Tragedy on the Homefront

Unfortunately for yours truly, my weekend started off with a bang!  On Friday I had planned to take a half day of vacation to get on the ice prior to a Bachelor Party where all the guys wanted to catch some fish.  On Thursday evening I stopped at Fleet Farm on my way home from work to pick up some bait, a couple new baits, gas, and a car wash for my salt covered truck.

Once I returned home, I then organized all of my gear, put the aerator in the minnows, and changed some hooks and leaders on my tip ups.  Everything seemed to be falling into place quite nicely.  I had everything ready for the weekend before my wife came home from work!

My luck swiftly changed on Friday morning, as I headed to work like I do every day M-F.  The only difference, I lost all of my ice fishing gear in the blink of an eye.  Everything seemed fine, until I stepped out of my truck and noticed my tailgate was open!  I quickly looked under my tonneau cover and couldn't believe my eyes!  I had to look twice before it hit me that my sled had slipped right out the back without me knowing!
As soon as I realized what had happened, I was backtracking my route praying my gear would be laying along the road waiting for me to retrieve it.  As I pulled into my apartment complex it hit, my gear was gone!  Someone had collected my gear and took off with it.  I had my name and number on several of the items, so I was confident that I would be getting a call soon.  My confidence began to fade as the hours passed and the phone remained silent.  It was gone, all gone.

Everything from my Hummingbird Flasher to my Ice Creepers, gone.  The more I thought about what had just happened, the more things I remembered that I had lost.  The gear that had taken me years to collect had been lost in seconds.

I wish there was a happy ending to the story, unfortunately for me there isn't, at least not yet!  The rebuilding process has already begun, Fleet Farm is enjoying my recent investments, and will continue to enjoy them for some time.