The Legend of Roy and Boze, Pt II This legend is sort of like our lives; it’s all jumbled up. You know the old saying, "Parts is Parts". Speaking of jumbled up, that reminds me of the time me and Roy took off on a fishing trip that I previously mentioned. You remember, the one to Eufaula, Alabama. That is one big lake that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 88 miles long. I’m sure glad Roy didn’t have the previously mentioned Bass boat back in those days because we would never have gotten to fish. Well our first day on the lake was full of excitement. We went by some treetops that were real close to and old creek channel and we could see those fish all over the depth finder screen. I always felt better about calling those thing depth finders as opposed to “fish finders” because if I didn’t catch any fish you could blame it on the "Depth Finder". The thing is a Depth Finder right, I mean you never had anybody ask you about catching depth, right? Never mind! Anyway the fish icons were all over the screen and we got all excited because we just knew that we had found the jackpot of fish and were going to load the boat on Bass and Crappie right there in that one spot. We had abandoned the faith again and even bought some live minnows. Well we baited up real good and over the side the baits went and down through the limbs of those trees to the bottom. Well it wasn’t long before Roy was setting the hook and we just knew things were about to get underway. Roy said, “this one is not to big because it sure isn’t pulling much”. I was soon to start laughing till I thought my sides would bust because he reeled in a Catfish that wasn’t much bigger that the minnows we use for bait. Well, while I was laughing so hard at Roy my cork went down and I set the hook and it wasn’t long before I said something like, “this one is not to big because it sure isn’t pulling much”. You guessed it, a Catfish that wasn’t much bigger than the minnows we were using for bait. Well we did find some Crappie that day and we lost some artificial baits during the process. That would cause us to have to make a trip to Wal-Mart that night to restock on Beetle Spins and the like. We made it back to the hotel and cleaned the fish and put them in freezer bags. We put them in a freezer that the hotel manager had said we could use. With all that taken care of, we were off to Wally World to get the artificial baits we needed. Roy was in a real hurry to get Wally World. We had our tackle boxes, rods and reels and most everything else in the back of the blazer. All the rods and reels were propped on the back seat. You know what I mean. The reels and the butt end of the rods were on the floorboard of the back part of the blazer. The rod section was leaning on the back of the seat so they were all nice and neat and organized. That is until we pulled out of the parking lot. Roy must have thought he was back in the boat again because rammed the gas petal forward and that old Blazer jumped like she had been spurred and the next thing I knew he was trying to get that old Blazer to plane out. When we finally did find the Wal-Mart, everything in the back of the Blazer had been shifted around and thrown around from taking curves at a high rate of speed. It was all piled up on one side due to the force at the last turn. I looked over my shoulder to see what had happened. The sounds that had been coming from the back of the Blazer as all that stuff shifted were quite unique. The sounds of spinner bait blades clanging into each other made it sound like Roy had wind chimes in the back of the Blazer. Every now and then there was the sound of thunder back there. That was not a result of the exhaust system on that old Blazer, it was heavy laded tackle boxes rolling over and over with the rapid change of direction. Thank the good Lord all our trolling motor batteries were still in the boat. Oh my, I really don’t even want to think about what that might have caused. Can you imagine going into Wal-Mart with battery acid all over you. What could be worse than walking into Wal-Mart wearing a bib with no cap on it! I have just got to get Roy on Decafe! It wouldn’t have mattered anyway because when it came to fishing and even going to buy bait, times were tense most of the time. You have to know that everything we experienced on the way to Wal-mart we would experience again on the way back to the hotel except in reverse. When we got there I looked back over my shoulder again to see what it looked like this time. It looked like it did before only worse. Then the Counselor side of Roy came out of him as he looked at me and said, “it will be alright”. Did I mention that things were all jumbled up? It is one thing when you unhook your spinner bait from your rod guides but when you are unhooking your spinner bait from somebody else’s rod guides you know the ride was interesting. We probably lost three to four hours of fishing time during the week due to having to untangle all that stuff every morning. We could have made an artificial reef what Roy had created just driving down the road. Roy would probably get real upset with me if I didn’t come clean and tell you about what happened with some of those brand new spinner baits the next morning. We had gotten everything straightened out and loaded in the boat and headed South. I had remembered some places where I had fished in a State Federation Bass Tournament years before and was lucky enough to find those areas again. Well, I had to tie a bait on a rod that more ultra-light that the others I brought and I had what’s known by fisherman as a “super-loop” on that rod. So I flipped they bail back and started stripping the line back until I got all the loops worked out and I reeled in some of the line. Well I thought this is as good a time as any to tie on one of those new baits. I reached in the tackle box and got a bright shinny new beetle spin. Next I looked down for the end of my line and finding it I proceeded to tie on this brand new bright shinny beetle spin. I tied probably the best knot I ever tied and instead of reeling up all the slack I just threw the beetle spin over the side. It just kept sinking and sinking and sinking and the line on my rod was not following it. All of a sudden I saw the end of a piece of line in the bottom of the boat rapidly moving in the direction of that rapidly sinking beetle spin. I threw my rod down and got on my knees reaching after the line but to no avail. My brand new bright shiny beetle spin was gone. I never got to cast it or catch a fish on it and all I could do was watch go toward the depths of Lake Eufaula. By this time I begin to hear something that sounded like chuckling from the other end of the boat. The Comedian was coming out of Roy again. “You tied that beetle spin on that line in the bottom of the boat didn’t you”! He was trying to be a blessing again. I have always suspected, to this day, that he knew what I was doing the entire time and never said anything. That event must have taken place 15 or more years ago and I can remember it like it was yesterday. The reason being, he frequently reminds me about it! Every time we get around some new friends or friends of old and the subject of fishing comes up, the Historian part of Roy kicks in and starts telling a tale of a guy he knows who just throws his spinner baits over the side to watch them sink! So goes the Legend of Roy and Boze