Monthly Archives: September 2026

A Fishing Trip Full of Unwanted Surprises

30 Wednesday Sep 2026

Posted by in Fishing, Kayaking, Life, Retirement, Uncategorized, Weather

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Rick and I arrived at the launch before the sun had even decided it was time to get out of bed. It was still dark enough that I had to use my little pin light to load the kayak.

It was around 55 degrees, which is pretty darn cool for me. I know there are people who think 55 degrees is perfect fishing weather, but I’m not one of those people. My problem with wearing a jacket is that I know what’s going to happen. The temperature will eventually climb high enough that I’ll want to take it off, and then I have to find somewhere to store it.

Kayak storage is a precious commodity. There’s only so much room for fishing rods, tackle, food, drinks, and all the other stuff I have convinced myself I absolutely need.

So, I decided to take my jacket off and put it back in my truck. Unfortunately, I had already put my truck keys in my dry bag.

That put a little wrinkle in my plan.

I decided to just put the jacket behind my seat and deal with it later.

Rick wanted to paddle about a mile and a half downstream to what we call the “second waterfall” to start his fishing expedition. It’s one of two spillways that drain from a settling pond created by the coal mining company that owns the land.

I had a different plan.

I wanted to fish on the other side of the bridge near the launch site because I had a brand-new topwater lure I was anxious to try.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had changed all of my fishing lines to braided line with a five-to-seven-foot fluorocarbon leader. I use a double Uni knot to join the two different lines together.

The double Uni knot works great on a spinning reel because the eyelets on those rods are fairly large. Unfortunately, baitcasting rods have much smaller eyelets, and the knot has a tendency to get hung up when it passes through them.

My new topwater lure was attached to one of my baitcasting reels.

On my very first cast, I noticed the knot hitting the eyelet at the end of the rod. I immediately thought, “This could become a problem.”

Then, on that same first cast, a fish boiled up at the lure but didn’t actually take it.

My heart jumped.

Fish on the first cast? Well, sort of.

I cast back toward the same general area, hoping I could convince the fish to give me another chance. The sound of my lure hitting the water just inches from my kayak told me something had gone terribly wrong.

I knew immediately what had happened.

The reel had backlashed.

And not just a little.

I had created a bird’s nest that probably could have provided shelter for an entire family of birds.

I took the topwater lure off that rod and grabbed another baitcasting combo. I swapped the lure over and made another cast.

When I reeled it in, something didn’t feel right. It was unusually difficult to turn the handle. I made a few adjustments to the drag and cast the lure back out.

Almost immediately, a fish came flying out of the water and grabbed it.

Finally!

I set the hook and started reeling.

Except the more I turned the handle, the harder it became to turn.

Within a couple of seconds, the reel completely stopped working.

Apparently, my fishing equipment had decided it was going to participate in the adventure too.

I laid the rod down in the kayak, grabbed the fishing line with my hands and started pulling the fish in manually.

I could tell it was a good-sized fish because every time it dove toward deeper water, the line dug into my hands.

Eventually, I got the fish close enough to see it.

That’s when I noticed something else.

The lure wasn’t in the fish’s mouth.

It was hooked in the side of the fish just beyond the gills.

I managed to get the fish close enough to lip it, pulled it into the kayak and removed the hook.

The fish weighed nearly three pounds.

I was pretty happy about that.

After releasing the fish, I changed out the broken baitcasting reel for a spare and put the topwater lure on it.

The very next cast, another fish grabbed the lure.

It jumped completely out of the water, apparently just to make sure I knew it had been hooked.

At that point, I was thinking this might turn into one of those days where I caught a multitude of fish.

That didn’t happen.

That was the last fish I caught on the topwater lure.

I ended the day with three fish total—two on the topwater lure and one on a plastic worm.

The wind eventually picked up, making it difficult to keep the kayak in one place. Anyone who has fished from a kayak knows that once the wind gets strong enough, you stop fishing and start operating a very inefficient watercraft.

I fished until nearly 11:00 a.m. and then started making my way back toward the launch.

I arrived around 11:45 and beached the kayak. As I was getting into my truck to start loading everything, I saw Rick paddle his way toward the launch.

