Boats a priority, always have been

I put the canoe in the lake last weekend. Ice only covered half the bay, and I hoped a pike or two would be cruising the melting edge. I didn’t get a bite but it was good to be on the water again.

I’ve been a boat guy since I was a kid. I bought that canoe with paper route money. It wasn’t, however, my first craft. That was a little jon boat I found abandoned in the woods when I was 12. Dad helped me get it home where I patched the holes, gave it a coat of paint, and bought a pair of oars.

A small flotilla of watercraft followed in that jon boat’s wake including a couple of drift boats, two al...