If something didn’t hurt when I woke up, I would think I was dead. That is supposed to be joke but it is an all-too-true statement of getting old. 

Our bodies were not designed to last this long. I think my warranty ran out years ago and there are no replacement parts available.  I always said I would rather wear out than rust out, and still believe it, but it gets harder and harder to keep the parts moving and rust free every year.

That is one good thing about fishing, it can be done at any age.  I have had to adjust the way I fish; I can no longer stand with one foot on my trolling motor foot pedal and fish for eight hours in a tournament. Now I slowly get up from the driver’s seat pulling up on a handle on the console, hold on to the windshield and carefully move up sit down on the front seat. But I can still fish!

Backing my boat down the ramp, hopping out and crawling across the truck bed to get to the boat and back it off the trailer is no longer easy.  Without friends in the bass clubs doing it for me I would not be able to fish three tournaments each month.

When I fish by myself I tie a rope to the front of the boat and the other end to the trailer, slowly back the boat off and ease the truck forward, pulling the boat back to the bank with the rope.  That would cause major problems and slow everything down at a tournament.

Another thing I used to love doing makes it  frustrating to not be able to cut, split and stack wood like I did for years. I never really had to do it to heat my house but always enjoyed all parts of it from cutting to burning the wood.

Both my parents died in their mid-70s. When I retired, I hoped, if I was like them, I had about 25 good fishing years left. That was 22 years ago!

Make the most of every day right now before you run out of them!