Bass Caddy Blog

I’m back!!!!!! After a long blob break I felt it was time to enlighten you folks a little more. Last years’ fishing trail was extremely exciting and loaded with adventure. As we prepared for this season a big turd landed in the punch bowl. The WBT was cancelled. Feel free to come to your own conclusion as to why. Me? Ithink the BIG BOYS are very afraid of the female angler they have to fish against in the Classic. But anyway, there seems to be no trail for the ladies to fish.

HAW- TO BUDDY! Like the idjit I am and as P.O.’D as I got over the WBT thing, I popped off to my wife that I should start my own trail.   Now, we all know my wife, she’s usually not into surprises, but she shocked me by saying go for it.   Apparently, she had such a good time last year fishing with the ” BIG GIRLS”, that she wanted more, and was very disappointed about not getting to fish with the girls this year (see her blog for more on her thoughts about this subject).   Anyway,  I talked to my good old friend Lee at Lake Fork and this dumb A– not only thought it was a good idea, but said he would partner with me and pull the trailer all over hell’s half acre in order for the ladies to have a venue to fish.   It actually surprised me how many “good old boys” thought how unfair it was that the ladies had gotten the rug pulled out from under them, and wanted to give the ladies a chance to do what they love to do, and in an atmosphere that was fun.  In simpler terms, a lot of guys would just like to see the gals get a fair shake.  Anyway, finding all of this out just encourages me to dig myself deeper.  I keep thinking how unfair all this is, and, being the “Mr. Fix-It” that I am, I want to do anything and everything in my power to fix it, and make it better for the women.

Now I’m in this deep. We start having meetings and laying down plans searching for a tourney trailer.  Every trailer we found someone either beat us to it or it cost an arm and a ham roast.  Neither of which I have a spare of.  So I finally got mad and said I was going to buy a new trailer and be done with it. (Did I mention I’m on a budget?) (not controlled by me, it’s you-kn0w-who who usually hangs on to the money real tight around here, but here again I was surprised to hear “go for it”.  Now this is getting scary.  So I head out and buy a nice 20 ft. car- hauler and drag it home, still in shock over even being told it was okay to get it in the first place.   Now this is just the beginning of the money outflo. Digital scales and a back- up system. Go for it.  A really nice P.A. system to play music and do weigh- ins.  Go for it.  Tubs to keep the fish alive in. Go for it.  A custom stage and podium.  Go for it.  Material to build an office in the trailer. Go for it. I hope you can begin to catch my drift here.  If this girl of mine wants to fish this badly,  then so be it.

Ladies and gents I am proud to announce the first day of the AMERICAN LADY ANGLERS TOURNAMENT TRAIL!!!!!!! Please feel to visit our web site www.americanladyanglers.com . Yes now I have two web pages to fret over. Please watch both pages to see the happenings as we build the ALA tourney trailer and post the trail events. I’m excited.

For today

I quit.

We are now on the second consecutive day of trying to answer the question - “What do we do about shirts?”  You guys out there may be innocently thinking (as I stupidly did) “Wear them?”  With a woman involved (specifically my lovely, but obsessive wife) it could never be that simple.  To get everyone on the same page, I’ll tell ya’ll how the issue started in the first place.  You may have read in one of my previous blogs that my wife is very concerned (meaning obsessed) with having the “proper” clothes to wear for any occasion, be it a formal function or a sporting event - in this case professional tournament fishing and personal appearances.  In the fishing world, much like the NASCAR world, sponsors contribute to assist an angler throughout the tournament trail, in return for the angler helping to promote the sponsor’s products.  One of the more obvious ways that a fisherman or fisherwoman promotes his or her sponsor is in wearing clothing items emblazoned with all manner of gaudy logos, slogans and websites, in effect becoming a walking billboard.  Terri has been a little  behind the curve in getting things going for the bass fishing season, partly because we didn’t make the final decision on whether she was going to be able to join the WBT and fish the season this year until November when it was time to take the leap and put down our money and sign up online.  After that was accomplished on the appointed date, I sat down in my recliner with a sigh of relief, thinking “I’m glad that’s over”.  Now I could relax until February or March when it was time to fish.  This seemed to coincide with my wife revving her engines into high gear and getting down to the “business” of fishing. 

I had no idea there was so much work involved off the water.  Simple, ignorant man that I am, I thought that most of the work involved with tournament fishing happened out on a big bunch of water somewhere. In a boat. With a fishing rod in hand.  According to my wife, I am woefully ignorant as to where the hard work of fishing actually happens.  Apparently the busy place is in our bedroom.  Now normally if there’s a flurry of activity happening in our bedroom, you could say that I’m pretty much “up” for the adventure and more than willing to dive right in and do my share.  Not in this case.  Not after the eye-rolling, you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me, men-are-so-pitifully-ignorant, take a deep breath and sigh reaction I got from the little woman after asking the sixty-four thousand dollar question.  “You’ve signed up - what’s left to do?’  She points across  the bedroom at her stack of labelled file boxes as tall as I am, full of books, papers, file folder, maps, and basically more stuff about fishing than I ever knew existed. I sigh in disappointment, knowing that I am not about to get anything except a lecture that I could have done without.

