I went up to load the project into my truck and put it in the Garhole. The added deck made it so heavy I had a problem getting it in the truck.  Kevin and Tate came by and put it in, followed me to the Garhole, and encouraged me to drive down the bank to put it in the water from the back of the truck. A trip back to the house to get some pallets and some 2X4s was next. Out of those materials a place to pull it up high and dry on the bank was made. Had to put some grease on the skids before I could pull it up however.  By this time it was 1:30 and the cows were up eating and the deer were out feeding so I had to try the fish. This is the first one caught from the refurbished craft.

It was a chunky 2 – 13, how appropriate. By the time I caught two bass I had also caught two chain pickerel.

Neither of them fared the day very well. The small 28 pound thrust trolling motor was too much. Even on the slowest speed it went too fast. The boat was a lot more stable than I expected.   There was a small amount of water in the bottom when I quit so it did have a leak somewhere, on the transom I think. I put two concrete blocks  in the stern along with the battery to hold the back end down. I’m going to have to engineer some sort of rudder to keep the back from passing the front when you cut the trolling motor off. Back to fishing. The first few were caught on a Booyah but I missed some nips so I tried a shakey head with a baby brush hog on it.This is a photo of the first 4 pounder I caught on it.

I caught 15 bass in all with a FOD of 4-4 and two more at 4-0. Not bad fishing from 1:30 to 5:00.It was a great debut for the GHB (Garhole Boat), as Hal calls it.