He told me he had caught seven or eight fish.

Seven or eight.

I had caught three.

And the really irritating part was that Rick hadn’t spent the morning fighting backlashes, replacing reels, or wrestling with fishing equipment that appeared to be plotting against him.

I was a little jealous, to say the least.

But the excitement wasn’t over.

Not even close.

I use a simple paracord latching system to secure my kayak to my truck. I hook one end to one side of the truck, run the cord through the handle on one side of the kayak, pull it over my fishing rods, run it through the handle on the other side and connect it to the other side of the truck. Then I cinch everything down tight.

I’ve used this system for years and never had a problem.

Until this day.

About halfway home, I heard a loud thump.

I immediately looked in the rearview mirror.

I didn’t see my camera pole.

My first thought was that it had somehow come loose and fallen off the truck.

I pulled over in someone’s yard and jumped out to see what was going on.

That’s when I discovered something slightly more important than my missing camera pole.

My kayak was gone too.

The thump I had heard wasn’t my camera pole hitting the road.

It was my kayak bouncing off the bed of my truck and landing on the pavement.

Apparently, my kayak had decided it had enough of being transported and wanted to see the world on its own.

I jumped back into the truck, looked around to make sure nobody was coming and quickly turned around.

It didn’t take long to find my kayak.

It was partly in the middle of the road and partly in someone’s front yard.

I pulled over across the road, got out and immediately noticed something else.

My fishing rods were nowhere to be found.

They had apparently decided to go on their own adventure too.

I grabbed the kayak, dragged it across the road and managed to get it loaded back onto the truck.

I turned on my emergency flashers and started walking down the road looking for my missing equipment.

Eventually, I found all five of my rods scattered along the side of the road.

I was extremely lucky.

There was no one directly behind me when the kayak decided to disembark.

Had someone been following closely, this story could have ended with me explaining to an insurance company why my kayak decided to attack somebody’s vehicle.

When I got home, I unloaded everything from the kayak so I could turn it over and inspect the damage.

Other than some scuff marks where it had hit the pavement, the kayak actually looked to be in pretty good shape.

Of the five rods that went flying, two sustained some damage to the eyelets. I’ll have to make some adjustments to them before I can use those rods again.

After looking over the tie-down system, I think I figured out what happened.

When I pulled the paracord tight, the knot apparently worked its way through the cam. Once that happened, the rope loosened and the kayak was free to make its great escape.

I’ve made what I hope is a simple correction.

I’ve added a second knot to the line so that if the first knot somehow works its way through the cam again, the second knot will catch it.

At least that’s how it works in theory.

And as I’ve learned from this particular fishing trip, theory and actual fishing don’t always have a lot in common.

I went fishing expecting to catch some fish.

Instead, I caught three fish, broke a reel, created a bird’s nest, damaged two fishing rods and watched my kayak take itself for a ride down the highway.

Rick caught seven or eight fish.

I’m pretty sure he had the better day.

But I did get home with my kayak.

So I guess there’s that.

Trying a New Approach at Fishing

28 Monday Sep 2026

Posted by in Fishing, Kayaking, Life, Uncategorized

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I had a lengthy text conversation with one of my fishing buddies recently. He’s the one who seems to average about 10 fish every time he goes fishing.

I, on the other hand, average around two.

So naturally, I listen very carefully when he starts talking about fishing.

He has told me about a couple of plastic worms that he uses. In fact, he has made some personal modifications to one of them. He’s even told me exactly what he has done and has given me a couple to try.

I’ve caught most of my fish on “his” worm.

That should probably tell you something.

I’ve been fishing since I was a little kid. My dad would take me to my granddad’s pond, where we fished for catfish. Our fishing technique was pretty advanced back then. We put some bait on a hook, attached a bobber to the line, and threw it in the water.

When the bobber went under, I pulled on the line.

And if everything went according to plan, I caught a catfish.

Pretty complicated stuff.

I didn’t start fishing for bass until I was an adult. The company I worked for had an annual fishing tournament on Good Friday, and I was fortunate enough to fish with several different people who had their own boats.

