A Day of Fishing With My Best Friend

            Throughout this whole summer I have discovered so many new ponds that I will be able to fish from. I was never really into this entire pond fishing thing before, because I honestly had no idea that there were so many ponds around this area. But one day, after a tragic breakup with a guy I was going out with for a long time, my friend Brandi texted me and she asked me if I wanted to go out and go fishing with her. Fishing is obviously my favorite thing to do, and what better way to get your mind off of everything than to go out and go fishing!

 Brandi is my best friend; I’ve known her for about a year and a half now. We went to school together and we almost had every class with each other! We also went over to the skill center together, and were in the same class there as well. The dental program, which we both hated, but she’s still planning on pursuing her dream to become a dental assistant, which is fantastic! I think Brandi and I get along so well is because we are both so much alike. We both have our own little farms at our houses; hers consists of goats and a horse, while mine has pigs, chickens, and turkeys. That’s just something we have in common, and always go to each others houses just to see one another’s animals.

             

After she asked me to go fishing I said yes, so she said that she would come pick me up in a little bit and we’d have to stop off at the store to get worms. She came and picked me up, and we were on our way to go fishing. I had no idea where we were even going! Come to find out there’s a pond at the end of the road that my ex boyfriend lives on, and that’s where she took me to go fishing. She didn’t mean to hurt me or anything like that, by driving past his house to get to this pond; this was just some place that her and her boyfriend always went fishing at. It was a cute little pond in the middle of these woods, but the creepy thing was there was this odd family camping by the side of the pond which really freaked me out.  

           

So we got out there, and we got our poles all ready to cast out there. But the spot we were standing by was so weedy, out lines kept getting caught. Brandi even lost one of her boyfriend’s new lures! It was kind of a horrifying experience, to say the least. We didn’t stay there for long at all, we left there after about twenty minutes then we went to Northwood’s in Pinconning to get her boyfriend Chase a new lure. After we did that, she asked if I still wanted to go fishing, and I said well of course, why not? So she decided we were going to go to Chase’s house in Standish to go fishing on the river behind his place. Chase and his family were all up north camping for the weekend anyways, so it was just me and Brandi trying to actually have a good time fishing. The first cast I threw out got stuck in these weeds pretty bad, guess what? Lost another one of Chase’s lures, pretty sure he wasn’t going to be happy with us when he got back from camping!

           

As we were walking around we found Chase’s brothers little pedal boat. Brandi and I put that into the water and just pedaled around for a while, and we just talked for hours. It was such a nice time, to just be with my best friend and get rid of all my thoughts and worries. We never did catch anything during this little fishing trip, but it was still one of the best fishing experiences that I’ve ever had and I will never forget it! With this fishing experience, I learned that you need to appreciate the little things in life while they last. Coming from the fact that I now have a job, school, and a serious boyfriend it’s hard to make time for things, while Brandi also has a good job and plenty of other things going on in her life. We haven’t got to see each other at all this summer, but I know I can still count on her for everything. Maybe, this winter we’ll both have some time off to go ice fishing together! 

And this is just a photo of Brandi and I on the pedal boat that day we went fishing together. 

The Big Storm

So, this is one of the most horrifying experiences I’ve ever had fishing. My family and I all got up one Saturday morning, and decided we were going to go fishing. We checked the weather for Ogemaw County, because we were planning on going to sage lake and that’s where it is located. The weather seemed perfect, just a few slight showers here and there. So we decided we were going to pack everything up and head out. We got the boat hooked up and the snacks all packed, and we were set. There was a certain gas station on the way there that was in front of a dairy farm, and I always loved stopping there. You knew you were getting close from the wonderful, yes wonderful, smell of cow poop. So we stopped at this gas station to make sure the gas tank for the boat motor was full, we also filled the truck up and made sure we had enough snacks and drinks. Everything was set, and we were back on our way to the lake.

We got to the lake and the sky was covered in clouds, enough clouds to cover the sun but it was still a bit bright out. We didn’t let that bother us, we put the boat on the water and we went and fished and swam a little, we were having a great time. It was at this point where things started to get a little sketchy. My dad, brother, and I were in the water swimming. My mom never really cared to swim in lake water, but she still paid close attention to us. The wind started to pick up, and you could feel the temperature starting to drop. Then we started to hear thunder, we were all scared we didn’t expect the weather to be this way! So we all hopped in the boat as fast as we could and my dad started taking us into shore. He was trying to get out of there as fast as he could, because really who wants to get stuck in the lake if it starts lightening? Sure as heck not me!

