Misadventure a part of every good adventure

As we ready ourselves for another fishing season we often reflect on past adventures to get our juices flowing.

It is more often than not that humorous stories take precedence over big fish tales.

Apparently we all like to hear that other fishermen have also been involved in boneheaded misadventures of their own.

Here are a couple of mine.

A friend knew my passion for rainbow fishing in the middle Kenai River and asked if I'd take him and his visiting parents on a trip.

It was going to be my first trip on the water that year so I went home and gave my boat a quick once over, promising myself to do a more thorough check-out after this trip.

The next morning I arrived at the launch a little early, so I decided to put the boat in and get everything ready.

As I backed down the ramp I felt the trailer drop, and figured it had hit a hole in the cement ramp.

As I glanced into my rearview mirror though, I saw the trailer leaning to one side with the dreaded image of my tire floating downstream.

I jumped from my truck and waded out waist deep just in time to retrieve my bearing-less tire.

Then came the embarrassment.

I turned toward shore to see my friend and his folks, whom I had never met, watching this whole charade.

After sharing the humor in the situation, we launched the boat, nursed the trailer to the parking area and proceeded on with one of the best trips of the year.

On another occasion, a fishing buddy and I decided we were going to beat the rush and launch at Stewart's at 4:30 in the morning.

When we arrived, the launch was already pretty crowded, so when we got on the ramp I told him to make haste with shoving the boat off and moving to the side.

After I saw the boat go afloat, I proceeded to exit the ramp, when everyone nearby started hollering and waving their arms.

I looked in my rearview mirror just in time to see my friend pulling himself up onto my tailgate.

I had just run him over with the trailer.

After he hobbled around the launch for a while, he assured me he was no worse for the wear and ready to continue on the trip.

Later that day, as we were drifting by what is now the Pillar's Boat Launch, I hit a fish and it started peeling line for the middle of the river.

We decided to switch places and have him run the boat while I tried to land the fish.

As he readied himself behind the steering column he exclaimed, "What the heck is this?"

I had to give him a quick rundown on my outdated control system where there was one lever for forward/reverse and one for the throttle.

As we approached the side creek below the Pillars, he dropped it into gear and hit the throttle, in reverse.

Now we were well down the side creek, the line wrapped around a tree at the top of an island, the fish well out of sight and several boats were running full speed up the river.

It must not have been that chinook's day though, because somehow we got out in time to wave off the boats and land the fish.

Dwight Kramer is a "Joe Fisherman" private angler who lives in Kenai.