Eventually, I had the opportunity to buy my own boat. I purchased a 16-foot fish-and-ski with a 90-horsepower motor. I kept that boat for several years until the cost of maintaining it started becoming more than I wanted to spend. Eventually, I sold it.

During the years I owned that boat, I probably made 50 or 60 fishing trips.

And I didn’t catch many fish.

Looking back, I’m pretty sure I know why.

I mainly used crankbaits. I never really used plastic worms because I had no idea how to properly fish one.

I remember one of our Good Friday tournaments before I bought my boat. I was fishing with a coworker who actually lived on the lake where the tournament was being held. I watched what he was doing, used the same plastic worm he was using and proceeded to catch absolutely nothing.

He won the tournament.

Apparently, the worm wasn’t the problem.

The idiot holding the fishing rod was.

Fast-forward to 2018.

I drove about six hours to a friend’s house and purchased her kayak. She needed the money, and I needed a kayak. It seemed like a pretty good arrangement.

At first, I only fished occasionally, and I didn’t have much luck catching anything. I was still stuck on a couple of crankbaits simply because I had caught a few fish on them.

Then I was talking to my wife’s cousin’s husband, and he started telling me about some different things I could try. One of them was, you guessed it, a plastic worm.

He told me what he was using and how he was using it.

The next time I went fishing, I caught a fish on a plastic worm.

So, naturally, I did what any intelligent fisherman would do.

I kept using that same worm.

And I caught several more fish.

Unfortunately, toward the end of that fishing season, I broke my foot. For the next 18 months, I spent most of my time sitting in a recliner and wasn’t able to do any fishing.

But once I was able to get back on the water, things started changing.

Last year, it is safe to say that I caught more fish in that one year than I had caught in my entire life. I was getting out at least once a week when the weather permitted, and I started experimenting with different colors and types of plastic worms.

Apparently, the fish didn’t get the memo that I wasn’t supposed to be good at this.

I’ve started keeping a record of how many fish I catch and how much they weigh. I just wish I had started doing that last year.

As of today, I’ve caught 31 bass weighing a total of 38 pounds.

That’s an average of just over 1.2 pounds per fish.

Of course, my fishing buddy would probably look at those numbers and wonder if I’m fishing in a bathtub.

But I’m making progress.

The funny thing is that people, myself included, tend to put way too much emphasis on catching fish.

Don’t get me wrong. I love catching a fish. There is still something pretty exciting about feeling that tug on the line, setting the hook and watching a big bass come to the surface.

And yes, I would love to catch a five-pound bass.

I’d probably tell everybody about it.

I’d probably tell people who don’t even fish about it.

But catching fish isn’t really the reason I go.

The real reason is the solitude.

There is something about sitting in a kayak in the middle of a creek or river with nobody else around for what seems like miles. No traffic. No phone calls. No television. No lawnmowers. Just me, the water and whatever wildlife happens to show up.

Sometimes I catch fish.

Sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I spend several hours throwing a worm into the same general area and wondering if the fish are laughing at me.

But I’m still out there.

And that’s what matters.

Last night, I spent several hours getting my fishing gear ready. I put new line on my reels and added a five-foot fluorocarbon leader to each one, just like my fishing buddy does.

Now we’ll see if all this new line and fancy leader material actually increases my chances of catching fish.

Of course, there’s still one variable I haven’t been able to replace.

The guy holding the fishing rod.

I guess we’ll see how he does.

What’s in my Kayak

18 Friday Sep 2026

Posted by in Family, Fishing, Kayaking, Life, Nature, Retirement, Uncategorized, Weight Loss

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As I’ve written about so many times, I love to fish.

I have a 12-foot Wilderness Systems kayak that I bought from a dear friend. It has become my little fishing machine, although I’m not sure the fish are nearly as impressed with it as I am.

I found the kayak on Facebook Marketplace when I was looking for one. The only problem was that my friend lived in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Nearly six hours from my house.

Surely, I could have found a kayak closer to home. But my friend was going through a difficult situation. Her husband had taken off and drained her bank account, and she desperately needed the money. I bought the kayak for $700, even though it was worth more than $1,500.

So I made the nearly six-hour drive to Knoxville.

