pam and i decided that me fulfilling my basset version of “a river runs through it” was a worthy enough goal for us to work on. therefore, i went to the pet companion today and purchased a basset size live vest. then pam and i grabbed montana and the canoe and headed out to mcdill pond for a little trial float. we decided to try montana first because she is a little more calm than roux (very little). we put her life vest on and put her in the canoe. it was at this point that i kind of expected things to run out of control. i pictured montana bouncing from side to side checking things out and maybe even deciding that she was michael phelps and going for a purposeful swim. i was wrong. instead, was frozen in fear. she stood as straight as possible. she barely moved for the first 30 minutes we were out there. she wasn’t shaking but i tend to think that was because she was afraid it might be enough motion to tip the boat over. after 30 minutes she was a little more used to the situation and began to move around a little bit. not much mind you, but enough to tell pam and i that she was feeling a little more comfortable. thus, it was time to see what would happen when i started fishing. for my first 5 casts montana jerked every time the lure went flying. canoes were not meant for sudden 50lb low center of gravity jerks. thankfully these canoequakes weren’t to bad, so other than a slight heart palpitation on my part there was no real harm. i didn’t plan on catching any fish during this float and that part of the plan went exactly as i had thought it would. not a bite. so i still don’t know how she would respond to a fish. we’ll have to try that later.
i’ve got a 20 second video that i’m uploading to flickr at the moment. until it finishes you’ll just have to be satisfied with this photo.
