Float Tube

How I love my float tube! One of the best Christmas presents I ever got. When the weather is perfect as it was on Saturday (and that means the wind isn't blowing) flyfishing in a float tube can't be beat as a way to spend the late afternoon or evening at Presque Isle.

There isn't much effort to using a float tube, especially when my husband carries the thing to the water's edge. I carry the fins. Once I'm in the water, I'm free. Free to fish anywhere I see the fish jumping. But I suspect my husband feels free, too. Free of my jabbering and bad casting.

Oh! The big ones are jumping out there, I can see them and I'm heading that way. As soon as I get there and start fishing, I see the big ones jumping back from whence I came. Hmmm.

My float tube is equipped with a pillow to lean back on, a netting in the front to lay your fishing rod onto so you can put on your lures with ease and many pockets for all your stuff. It is quite efficient and comfortable. I wear my chest high waders with a snug belt as not to fill with water. It all keeps those creepy crawler things, if there are any, off my legs. You never know.

By not paying attention, I managed to get my self tangled up in thick, strong weeds out in the middle of the bay. I kicked and tried to turn. I was thrashing. I was afraid of leaning forward in case of a flip over onto my face. I'd be a gonner had that happened, I suspect, even though I was wearing a life jacket. I was strapped into the tube (there are quick releases if you have your head about you, which I didn't, but being off the tube and tangled may have been worse.) No one else was around except my husband and he would have had no way to get out that far and rescue me especially in the weeds. So I panicked. My heart was beating so fast and I had the frightful feeling like I was being attacked by a shark. My husband yelled for me not to panic and when I settled down and leaned back and made smaller kicks I finally freed myself. A lesson learned. Stay out of the weeds and don't go out so far, and maybe bring along a cell phone in a water tight bag for those "emergencies". On windier days I have been blown to places not intended but you just get to the closest shore in the direction the wind is blowing and find some way to walk back.

The best part of using a float tube is leaning back and looking up at the sky, watching the clouds go by. Reminds me of being a kid when I'd go kite flying in the field overlooking our foothill town. I also like to watch the shoreline for the ever-spectacular bird sightings that you see only at Presque Isle. A deer came out to graze along the reeds on the far side of the bay. My blood pressure quickly dropped below normal.

There is a danger of falling into a semi-conscious state while you are relaxing with the rock of the waves. When this happens you often wake seeing dozens of little round "objects" surrounding you, almost within reach. Turtles, some of them snapping turtles. Then an "object" was spotted out of the corner of my eye right next to me and I gave out a scream. But it turned out to be the edge of my black flipper poking up through the water. This is good exercise for my blood pressure, up, down, up, down.

Needless to say, I don't get too much fishing done when I'm in my float tube. Though I did catch many panfish and a bass, when I'm in my float tube my heart is into watching nature.