| Happy New Year! 2025! Wow, here we are approaching the halfway mark thru yet another decade. Every January on the 1st I like to look back, reflect on times that have gone by and also look forward to the good things to come and maybe even set some goals for the new year. Looking back at 2024, personally it will not go down in my book as one of the best years ever for me. Nothing really tragic but a never ending calamity of events that kept us both busy and at times very discouraged. Some health issues for both myself and Joyce. Then trying to take care of my wonderful 93 year old mother and all of her health issues. Trying to keep up with just weird crap happening like a tree falling and whacking my camper up at the lake or some drunk women plowing into Joyce's brand new car just sitting there parked at the very same campgrounds. On the fishing business end of things, just a endless rash of bad weather cancellations or customer last minute cancellations. And even though I keep most everything on the boat in remarkably tip top condition with everything either almost brand new or rebuilt, a unbelievable run of mechanical breakdowns all summer long capped by a unexpected total engine failure late in August that ended my season way too early. It was a costly replacement in a season where profit margins were already in big trouble. This is the part of this paragraph where I insert a big fat “Ugh!” |
| So looking forward to 2025, well we’re still here and we’re planning on fishing yet another year. It will be my 39th year of full time chartering. The blown motor in the boat has already been replaced with a brand new engine and fingers crossed that is the end of those mechanical woes. Health wise for about 6 weeks now I’ve been fighting an incredibly painful Sciatica Nerve condition in my lower back, butt and running down the back of my leg. Hopefully by fishing season I’ll have found some relief or I’ll probably be hobbling yet again! Many of you have never seen me on the boat where I was not hobbling or gimping from one thing or another! Lol! Seems like every year I have a new “pain of the year” that I have to work through. One year it was a completely shot hip ending up with a total hip replacement in the off season. Another year it was a torn meniscus in my knee. Another year a bad case of planter fasciitis in my foot. Another year bad carpal tunnel in my hand. And just for fun many bouts of tennis elbow, shoulder and back pains and, well just forget it. You get the idea! Let's put it this way. I’m pretty sure if I were a horse, they would have put me down a long time ago! Lol! I guess taking the daily poundings on Lake Erie’s usually choppy waters takes a toll on your body after 4 long decades of doing so. At least if you run as many trips as we fortunately have been able to do all of these years. And here I am, getting ready to do it all over again! Man I must be nuts! Ha! I look forward to seeing many of you again this coming season for yet another year of “just another day on THE TROPHY” and chasing those pesky Walleyes all around the pond! Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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