Dillon And Bust!

So we decided to take the boat out yesterday to try out the new fish finder, check out a new lake and just enjoy a few hours with a beautiful view.  We decided to head up to Dillon Reservoir as we had never taken the boat out on that lake.  We started out leaving a little later than we wanted to, but that wasn't necessarily a big deal.  While driving we noticed that there seemed to be something sticking out of the inside of one of the tires.  We stopped to check it out and noticed that there was a large bulge just below the tread.  We went ahead and changed out the tire to make sure that it didn't blow out on I-70.

Back on the road we made it the rest of the way to lake without any other incidents.  We decided to launch from the Dillon ramp.  I bought a Fish'n Map for Dillon for the lake and the inspector came out to check the boat before the launch.  We got the boat inspected and backed it into the water.  We kept the bow winch attached to the boat while trying to start the engine.  (Make sure you do this, as you don't want to be out in the water with no power!)

Bubble In Tire

Once in the water we tried to fire up the motor.  Unfortunately the starter ran, but the engine would not turn over.  We spent close to ten minutes with the boat on the trailer, in the water, trying to figure out what the problem was.  We eventually gave up and pulled the boat back out of the water.  We had lunch at the park near the ramp, but didn't end up doing any fishing.

When we got home we put the "rabbit ears" on the motor so that we could start it up out of the lake.  We noticed that the air intake was completely closed while the shift lever was in neutral.  As we played with it a little we tried the motor again and it fired right up without a problem.  We were relieved that the problem seemed to be fixed, but it was certainly frustrating to drive all the way to the lake, and not be able to get out.

Hopefully next week we will get out on Spinney Mountain or somewhere to try out the fish finder.  I'll try to update you when I get a chance to actually use the fish finder out on the water.

Do you have any frustrating fishing stories?  Please share them below in the comment section.