           

We made it to the dock, and the way the parking lot is set up for sage lake is the parking lot is across the road from the actual lake. So my mom, brother and I stayed by the boat waiting for my dad to bring the truck and trailer over to us. As we were there waiting my mom told my brother and I to grab a hold of the dock, she was afraid of us blowing away! That’s how bad this wind was. My dad finally showed up at the dock, we got the boat on the trailer and everything else packed into the truck. We were out of there faster than I could remember. We started our journey back home, this was honestly the worst part of everything! The closer we were getting to home the worse the storm got, the rain was coming down so hard we could barely see. The wind was blowing so hard that the boat trailer was swaying back and forth. I remember my dad saying he wanted to unhook the boat trailer and just go home because he was so scared that it would go out of control and cause an accident. But he kept it on the truck, and we ended up making it home safe. No one got hurt during all of this. But it was honestly one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me, and I think about it every time we go up to Sage Lake. 

There's a First Time for Everything!

So, I remember this day like it was yesterday. My dad came home from work one afternoon, and he surprised us with this twelve foot aluminum boat. Just this boat in the bed of his truck, he did not have a trailer for this thing. He was so excited though, that was the happiest I’ve seen him in a while. He was excited to take the boat out and have the whole family together. We didn’t end up going fishing that exact night, we waited until the weekend.

                We got ready on Sunday morning, which happened to be father’s day, to take the boat out on the lake. We ended up going out to clear lake, which is in Rose City. So we arrived at the lake, and may I remind you that this boat did not have a motor, my dad paddled this twelve foot aluminum boat with four people in it all around the lake. We stopped and we fished, and we also stopped to swim a couple of times. We all had quite a bit of fun, I mean my dad’s arms were pretty sore that night but it was a great time. We ended up going out on the boat every weekend my dad had off, but the paddling was starting to get old and annoying. So after a couple times of that, my dad decided to invest in a boat trailer and a little Nissan 10hp motor for the back of our boat.

                After we invested in that we started going fishing much more, and it was a blast! With a little boat like that, and that motor it felt like we were just cruising on top of that water like no other! It was always great to get the family together out on the water, but a twelve foot boat doesn’t last forever. My brother and I were just little so we had a lot of growing up to do, and as we got older the boat got much smaller. So one weekend my dad wanted to take the family for a ride to his friend’s house. We pulled into the driveway of his friend’s house, and he had this big boat sitting in his drive way. It was one of the nicest boats I’ve ever seen! We all got out of the car, and my dad’s friend came out to greet us. Come to fund out, my dad was buying the boat off of this guy, and we were all so excited! We hooked the boat up to the truck and we took it home that night.

                That upcoming weekend we were planning on taking our new boat out on the water for some fun! We had everything all hooked up, and all of our snacks packed, we were ready to roll. We got to whatever lake my dad decided to go that day, we put the boat in the water and my dad went and parked the truck, now it was time to start her up and take off. This boat had an old 90hp motor on the back, and it had the steering wheel built in and everything. So my dad started her up and she didn’t sound so lovely, but she was rolling. We got out to our spot and put the poles in the water and were just having a jolly old time, but now it was time to go back in and go home. My dad went to go start her up, and she wouldn’t start! She just sat there and stalled and stalled, I couldn’t believe this was happening to us! Luckily my dad put our old Nissan on the back of this boat, because without her we would’ve been stranded out there! So what I learned from this story is to always make sure that you can count on your boat motor before you plan a nice day out on the lake.

                I did have a ton of fun that day, but it was also very scary, just another day that I’ll never forget. 

The reason I chose this topic is, fishing has always been something I have been into since the day I could walk. I love all sorts of fishing, from spending my days out on the bay during the cold winter months, to spending the day out by the pond during the summer. The many types of fishing is what makes me love it so much more!

The first time I’ve ever tried fishing was ice fishing out on the bay here in Pinconning. My dad took me out there one morning with the snowmobile, it was a terrifying experience to say the least. The snow was drifted over so bad, that the snowmobile kept tipping over! It was also one of the coldest days I could remember, and we didn’t even catch any fish.  But from there on out, my dad and I went ice fishing every winter. It was something that brought us together, we could sit out there and talk for hours about everything. My dad was, and still is my best friend, and even to this day I love to go out and go ice fishing with him. Ice fishing is by far my favorite type of fishing, because you can see straight into the water, and see when a fish is going to bite your hook. It’s just so exciting, and I absolutely love it!

This past summer, I discovered that there was a pond down the road from my house. I’ve been living in the house for five years now, and never knew anything about this pond! One day a couple friends of mine wanted to hang out, they told me we were going to go fishing, I had another pond in mind, but we stopped at the end of my road. I was so confused to what we were doing! We had to park the truck on the side of the road, and grab our fishing poles and walk out into the woods to go to this pond. The walk back there is the worst, its muddy, and the water is up to your knees! Once you get to the pond its much better though, it’s so beautiful. This pond is also filled with some good sized bass! I find pond fishing really peaceful and relaxing, it is my second favorite type of fishing. During the summer my brother and I would go out to the pond and we would go fishing all the time, and it was so much fun. We didn’t always catch anything, but it was still nice to just spend time with each other. That’s why I love fishing so much, I feel as if it brings people closer together.