I can always count on my wife to come through for me with a way-too-long-and-involved answer to any question I am careless enough to blurt out without thinking.  Here’s the gist (or list) of what all my wife informed me is involved before a hook is ever thrown in the water.  Number one - get sponsors.  I understood that, I just didn’t understand that it involved things like presentations and proposals. I didn’t know fishing involved boardrooms. After sponsors are business cards, promotional pictures, websites, interviews and personal appearances - and all that is before the fishing season even starts.  Add to that my wife’s idea of being “prepared” to fish. The preparedness involves hours of reading and researching, checking and fine-tuning all of the equipment, and finally, and apparently most importantly, being personally prepared - which equals dressing for the part.  After much discussion and more researching, Terri presented me with my “options” as far as in my capacity as professional bass caddy. Put simply, there were no options. As a good husband and bass caddy, I’ll just shut up and let her dress me like a pet or a baby doll and take it like a man.  Anything to keep her happy. But, oh no! Big Problem! Now it’s gonna take too long and she is going to have to make a personal appearance, and we are going to have to fish, all without being properly attired. Seeing my wife rapidly going into one of her panic meltdown modes, I quickly come up with what I think are several perfectly acceptable alternative plans, which she immediately shoots down in flames.  Apparently she has narrowed it down to three options: Printing, patching, or stitching, or some variation of mix and match. I keep thinking,  “they’re shirts - just shirts!”

 Well we are day two of buying, then printing, patching, or stiching shirts.  I can’t even figure out why any one of these could not just take care of it. As a man, any of these would do.  Here’s what I’m faced with. I can go with patches. Sew them on - I’m cute and ready to fish. Give me a pocket to put my smokes in, and I’m cookin’, sometimes literally. And if it has extra pockets to put the honey’s make-up in, we’re extra-specially good to go. Now the problem lies in getting this done quickly. This is beyond belief. You can’t get any of this done quickly anywhere.  As a man I can slap some silk screen on and go. Not so with the lady in my life. Color choice, fit and form also come into to play. Now I know she could put on a toe-sack and mark it with chalk and be beautiful. I honestly think she is trying to soop me up. I must match her in color - we are a team. The fit can be some what looser for me. Thank God for that, cause if not I would look like 10 lbs of catfish in a 2 lb vaccuum pack bag. Iknow she loves me cause she makes sure I look good in public, most of the time. But anyway this shirt thing is really getting to us both. Just when we adapt to the issue a new one pops up. We have actually bought shirts only to find they were not what we needed in the first place. I refuse to return items purchased. This means we are stacking more unwanted attire up for a garage sale in the near future. This will be a big and fat boy sale of useless fishing and hunting attire. Good deals all around. MAN! A thought just struck. Maybe we could use our camo shirts, sew on the patches and be able to blend into the trees along the bank so the fish can’t see us. Now there’s an arguement to go with.

For today I quit

I really hope that everyone noticed the background change on the blob page. That was the big issue last night, the choice became easy. The execution was the part that got my rear roasted.  Now, as I stated before, the webmaster was called and awakened, (well maybe, he did say he was in bed I hope sleep was all that was interrupted) the website is fixed anyway. But, back to the page. Look at the hills and the clouds. They are so pretty (not words I use often). But thats okay this time. What I need you to do is visulize  a man sitting in those clouds looking down on me.  A man of great power a man of great wisdom. Yes, My webmaster!  Hince froth known among all none geeks as “T MASTER”. The man who pulled my flaming butt from the pooter hell I stayed in all last night. The second coming of that Perot feller.  All computer fellers should beware for he may smoot you. This man is anonimious and shall remain so unless he grants permission to reviel his true identity.  He not only fixed the site but he made things easier for ME.  I can safely blob and not get too mad.  Now I can hopefully do this without getting a virus the CDC can’t cure. Maybe I could learn  how to text and e-mail and get on craig list, buy on e-bay, do face bookin. Now imagine the above mentioned ” T MASTER ” with a slight smile on his face shaking his head saying ” FOOLISH, FOOLISH MAN!!!

Enough for today, Oh crap I just hit spell check and got an error code , this #$@%^&^%^$$##%^  craptop is possessed.  Please ” T MASTER ” put on your POOTER SUIT and save me.

For today I quit

Tonight I am P.O.ed. I told you yesterday I am not pooter llitirate and I just had to go through all kinds of choices of web pages. I DON’T CARE. Just pick one and let’er fly. Show me what to hit and duck. But noooo, pick one don’t be a butt, you can at least pick one. She looked at 500 and knocked it down to 19 so pick one. Okay this one. No that doesn’t have all the stuff you wanted. Well cheese and rice, how about that one?  No it’s not the right color. Well Fiddle dee dee dog droppings. Okay baby, you pick the one and I’ll be fine with it. No really your wisdom is far beyond mine. You are colledge-educated and all. You did surgery on hundreds of human females-I just dated a few. Really,you are much smarter than me and much better looking too. DON’T YOU DARE PATRONIZE ME .DON’T YOU DARE WALK OUT OF HERE.( I return head down) We look at the rest and a choice is made. Download in progress. NOOO DON’T TOUCH!!!! Oh crap call the webmaster. Rod touched the pooter during download. Please help! Pooter guy can tell time too. It’s 10:45 he tells Terri. He will fix in the morning. If you don’t see this until then, oh well. I probably won’t need to assist for awhile now so ranting should be about it. Pooters are bad. They cause issues. I am a bass caddy. I am above this machine. God I hate this thing. I really see an accidental drowning off our boat this year. Ah poor HP laptop, I hated it well.

For today I quietly resign.