Going Deeper (again)

The wind was out of the west as I launched.  By mid-lake it became obvious that I needed to fish the windward shore.  The chop was heavy and forced me down to 1/4 throttle.  I turned west and got mostly out of the blow before taking a look at my phone for an alternate set of closely stacked contur lines to fish.

I found what I was looking for and motored over to a point, out of the wind, with a drop that went from 3' to 15' in fairly short order.  I heard the anchor hit gravel when it settled and figured that wasn't a bad sound.

The very first cast was smallmouth impaled itself on my clouser.  I was starting to feel pretty smug about my deep water fish finding ability.  10 minutes later and a second smallie ate.  Yes, I was pretty sure I was awesome.  The walleye ate just before the wind switched. 

The ego can be distracting, but almost losing my hat to a sudden gust of wind made me look up and realize that the weather had changed.  A bank of dark clouds that I was certain were tracking to the east now loomed nearly overhead and were on a southeast course.  Things were dark and creepy, but I decided that with the wind now coming from the north, my recently found crappie hole would be a safe spot to fish while this all blew over.

I hugged the windward shore and eventually dropped anchor with plans to showcase my talent for a few more hours.

The anchor wasn't holding on a short rope.  This, as many know can be easily remedied by lengthening the rope.  Easy, and I would have made this fix but the wind was screaming hard enough that my 8 weight line wasn't following the directions I was giving it either. 

Somewhere in the universe, the cosmic balancers of ego and smugness, called on the Njord, the Norse God Of Wind to settle me down.

OK. 
So I had it coming to me. 
Fishing is over for the day....I get it. 
I will go home and try to regain my center and try my best not to be a dick.

Except that wasn't the end of it.  The landing was on the south shore.   A small fact that I overlooked as I started my motor and waved the white flag.  The crests built and the wind blew the tops off of them.  My 15' boat was highsiding on the waves and the prop was grabbing air as I attempted to navigate through.  It took me a minute to figure out how to adjust my speed to keep the prop wet.

I safely (if a bit wetly) made it to the launch ramp where waves crashed and new set of problems required me to dock, then spin my boat around so that the bow was into the oncoming fury.  I kinked my back, scratched my leg and almost broke the push pole.  The motor came dangerously close to being skegless and I was actually winded by the time I pulled the trailered boat out of the maelstrom.

As I finished strapping the boat down and stowing my gear in my truck, I noticed a small white cube on one of the wooden parking pilings.  It was a drinking game die and the message on the upside read:
"Drink 2 Cups"

I went home and drank 4.