Tournament Fishing With Uncle Fishmeal

by Dave Watts
(Who is Dave Watts & what else has he written?)

I've been tournament fishing in the mid Atlantic for many years with Uncle Ralph. He is like the guy in the Li'l Abner cartoon - Joe Btfsplk - always walking around with a rain cloud over this head. We call him "Uncle Fishmeal." You ask why? Well, his last will and testament still provides that upon his death his ashes are to be spread upon the Potomac River at sunrise so all the largemouth bass will know they are now safe. I would like to share some tales of tournament fishing with Uncle Fishmeal . . . an above average guy who just never quite makes it.

First, there is the trailer - his perpetual nemesis. He has never solved a trailer light problem. To him, it is all black magic. They either work or they don't. He carries nothing to fix them, except an extra can of beer to calm his anxieties. If the lights don't work, he still goes. On the rare occasion he's tried to solve a light problem, he simply draws on personal experience. Once he even decided to use Vaseline to keep the electrical connections from rusting. It worked! He wistfully hopes it will do the same for him!

Recently traveling south on I-95, we were greeted by the Virginia State Police. As usual, the trailer lights were not working. The ground wire was loose and needed to be reconnected. As we sat on the side of the road, I was dutifully educated on Virginia motor vehicle safety laws. Did you know that, if the trailer has brakes, under Virginia law it needs to be inspected annually and display on the port side of the trailer tongue the inspection decal? I didn't. Neither did Uncle Fishmeal.

Trying to make the tournament check in time, I hoped to talk Virginia's finest into just a verbal warning - letting us get on our way. I marshaled up all my lawyer pleading skills and "charm." I failed. Uncle Fishmeal got one of those expensive tickets, and we lost more than 30 minutes. The delay included spending 15 minutes fishing through the glove compartment trash for the trailer registration. He couldn't remember where the darn thing lived. Like the mule you got to hit upside the head to get its attention, I now keep the truck and boat registration together. While Uncle Fishmeal has never been prevented from participating in a bass tournament with an uninspected trailer (illegal?), we were out of this one. Too late for the check in.

Trailer tires are also troublesome to Uncle Fishmeal. He finds it hard to back the trailer into those almost impossible places where gas stations put air pumps, particularly as age has locked up his swivel neck. So, he just doesn't check the air pressure. Well, as one might predict, on the way to a tournament an under inflated trailer tire over heated and blew. No problem, we thought. We jacked up the trailer and put on the spare. Unfortunately, putting air in the spare was also not on his radar screen last time he visited the gas station. The spare tire was almost flat. We did put it on, but had to travel at just 40 mph down the road with the flasher on until we got to a gas station and could add air. Again, we missed the check in time. This mule now carries an electric air pump in the car and bought an air compressor for the garage.

Uncle Fishmeal is at heart a research scientist. He discovered, for example, that at 70 mph a Buddy Bearing, if not properly installed, will jump off the axle and travel 415.23 feet down the highway before landing in the ditch. In fact, if he slowed down quickly, upon hearing the ping, clank, bong sound of the rolling metal cylinder, the Buddy would actually pass him on the road. Once they've skipped down the highway, however, they don't fit. Duck tape does work, at least to keep the grease in the axle until you can limp to a gas station to leave the trailer for the day. The competition for that tournament was limited to finding and installing new Buddy bearings. This mule now carries extras.

Trailer wheel bearings are another challenge. He never carries them. While driving to a tournament at Smith Mountain Lake, he burned out a bearing on the boat trailer. A close inspection of the Buddy Bearing revealed that the grease levels were low to non existent. He had to get a flat bed wrecker to take the boat and trailer to a marina, where he discovered that trailer bearings are not a "standardized" item. The good news is that UPS and Fed Ex over night service can get you new bearings in 48 hours, and hopefully installed the next day. Not bad! He was only "down" for 72 hours. At least he was better off than one fisherman in the marina who not only lost his bearings, but scared the axle. It takes two weeks to get a new axle from the trailer manufacturer and have it installed. I am still ambivalent about carrying bearings in my truck. Seems a little too paranoid. But, this mule now checks the grease level in the bearings before heading down the road on a trip lasting more than an hour.

