It was WAY too long since I set my eyes on "My River Pro" so I had to take the few hours I had last night and go pick her up from storage. It was a 13 mile trip through traffic that seemed like it took forever, but finally I set my eyes on her for the first time in 6 months. She was a little dusty from storage but no worse for ware and looked like she could head right out for the 2007 maiden voyage. After sharing a quick adult beverage with the storage owner we got her loaded up and we started back on the trip back home. I had been working on her spot in the garage for two weeks. As she blew off some of the winters dust on the trip home, I could hear her begging to be dropped in the river up near Otsego but I just couldn't...
See there are a few things to be done to her before the maiden voyage in a few short weeks. Might give her a good cleaning, install some rod holders, tighten some screws, maybe some storage containers, just add a few extras things to make her feel even more special. In just a few weeks that shallow river current won't have anything on us, just like last year. We got through a lot of low water last year where many others couldn't go and she handled the rapids just fine when we came upon them. She will look as sleek and graceful taking the rapids and current going both up and down stream, as she did last year.
Does it catch fish you ask? Let me tell you for a river novice like me I consider our first year on the river a huge success. A few small pike, a couple handful of red-horse sucker when we wanted to sit back and sip some suds and drowned some crawlers, tons of the younger river smallies, multiple 17"+ smallmouth were caught. The biggest being an absolute PIG 19" smallie (my biggest ever) that was a blast in the current. An old buddy (Alex) even got to liking her when he and I got her out last fall that had the temperatures feeling like we should be ice fishing, but she caught us my first Mississippi River walleye. She had a little difficulty going upstream that day due to the Coon Rapids Dam being opened for draw down, but she accomplished to find some other deeper pools filled with fish. We proceeded to catch a few smallies and that walleye that day, but she also stayed steady and helped us accomplish our main goal and not fall in the chilly fall river water.
As she sit's in the garage I know she is ready, even without the cleaning and rod holders. The problem is her rider is not; batteries need to be charged, some of the rods and reels still need line, the tackle still needs to be cleaned and organized, her female owner (my wife) needs to have her future rider / our first child, and then there is the true walleye opener up in Grand Rapids with buddies. She will most likely be left at home that weekend as we have a long summer ahead of us on the river and she has to rest up and look after mom and baby that weekend.
I have without a concern that she will once again have her riders enjoying a lazy trip up or down river taking in the scenery and even possibly putting her riders on some fish as she did all of last year. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely shinier, smaller, sleeker "River Pros" out there, but I know one thing a trip down any river in the great state of MN in her with others enjoying the scenery is some of the best time there is. Here is to a great 2007 river season "My River Pro"... Fish ON!!!
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Topic: "My River Pro" has landed... (Read 1566 times)