Six hours there. Six hours back.

But I saved over $800.

I’m not sure if that qualifies as a bargain or just an excuse to spend twelve hours in my truck.

The most expensive piece of equipment on my kayak is my Garmin Striker Vivid 7cv fish finder.

Has it helped me catch more fish?

Probably not.

But it does tell me the water temperature, my direction of travel, water depth, sunken structures, and whether there are fish underneath me. It also tells me how fast I’m paddling.

And that’s probably the funniest feature on the entire thing.

I’m pretty sure I could get out and walk faster than I’m paddling.

The fish finder can show me the 37 fish directly underneath my kayak.

What it can’t tell me is why those 37 fish are ignoring everything I throw at them.

I also made myself a fishing crate out of a milk crate. It holds my soft plastics, hooks, weights, and crankbaits. It sits behind me, making everything easy to reach.

It’s even easier to get to now that I’ve lost all my weight.

There was a time when reaching behind me required some planning.

Now I can reach things without wondering if I’m going to flip the kayak.

I carry four rods and reels with me. None of them are what you would call professional equipment. I don’t think I’ve paid more than $100 for any of them.

I have always believed that you can catch just as many fish with a cheap setup as with an expensive one.

Of course, I have absolutely no scientific evidence to support this theory.

It’s just what I tell myself when I’m standing in the fishing aisle looking at a $300 rod.

I’ve spent several hundred dollars on tackle over the last few years. I’m constantly researching what the fish might be biting, looking at new lures and trying to figure out what might work.

I also have a friend who catches a lot more fish than I do, so I pay close attention to what he uses.

There is a lot of truth to the old saying that it’s not the equipment—it’s the person using it.

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to suspect that might be my problem.

But there is one piece of equipment I take with me that is more important than anything else in my kayak, other than my paddle.

My Garmin InReach.

The place where I do most of my fishing has absolutely no cell service. If I run into a problem, I’m on my own unless I have another way to communicate.

There are no houses nearby. No convenient little convenience store where I can walk in and say, “Hey, can I borrow your phone?”

So far, I’ve been lucky and haven’t had any serious problems.

Well, except for the treble hook incident.

I was fishing with my daughter when I managed to get a treble hook lodged into my thumb.

And when I say lodged, I mean lodged.

We were only about a quarter of a mile from the launch, so I had to paddle back, load the kayak into the truck and head to the emergency room to have it removed.

Thank goodness my daughter was with me to help load my truck. I couldn’t have done it without her.

I didn’t have the InReach back then, but fortunately, I didn’t need it.

And just for the record, getting a treble hook stuck in your thumb does not qualify as a true emergency.

It may qualify as an emergency in your own mind, but apparently emergency responders have higher standards.

The Garmin InReach is a satellite communicator. It allows me to send and recieve text messages through satellites to people I have programmed into the device.

More importantly, if I ever have a real emergency, there is an SOS button that I can activate to contact emergency responders.

Hopefully, I will never have to push it.

Because apparently, pushing that little button can get expensive.

Depending on how I need to be rescued, the cost could be more than $20,000.

Twenty.

Thousand.

Dollars.

At that price, I hope the rescue includes a helicopter, a steak dinner and someone carrying my kayak back to the truck.

Fortunately, Garmin offers an insurance option that can cover the cost of a rescue. I believe it costs around $40 a year.

That’s a pretty small price to pay when you consider what a rescue could cost.

The monthly service itself is also relatively inexpensive. I believe I pay around $15 a month and get 10 free messages each month. If my wife responds to one of my messages, it costs about 10 cents per message.

I use the InReach three times on almost every fishing trip.

The first message is sent when I start my trip. I let my wife and kids know that I’m heading out.

The second message comes somewhere around the middle of the trip. Basically, it’s my way of saying, “I’m still alive.”

The third message goes out when I’m finished fishing and loading everything back into the truck.

My wife usually responds to each message so I know she received it.

All together, that’s about 30 cents per fishing trip.

That’s cheaper than most of the lures I lose.

And I lose a lot of lures.

For me, the InReach isn’t really about fishing.

It’s about peace of mind.

