Hate to hear that Bob R.

I would probably rule out malice, there are a lot of idiots out there. Having the sheriff make contact probably did a lot of good for those guys. Anyone with moderate credit can buy a big-ass boat, brains not included.

Most of us who have a boat have done something stupid at one time. I came around a corner last winter thinking I was the only boat on the water and there was a canoe guy paddling around the inside corner I went about 15' off his port side at full tugboat wake. I saw him after I blew by and went back down to apologize and make sure he was okay. Turns out it was my junior college Linear Algebra professor, so I yelled "Paybacks a bitch!" and took off again. Actually, we just chatted a minute.

I also hate to hear that 1LM's happy place isn't fishing as much as it once was, but I can relate. I only like certain fisheries because of that.

Here's a happy story from Grays Harbor:

My youngest has been begging me to take her fishing, so last Sunday we got up early at 7:30 and headed for tidewater, after getting the necessary snacks, and drinks. We worked on her casting for a bit, and she wanted to use a spinner. We made it about 30' before I had to cut her line and retie it. Then about 30 more feet before she cast into a tree. Somewhere along the line I got a cast in and got a silver, which she netted and did a pretty good job of it. After that we did a lot more cutting and retying and tree fishing. I passed the rod to her a few more times with rampaging silvers on the other end, but she is just a little too small for the long-butted levelwind set ups and we didn't get any more in the net. Lots of fun watching them jump and all the excitement in her face.

I asked about 11:30 if she was ready to go and she was emphatic that we stay. She wanted to "put out the weight" meaning the anchor so we set up by a log jam and plunked in some eggs. Lots of bites on the eggs, she had a ball reeling in the jacks, and they put up a pretty good account of themselves. At one point she was reeling in a fish and reeled in the other rod and left the bait sitting in the water just under the surface. I turned back in time to see an adult pick the bait right off the surface and try stealing our rod and all. I grabbed it just in time, but the fish got away after a couple of headshakes.

Fish box was mostly empty and with a crew of buddies we probably would have caught a lot of nice adults, but I haven't had that much fun fishing in a long time.