100+ Heat Index - Next Few Days

Hello Folks,

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Fourth of July celebration. I actually got to spend some time with my wife the past few days. Yes, she worked on Saturday, but she was off Friday, Sunday, and today (July 5, 2010). That is unusual for her lately since she has been picking up whatever overtime has been available to get a jump on bills and upcoming property (school) taxes. In fact, she has worked 21 straight days without a day off. I told her that she is "working MY life away!" :)

It's been ten days since my last trip on the river with my good friend, Dell. Despite all the nice weather we've had over the past week, I was unable to take advantage of it by fishing. We had basketball camp for the youngsters and I am just as dedicated to that program as I am to fishing.

South Central Pennsylvania is in the middle of one of the worst "heat waves" in a quite a few years. Yesterday was the first day of an expected five day run that will rise to over 90+ degrees with dewpoints in the 60s which will create a heat index between 100 to 104 degrees.

I receive weather advisory messages from our local television station and this was the message that they sent to us just a few minutes ago:

Precautionary/preparedness actions,
A heat advisory is issued when a period of hot and humid weather is expected to create a situation in which heat illnesses are possible. To avoid heat-related illnesses, drink plenty of non- alcoholic beverages and stay out of the sun in an air-conditioned or well ventilated room. If you must be outdoors, wear light- colored, lightweight and loose-fitting clothing, and try to limit exposure to the sun between 10 am and 3 pm. In addition to protecting your own health, residents should check up on elderly relatives and neighbors, and remember to provide pets with adequate shelter from the sun and water.

Solid health advice for us all to heed.

Due to my diabetes and liver issues, I will most likely stay off the water until this passes... Hopefully by Friday (July 9, 2010). If I do get out on the river, it will be in the very, very early morning for a few hours or later in the evening as the heat dissipates.

I'm sure that you will all understand the reasons for not seeing new reports here over the next few days. I haven't forgotten about any of my faithful followers who look forward to my antics on the water.

Which reminds me...

Several Thursday's ago, I fished an open tournament with my fishing buddy, Josh (smallieman) Kreider. It is very rare for me to do tournaments anymore, but his tournament partner back down on him and he asked me to help him out.

We ran a very rocky and treacherous area of the river in order to get to our first fishing spot. We got there without a single problem. Out plan was to fish just about 30 minutes or so, see if we could land a legal size 15+" smallie, and then move onto where we knew there were fish.

It was a bumpy ride in the hard chop and upon arrival, Josh spent a few minutes repairing some loose wiring while I tossed a spinnerbait around from the front deck. He eventually got all things back to normal working condition and joined me in fishing.

We failed to catch any smallies and decided we would run out of this "dangerous" area. Well... as we were running towards the main chute, Josh noticed that he had gotten a bit off track and was following a line a bit to the east of where we had gone up through. That quickly, he noticed a "goonie" under the water to our port side and he swerved to miss it, recovered, and "WHACK!" He smacked another "goonie" sitting just off the starboard side. Geez... But the boat wasn't sinking and the motor was running great, so we continued on our way down river.

We hit another spot where I was able to nail a 19.75" and a 19.5" smallmouth. Our problem was that we just couldn't put the third (limit) legal fish into the boat. We ended up in fourth place out of 37 boats and won a gift certificate to a nearby tackle shop. I gave my half up to Josh for allowing us to use his boat and for the beating it took in the rock garden.

When we got the boat out of the water and onto the trailer, he noticed a nice 2 foot slash along the bottom of the starboard side of the hull. Yep, another character mark for a boat that reminds me of the old Timex commercial... "Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!"

Dad