Uncle Fishmeal never paid much attention to the height off the ground of his trailer hitch. Too high, too low, he didn't know. But being a research scientist are heart, he made an important discovery. I call it the Fishmeal Law of Trailer Physics. The law goes like this - if too much or too little weight is placed on the hitch, high speed, emergency stops are exciting and unpredictable. If too high, the rear of the car is lifted off the ground, traction lost, and the trailer will jack knife. Too low the trailer buries the rear end of the car, lifting the front tires off the ground. When this happens, the trailer steers the car anywhere it pleases. Trust me, Uncle Fishmeal has done both, and missed the tournament check in each time. I was just glad to arrive alive, regardless of the time.

He did, however, eventually make a significant discovery - not of Nobel prize quality, but impressive for a bass fisherman. His trailer actually has the height of the hitch right on the tongue of the trailer itself, i.e., "hitch is to be 18" plus or minus an inch off the ground." The maker of my trailer was not so helpful, but this mule placed a mason's level on the trailer tongue to make sure it is not running up or down stream. Not too difficult for a fisherman?

Keys are another tournament killer. There is the time Uncle Fishmeal left the boat keys at home. What a wonderful tournament, fishing around the ramp with the electric trolling motor - all day. Maybe if I won something rather than getting DQ'd, my attitude might be different. Or, there was the time his car keys fell in the river. His last wife made the 5-hour round trip drive to deliver a new set. They're now divorced. Clearly true love! My best memory, however, was watching Uncle Fishmeal putting all the boat keys on a white and blue plastic bobber. When the keys eventually fell overboard, he declared no problem. They will float. Wrong. This experiment in physics was a disaster. The weight of all the keys exceeded the specific gravity of the bobber. They sank ever so slowly to the bottom, never again to be seen. Should he have checked first in shallow water to see if the clump of keys would float?

This mule now carries three sets of car keys and two sets of boat keys. The car keys go in my pocket, the boat glove compartment, and the tool box in the car. The boat keys are in the boat glove compartment and the extra set in the car tool box.

Batteries can also lead to an "Oh s_ _ t" fishing trip. With so many batteries in different styles, Uncle Fishmeal gets confused. We showed up at the dock, launched the bass boat, and then sat dead in the water. The battery had no cranking power. He just made it back to the dock on the trolling motor. We got a jump start from the competition, but our day was doomed from the "get go." Uncle Fishmeal thought he had sealed gel batteries. He forgot that the marina had installed deep cycle wet batteries. In the hot summer days on the Potomac, the battery water levels had gotten real low - down into the plates. The batteries would not even take a charge, let alone work.

As the non-boater, I always thought my obligations ended when the boat trailer was backed into the water, with the boater responsible for getting the boat on the trailer. Well, I was wrong that day. My duties were summarily redefined. I had to get into the water, push the boat up on the trailer and then wench the boat back up onto the trailer. We then went fishing for new batteries.

One time, when we were out of town fishing, Uncle Fishmeal had another opportunity to further advance the science of physics. He thought he could motor through some mud and weeds - just power up the trolling motor and go for it. Wrong. In this experiment the density of the mud exceeded the horse power of the trolling motor. We soon smelled the odor of an electrical fire. He burned out the circuit board in the foot peddle. As a result, the motor had only one speed - wide open. We went home early. A canoe paddle is no replacement! This old mule now carries an extra trolling motor - in the truck.

We were fishing on the James River one July afternoon, when everything on the boat went dead. Nothing worked - a complete electrical failure. I checked the circuit on the key switch and even jumped the wires. That was not the problem. So, I took off the motor hood, and looked inside. The fuse was fine. The trolling motor was working, but that would be along trip, as we were up one of those wandering tidal creeks. This time Uncle Fishmeal was prepared . . . he thought. He pulled out his cell phone, figuring a call for help would save the day. The cell phone read "no service." Now what?

Being truly up the creek without a paddle, we had to resort to self help. I wiggled all the wires and then kicked the motor. When Uncle Fishmeal turned the key, sparks flew from the port side of the started motor. Success. The bolt grounding the motor and all the electronics was loose, shorting out the whole system. Once tightened with my on board socket wrench set, we were back in the tournament. The next Monday this mule bought a marine radio, hand held, just in case.

In truth - these worst case scenarios have all happened to fishing friends and family. Good luck, and I hope you get to the tournament on time! Uncle Fishmeal and I look forward to the competition, whenever we make it.