If you fish, hike, hunt, kayak, or do anything outdoors where cell service is sparse or nonexistent, I highly recommend having some kind of satellite communication device.

I know my wife worries about me when I go fishing by myself. I also know that she feels better knowing that she will hear from me throughout the trip.

And I feel better knowing that if something really does go wrong, I have a way to call for help.

Hopefully, I’ll never need the SOS button.

I’d much rather continue sending my three little messages, catching a few fish, losing a few lures and occasionally getting a hook stuck in something that isn’t supposed to have a hook in it.

Preferably, that “something” will not be me.

Because as much as I love fishing, I really do like coming home afterward.

Fishing Was a Bad Idea

16 Wednesday Sep 2026

Posted by in Cancer, Fishing, Kayaking, Leukemia, Life, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

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I got up this morning and went fishing.

I’ll have to admit, it probably wasn’t the best decision I’ve made over the last few weeks. As I’m sitting here writing this, I’m completely exhausted.

The wind was horrible. And when I say horrible, I mean horrible. If it weren’t for someone fishing with me, I probably would have called it a day and headed home a whole lot sooner.

Once the wind picks up, fishing from a kayak stops being fun. You spend more time trying to stay in one spot than you do actually fishing. Paddle forward, drift backward. Paddle left, drift right. Before long, you start wondering if you’re actually fishing or just getting a really expensive upper-body workout.

A few weeks ago, I started taking a new CML medication. Within a few days, I was so fatigued and dizzy that I could hardly function. Since that was the only thing that had been added or changed, I naturally blamed the medication and stopped taking it.

After talking with my oncologist, he wanted me to stay off the medication for a couple of days and then start taking it again. I did that, and thankfully, the side effects weren’t nearly as bad the second time around. The fatigue is still there, but the dizziness has pretty much disappeared.

As it turns out, though, the medication may not have been the culprit after all.

My iron levels are extremely low. Low enough that I’m having to get an iron infusion once a week for the next three weeks in an effort to get my levels back up to something resembling normal.

That explains a lot.

It also explains why I’m so completely wiped out after this morning’s fishing trip. Between the low iron and that ridiculous wind, getting back to the launch took a lot longer than I had planned. I had to stop several times along the way just to rest and catch my breath.

Once I finally made it home, I was able to muster up enough energy to unload the truck and put all of my fishing gear away.

And that’s it.

That’s all I’ve got.

I’m done.

In fact, I’m so tired that I’m not even sure I have enough energy to take a nap.

Yes, you read that right. I’m too tired to nap.

I didn’t think that was possible.

Apparently, my body has decided that today is a good day to remind me who’s in charge. And after this morning, I think I’m going to listen.

The kayak can wait.

The fish can wait.

And, thankfully, the wind can wait too.

Right now, I think the best fishing strategy is going to be sitting in my recliner and trying not to move unless absolutely necessary.

Catching Up, Slowing Down, and a Growing Family

07 Monday Sep 2026

Posted by in Cancer, Family, Fishing, Kayaking, Leukemia, Life, Twins

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I’m behind on my WP blog reading. It’s been a rough couple of days with this fatigue. I’ve been doing pretty well with the dizziness, but between this extreme heat we’re having and the fatigue, life has slowed down to a crawl. I haven’t been doing much more than sleeping my life away.

Right now, I’m waiting on my phone to charge enough to last through the night so I can use it for my alarm in the morning. I’m going to try to go to bed early tonight, so once I’m done catching up, I’m calling it a night regardless of how much charge is left. 4 a.m. will come early, and I need to be up and moving so I can make it to Bible study by 6 a.m. Apparently, my body and I have different opinions about what constitutes a reasonable bedtime.

Because it’s been so hot, even in my garage, when I am awake, I’ve usually got my Kindle out, and I’m reading. I’ve started reading one of my favorite authors, John Grisham, again. I’ve read just about every book he’s written. I took inventory the other day and discovered I only have ten more books to read before I’ll be completely caught up.

He just came out with his latest book, and he already has another one scheduled to be published in 2028. Yep, I’ve already got that one on my “to read” list, too. I may be tired, but apparently I’m still organized enough to plan my reading schedule several years in advance.

