Maintaining What We Have

A few years ago my pickup truck was broken into. It was parked in the lot at work, less than 25 feet from the front door. The street out front is a US highway, but is within the city, so is only about 50 feet from where I was parked.

In broad daylight, between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning, someone popped the door of my truck cap and removed most of what was in the truck. This included over $3000 worth of tools and nearly as much in fishing tackle. Interestingly, they left the fishing rods which were packed into rod tubes to protect them.

The insurance covered the tackle, but not the tools since they were personal tools but used primarily for work. If I did not use them for my job, they all would have been covered. I eventually replaced what I wanted to replace and forgot about the stuff I never really used in the first place, but I had to replace tools first, so spent most of the insurance check on staying gainfully employed.

The crisis for me was that this happened on a Wednesday and I was scheduled to leave on a week long fishing trip on that Friday night. Can't very well go fishing without any tackle.

The insurance company asked me if I had receipts for all of my stuff. I never even considered keeping them. I bought a Rapala floating minnow lure in Bemidji, MN, a few bags of soft plastic baits in Morris, IL, some flies in Blakeslee, PA and a reel in Thayer, MO. My tackle bag came from Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO via mail order and many of the storage boxes from Walmart in Kankakee.

BTW, I do now keep every receipt for every tool and tackle item that I purchase.

But I needed some gear and I needed it now!

I bought a few things at Walmart. Not the kind of stuff I'd usually buy, but enough to get me by for the week. Since it was fall, I didn't need any of my normal spring pattern stuff and since I wasn't taking the fly rods, could let that go till later as well.

Then I began calling friends.

I borrowed a couple of reels from one guy and picked them up after work. When I got them home, I found them to be a mess. They had last been used in June while he was in Canada and this was October. They had gotten wet on his trip and now were almost unusable.

I took them apart carefully, cleaned each and every piece, replaced some damaged parts that I happened to have on hand and lubricated everything with high quality materials. I respooled each with brand new fishing line and continued preparation for my trip.

When I returned the reels after my trip had ended, the guy actually complained that I had used Berkley line instead of his usual Stren. I thanked him for the loan, and took him a spool of Stren on the following Monday at work.

Each winter I spend hours working on preparing my gear for the coming fishing season. I clean the rods, replacing damaged eyes and marginal thread-wraps that hold the components together. I dismantle, clean, lube and respool every reel. I take everything out of its bag, box or hiding place, clean it, fix it or replace it. Rust inhibitor is used on anything that might corrode. I rebuild lures, replacing hooks and split rings. I sometimes even repaint lures if they need it.

I next take inventory, check to see what I used the most of the previous season and make a list so I don't get surprised by missing something and not having what I need when I hit the water in the spring.

But this winter, things were different. Because of my health issues, I couldn't work on all that stuff. I made a minimal effort to get things in order and the reels cleaned and repaired, but left much of the work I normally do undone.

The first time I got to go fishing this year, I paid for not having maintained my tackle during the winter months. I was missing things I would have liked to have had. I missed the hookset more than once on fish I should have landed, but lost because of old rusty hooks. One of my reels gave me fits to the point that I nearly threw it in the lake.

I broke off on three fish in the first day because I had a small nick in the eye on my favorite spinnerbait rod. I also lost three spinnerbaits in the process. I can never replace the missed fish and can do nothing about my choices now, but I have since spent more time fixing and less time fishing than might have been had I done my maintenance during the off-season.

While out fishing I often see people that have equipment that is in worse shape than things I have replaced because they were worn out. I see people lose fish after fish because the line hasn't been replaced since the reel was new ten years ago. I see people fumbling in tackle boxes, filled with a jumble of rusted hooks and lures. I see people with broken rods, trying to tape them back together with duct tape while out fishing. Of course if they do hook a large fish, the duct tape is the first thing to fail and they end up with a fist full of tangled line on a still broken fishing rod.

And these are not your usual bank anglers with $15.00 Kmart specials. I'm referring to people with $200.00 rods, $250.00 reels and sate of the art equipment that nearly any serious fisherman would trade his soul to own. If they just took care of what they already have, they wouldn't have to try to replace things and fix what's broken in a make do fashion when they should be enjoying their time fishing.

Our relationships too require maintenance and each one of us is responsible for our own things. We tend to let things go until they can no longer serve their intended purpose and then try to make do with less than we want.

Both marriage partners are responsible for the condition of the relationship. If something needs attention, it is up to us to see that it gets fixed. When we see a problem, it should be our goal to solve it in a timely and adequate manner. We should take care of each other and not let the marriage deteriorate to the point where it can no longer make us happy.

The tools we can use to prevent our marriage from becoming worthless are found in Dr Harley's Basic Concepts and include Extraordinary Care, Radical Honesty and the Policy of Joint Agreement. We need to also avoid damage to the relationship by stopping Love Busters while making sure nothing is missing by meeting each other's primary Emotional Needs.
Extraordinary Care keeps us focused on the things that really matter. Radical Honesty requires us to share our thoughts and feelings with our spouse and the Policy of Joint Agreement ensures that neither one can selfishly take from the relationship at the other's expense.

If we take care of what we have, we can then enjoy it by a quiet stream or a beautiful beach as the sun sets and the day nears it's end.

And if someone steals what we have, we quickly discover that there are some things that simply cannot be replaced.

Tight Lines!

Mark

Edited to add: Dedicated to my Dad, who not only taught me to fish, but also what a committed marriage was all about.

I miss him!