Punctures

Another old one from www.sexyloops.com 

With the spawning over I'm back on the water again and because of the current restrictions, I'm staying local so had my first float tube session of the year on Monday. The local lake has a decent population of largemouth bass although it's fairly featureless which can make them hard to find. More interestingly, it has a thriving snakehead population which keeps the bass fishermen away most of the summer.

Fishing was slow after an overnight temperature drop from the mid twenties down to single digits. In fact, under normal circumstances I'd have changed my plans and went looking for a quarry more tolerant of cooler temperatures than largemouth. There was certainly no chance of any topwater action and all I managed was a half hearted pick up on a bottom dragged worm fly. So I basically used the day to explore and refamiliarise myself with parts of the local lake. I've certainly identified a few places to hit when it's warmer. I'm more interested in the snakehead, I've not fished them for a few years now as it's not the shot fishing you get with Paul.  Although, I'm wondering about windless days and standing up on the tube in summer, or even getting a SUP to see if there are shots to be had.

The most eventful thing that happened was discovering a puncture in my float tube. Luckily it was slow. I always test my tube in the spring by inflating it and leaving it overnight to check, a good idea any time you've not used for a while. But that's no guarantee. The good thing about modern tubes is that they usually have several bladders, meaning that you're probably fairly safe even if a puncture does happen. As it was, with a soft right bladder I managed to limp back to shore around lunch time still fully afloat if a bit lopsided and uncomfortable. My life jacket hadn't even deployed.

While some might think that this is a reason to avoid the float tube, I actually see it as an illustration of just how safe they are - I doubt a boat would fare so well with a hole in one side, even if it was small. whit a bit of luck, it's also just the work of a few minutes to fix the pucture- assuming it's not too difficult to find that is.