My wife, my twin girls, and I also met up with my son’s future in-laws. My son wanted to use today’s holiday as an opportunity for all of us to finally meet. We had a great time getting to know them. They may be a little higher class than what we’re used to, but they are really nice people and were incredibly easy to talk to. I’m hoping we’ll have more opportunities to get together before—and even after—my son’s wedding.

Oh, by the way, my son is getting engaged next week.

They’ve already set the wedding date for sometime in March of next year. So, that makes two.

My daughter, who got engaged a few months ago, will be getting married in June, and my son will be getting married in March. That means we’ll only have one more to get married off.

At this point, I’m not sure when that will happen, but we’re not in any big hurry. I’m pretty sure my daughter isn’t either.

I do have a fishing date planned for this Wednesday. It may take me a little longer to get to my fishing hole because of this fatigue, but I’ve got it on my calendar anyway. Sometimes you just have to put something on the calendar and hope your body gets the memo.

So, I guess we’ve officially entered the “planning weddings” phase of life. Between that, Bible study, reading, fishing, trying to stay cool, and trying to convince my body that sleeping all day isn’t actually a hobby, plenty is going on around here.

I just wish I had a little more energy to actually participate in it.

Medication: Round Two

04 Friday Sep 2026

Posted by in Cancer, Leukemia, Life, Uncategorized, Weather

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After having a discussion with my oncologist, he wanted me to stay off the meds for a few days before starting them again. So, after being off the medication for those few days, I started back on it last Tuesday night.

The thought was that if any side effects were going to reappear after restarting the medication, they would probably show their ugly faces sometime Thursday or Friday morning. Well, it’s Friday afternoon, and so far, the only side effect I’m feeling is a little fatigue. I can handle that.

I haven’t really felt like doing much other than sitting around and reading, but I finally decided I needed to get up and start moving around.

I’ve started doing some more cleaning in the garage since I haven’t been able to do much out there with everything that’s been going on, including my daughter being in the hospital. I’ve also been trying to get a little yard work done.

Today, after breakfast, I got the hose out, hooked up the sprinkler, and started watering my front yard.

Apparently, Moses is out there somewhere with his arms stretched out, parting the rain and making sure it doesn’t fall on my yard. It’s raining everywhere else, but not here.

After securing the hose to the house and the other end to the sprinkler, I turned the water on. Then I had to sit down for a few minutes and rest up. With the heat we’re experiencing here—100 degrees plus—and the fatigue from the medication, it doesn’t take much to wear me out.

While the sprinkler was doing its thing, I stepped into the garage and started doing some much-needed cleaning. Although it’s a little bit of a “rob Peter to pay Paul” situation, I am making some progress.

I was able to make the path from my basement door to the house door much wider, so you’re a lot less likely to trip and fall. That may not sound like a major accomplishment, but when you’re trying to keep a garage organized, sometimes making a path you can actually walk through feels like a pretty big victory.

Of course, with this heat, even in the garage, it’s hard to do much without having to sit down and rest for a while.

After about three hours of watering the yard, I finally stopped the garage cleaning, turned off the water, and secured the hose.

Even with the heat and the fatigue, I managed to get a few things accomplished today. That feels pretty good.

I didn’t make it to the men’s Bible study last Saturday, so I’m looking forward to the fellowship tomorrow morning—assuming my side effects continue to cooperate.

Anytime you have a different medication introduced into your system, it’s always a good idea to pay attention to what your body is telling you and to be aware of the possible side effects. It’s also important to let your doctor know about anything unusual you’re experiencing.

One thing I learned from a lady who was part of the original clinical trial for one of the medications I was on at one time really stuck with me.

She explained that if, at any time during the study, someone came in with any kind of ailment—a headache, a stomachache, a rash, anything—it went into the report. If enough people came in reporting the same issue, regardless of whether it actually had anything to do with the medication or not, it could eventually become listed as a possible side effect.

That’s one reason it’s so important to pay attention, speak up, and keep your doctor informed.

For now, I’m taking things one day at a time, trying to stay active when I can, and being thankful that the dizziness hasn’t returned. Hopefully, things will continue moving in the right direction.