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Took the pontoon again today. Put in at Turkey Creek and decided to explore a little bit. Made my way over to the trestle to fish around the rocks over there. Wind was blowing me around a bit, so I threw in the anchor. There's a stripping basket that came with the toon and I was messing around with it to re-attach a hook that came off of it. Just about done with it when I noticed that I had neglected to secure my fly rod while messing with other stuff. Last thing I see is the rod tip disappearing in 23 feet of water. I banged my forehead with the heel of my hand, cussed a bit, and if I wasn't such a tough guy probably would have cried a bit. A couple of guys in an inflatable raft came over to help until one of the guys went over the side of the raft into the 52 degree water. He got to shore, his buddy got him and they left. I felt bad because it was kinda my fault. I flagged down a boat to see if they had a grapple. They didn't, so they asked a couple of fellas fishing about 1/3 of a mile from me if they did. They didn't either, but they came over and tried to snag my rod with treble hooks to no avail. I appreciated their efforts, but wasn't about to give up yet. Years ago I used to put in power lines and telephone cables. I looked up the hill by the train track at the power poles knowing that there was probably old lag bolts and assorted other junk laying around them to fashion a grapple out of. Found a piece of 1 1/4" steel about 16 inches long, bent a hook in it and tied it to a piece of my anchor line with a bowline. Bowlines don't come un-done unless you want them to... unless you have stiff assed 1/4 inch anchor line, in which case it comes un-done on your second heave.Back up by a power pole for more metal. This time I found a 12" lag bolt and a couple of pieces of aluminum wire. Twisted the wire onto the ends of the bolt after tying the bolt to my anchor line... looked kinda like a big "H". I started heaving that thing out there over and over. About 12 heaves in, lo and behold up comes my rod by the reel end. I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand, cussed a little bit, and actually came a little closer to crying this time. I was SO stoked to get my rod back. I paddled back(fighting the wind)to the truck and loaded up to go home. No bites today, and no fish. Starting to re-think this whole pontoon thing. I always catch fish outta the bellyboat.
