“Are you crazy!? It’s four o clock in the morning!” Mom shouted down the stairs as my dad started the coffee maker. “We couldn’t sleep!” I shouted back. “Well, at least stay in bed so you don’t wake the rest of us!” She replied, now coming down the stairs. “It’s still raining outside.” Mom observed as she walked down the hallway leading to the kitchen. “Well at least the flowers will be happy.” I commented. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re cold too” she said when she saw us putting on three pairs of Under Armor, t-shirts, two sweatshirts, and the long underwear we got for Christmas. “No, we’re fine, but it looks a little chilly out there, and I don’t want to be cold and wet at the same time, that would just be miserable.” My dad answered. “What do you mean cold and wet. Oh, don’t tell me your going outside in this weather, it’s like 40°, rainy and windy out there, you’d freeze!” “That should explain all the layers we are putting on, doesn’t it.” Derek said. “Whatever you crazy people want to do, as long as it doesn’t involve burning the house down, it’s fine with me.” Mom said giving up with the argument. “Sweet, so that means I can go get that $250 reel I’ve been wanting forever?” “No, anything but that.” “Darn” “Okay boys, let’s get the rain gear on and go hook up the boat to the truck” dad declared reaching for our gortex rain coat, pants and boots. “Hey, the season hasn’t started yet, has it?” my mom asked. “Yes it has, as of four hours ago.” I explained. “Oh well, then I guess you’re going to miss the pancakes and eggs I’m making for breakfast” my mom taunted. “We packed Pop Tarts for the way over to the lake.” Derek said. “By the way, what lake are you guys heading to today.” My mom questioned. “We were thinking about hitting a few of the lakes in the Oconomowoc area, starting on Lake Lac La Belle, yes it does exist. Then depending on the fishing, we were thinking about going to Oconomowoc Lake, then next door to Okauchee Lake, next we are going to go to Nagawicka then depending on what time it is, we’d go to Pewaukee. We should be back around nine.” My dad said as he explained our schedule for the day. “Fine leave me to do all of the chores.” “Our plan exactly,” I said with a grin on my face.

"Right flasher ok!?" my dad yelled back as we made sure that the flashers on the back of the trailer was working, "Right and brake lights working!?" "Yep! It's really raining and blowing hard out there, we might have tp wait a little before we launch the boat." "OK, let's go!"

We ended up having to wait about a half hour before we could launch the boat, the wind was still blowing fifteen miles and hour and the waves were trying to push our new boat back up on the trailer. We had recently bought a new 20 foot Nitro Z-9 with a 275 hp mercury optimax with a FURY prop.To me it was probably the best thing we had ever bought. I had spent most of my free time after school getting it ready; putting rods and tackle boxes in the storage spaces, and making sure that the trolling motor battery was ready to go in the morning.
We had to stop at the gas station on the way to the lake to fill up the gas tank for a day of running around lakes. When we finally got out of the gas station, the rain and wind had calmed down a little, but it was still raining hard and the wind occasionally gusted pretty hard. Once we got to the boat launch, there was only one trailer. I figured everybody else was smart and stayed home in bed laughing at the people who did go out, but hey, at least we could say that we were manly enough to go out in this cruddy weather. But the lightning was still spider webbing across the sky when we got to the boat launch. We paid for parking and found a place close to the ramp so we could be the first ones on the lake when the lightning stopped.
Being the guys we were, we got crazed waiting in the car and decided that we would go uncover the boat when it didn’t lightning for five minutes straight. We didn’t have to wait long. It was still raining hard, but we didn’t care. Launching the boat was the hard part, the waves were still coming hard and we couldn’t see much more than five feet in front of us.