, but somehow, it wasn't nearly as bad a day as it had been.

Day 3

Wind still terrible, stayed in camp, my wife dropped and broke her camera. that night the wind laid down and I took my son fishing on the pier. It was very cold. I put a minnow on a hook about 2 ft down from his float. The water there they said was over 20 ft deep, but he wanted to cast and any more line out than that he has a hard time casting. We was there about 15 minutes when his float went down and he pulled a nice stripe up to the top of the water. I think I was more shocked than he was. It was about 15 inches long I think, no doubt the biggest fish he has ever hooked. The fish flopped at the top of the water and was gone in the blink of an eye. In a flash I thought this is it, the end of a miserable fishing trip, he'll start crying because he didn't catch a fish. He looked up at me with wide eyes and a great big smile and said, "Daddy! Did you see that fish I caught?" I looked at him for a second and said, "I sure did." He was tickled to death, even though he didn't actually catch the fish.

That was the only fish I seen on the whole trip. I never had a bite. I was disgusted and to the point of throwing it all in. Was this the worst trip I ever had?

This week the TWRA is suppose to stock a creek near my house. What do you think I'll be doing this weekend?

hNt

PS I guess we should all try to look on the bright side of things. We may all be stuck indoors with the shack nasties, but at least we have a "shack" to keep us warm and dry.