Days like Sunday, April 11 make me wonder why I am addicted to bass fishing. Seven members of the Flint River Bass Club fished our April tournament at Lake Oconee. After eight hours of casting we brought four bass weighing about seven pounds to the scales. There were no limits and four us zeroed.
Jerry Regan won with two bass weighing 3.57 pounds, Don Gober had one at 2.01 pounds for second and big fish and Phil King’s one weighing 1.65 pounds was third. That was it.
It was a weird trip for me. AS week ago Sunday night after a shower I stepped out and the cool air hitting my body made me go into chills, shivering uncontrollably. I was miserable all night.
Last Tuesday, after two very bad nights with chills and body aches, I tested positive for both Covid and the flu! I had my second vaccine dose on March 24 but a second more accurate test Tuesday afternoon confirmed the Covid, even after the vaccine.
I did not feel terrible during the day but at night I hurt, to the point moving cover on my skin made me want to cry in pain. It felt like every muscle, joint and bone in my body ached.
Tuesday I took Tylenol every six hours and put some by the bed. That kept the pain down and I was able to sleep some, and felt better Wednesday morning and the fever was gone.
The doctor that gave me the test said I was the first they had to test positive after the vaccine, and warned me to quarantine myself for ten days. A few hours later I got a call from the state health department asking questions about where I had been and who I had contact with during the past two weeks. And they told me to quarantine myself until Wednesday this week.
I felt fine Thursday and Friday, night and day. I decided me alone in my truck going to the lake and in my boat alone on the lake was quarantine and fished the tournament. Plus, I was going stir crazy in the house!
To add to my woes, when I checked the boat Friday night, oil was dripping very slowly from my motor lower unit. Saturday morning, I tried to add oil to it. You have to remove two screws and pump the oil from the lower one to the top one. I pumped enough to see some oil come out the top hole and stopped.
Last summer I hit something and bent the prop shaft a little, just enough to let the oil leak out without my knowledge, and it cost me $4500.00 to fix it.
Every time I cranked up Sunday I could hear the “clunk” in my mind of the motor locking up last year.
I idled around a little, never leaving sight of the ramp and never getting on plane, and fished close by. That is my excuse for not catching a fish, I could not go to where I won the Sportsman Club tournament at Oconee three weeks ago!