Fishing catastrophies

[rchanner]

There's already a fish stories thread to tell about your good day of fishing....now let's hear about your bad day. :2261_high: I have a story I'll tell later on when I have more time.

[nate44]

There's already a fish stories thread to tell about your good day of fishing....now let's hear about your bad day. :2261_high: I have a story I'll tell later on when I have more time.

[HOTSPOT]

This happened about 8 or 9 years ago when I had the skiff.

Ralph and I had been running the trolling motor right heavy fishing a tidal creek. Apparently, the cables and terminal protectors got warm. Once we were out of the creek, we got on plane in the sound and it was bumpy.

The already warm cables touched each other and apparently arced.

I saw smoke coming out from under the front casting deck.

We stop, and I grab the fire extinguisher, not really sure what was happening.

I could not get the dang pin out of the extinguisher and then I noticed the trolling motor harness was melting. I grabbed a wet rag and unplugged it and hollered at Ralph to throw me a bottle of water.

I opened the front hatch and dumped the water on the battery and separated the cables.

It scared us something bad and we hit the dock right after that and hit the cooler pretty hard. Ralph told me he thought about jumping overboard when he saw me fighting the cables and smoke.

When I looked at everything the next day, I found that the beaker did not do its job.

I also finally got the pin out of the fire extinguisher only to discovered it would not spray.

I rewired everything, got a new battery, a different breaker and put the battery in a dang box instead of a tray.

Since then, I routinely check my extinguisher.

We also have a "plan" which is something we did have prior.

[nate44]

Here is one:

I just finished working a 8p to 4a shift on my 30th birthday. I drove home and woke my folks up (staying at my house) to go on a smallmouth trip to Pelee Island in lake Erie.

We left Port Clinton in our 1968 Lyman Cruisette Hardtop (26ft). As we are heading over to the island, the west wind kicked the waves up to 5-7 footers. After we got our Canadian fishing license I helped my parents get back on the boat. As I was jumping down into the boat a wave dropped the boat down, I stuck my right arm out to catch myself (concrete and steel dock). When I did that, my arm snapped just above my elbow, and I fell between the boat and the seawall. My dad, thank God didn't see me fall and thought I was in the boat, and started to pull from the dock. My mom started to freak out. I was trying to tread water but felt myself going into shock. My mom managed to throw me a bumper. As I was treading water, a Charter Captain (Ray Urban) left his boat and jumped into the water and got me to shore till first aid arrivied!!

During this time, Rays boat hit the seawall and received damage.

The rear dock line on our boat never got pulled and and fouled the prop.

My mom and dad got towed to Port Clinton by the Coast Guard (back when they did this!!)

I laid on a front porch of a cottage until a nurse shot me up with some pain killer. Life Flight was to costly so they took seats out of a 6 pass. plane and flew me to Sandusky (after my short ride in a 60's squad to the plane)

Once back in Port Clinton, My mom got stopped by the Highway Patrol for speeding!!) they escorted her to the hospital (i'm a trooper).

I laid in the ER because know one really knew what to do with my arm. They then loaded me up in a squad and sent me to a hospital in Maumee Ohio (I lived in Swanton, Oh. at the time) where at 5pm they set my arm (spiral fracture to my humerous).

Then, I had to sleep in a up right position for 4 weeks, I was off work for 8 months, 18 yrs later I still have problem with the arm, Ray Urban received numerous Hero awards and a free boat repair. I'm still hooked on fishing and boating. God was with me!!!

30th birthday I will never forget!!!!

Nate

[HOTSPOT]

Dang nate, hate that man, but it is a great story that turned out good!!!!!

[oneill469]

Last summer we had a great weekend at our lake cabin on Lake Thurmond in SC. Our girls left to go back to college about 3:30 and the cabin was cleaned up before 5:00 and the lake was just beautiful. My wife asked if we should go throw a plug or 2 before we left. The pontoon boat was still in the water so we grabbed a few rods and took off. Sure enough on what was to be the last cast my wife hooked a great largemouth bass. We had no landing net so I lipped it when she brought it to the boat. I wanted a picture of her and the fish and she eagerly grabbed the fine fish just as it decided to escape. A lesser fish would not have had the mass to set the hook that deeply in her thumb.

I cut the treble hook off the rapala and threw the fish back. We drove the 3+ hours home and went to her office (she is a doc) where she injected her thumb with novacaine so I could rotate it through.

During the entire trip home she gave me a hard time for throwing her fish back.

[rchanner]

Last 4th of July my wife and I went to Ocracoke for the weekend. On the 4th, we headed out for a day of fishing.....about 15 miles out, we set the spread and started trolling for Mahi. a half hour later, 2 lines hooked up. I told her to pull the boat into neutral, and we brought in the fish. I had mine in first, so I was tying the line off to leave it in the water while we worked the school, when all of a sudden: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz two of the other lines that hadn't been reeled up went crazy-then snapped, as did the chum bag that I had just set out. She had accidentally tripped the safety button when pulling the throttle into neutral and pulled it into reverse, and the lines that went and the chum bag had fouled in the prop.

By this time, we were 25 miles offshore so I made the decision to unfoul the prop right then and worry about fishing later since that was our ride home. (in hindsight, I wish we'd have put more fish in the boat first!)

I couldn't get all of the line unwound and ended up having to take the prop off. After removing the prop and getting the rest of the line out from behind it, I was putting it back on, and I jumped in the water and wrapped my left forearm around the prop to hold it while I was tightening the nut. Bad move. The prop rotated just a fraction of a turn when I torqued on the nut and the sharp trailing edge laid my inner forearm open in true filet knife fashion. The cut was only about 1 1/2" long, but deep enough that I could see veins and tendons.

After making a quick determination that no helicopter ride was needed, since blood was pouring instead squirting, the wife got the first aid kit out, which was in a nylon bag with a zipper that couldn't be persuaded to move with pliers, I had to open it with a filet knife. We got the wound dressed and headed in.

We arrived back in Ocracoke at about 2:45 in the afternoon, about 15 minutes before the 4th of July parade was to start, located a phone book, and called the one and only clinic in town. The Doctor was of course not in, but his cell number was on the recording. He came to the clinic right after the parade was over and stitched up my handy work, gave me some antibiotics, and sent us on our way.

The rest of the day turned out great. We were docked with the rear of the boat facing directly toward the beach where the quite impressive fireworks display would take place, so we spent the evening with the helm chairs turned around and our feet up enjoying the fireworks and sipping 12 ounce painkillers!

See....even the worst day of fishing is better than the best day at work!!

[Tireless]

I have on two occasions lost monster fish AFTER they were in the boat....one was a +50lb phin and the other was a +75lb cobia. Both were lost when they were being lowered into the fishbox in the transom of my previous 23 ft Robalo. I can not explain how painful it was to see those beasts flop right out the back of the boat. SOB those are horrible memories.

[Wolakrab]

The worse was the maiden voyage with my Black Watch. First time I fished it, I lost the transmission on the port engine during a fight with a marlin. The good thing is we got the fish to the boat---hence my avatar, and it was a clean release of a healthy fish. We ran back in one one engine--took over 8 hours to get back to the dock.

In comparison to many accounts, it's not a real catastrophy. The mate choking on a bait fish was what I would call a catastrophy.

[Trollnheel]

This happened about 8 or 9 years ago when I had the skiff.

Ralph and I had been running the trolling motor right heavy fishing a tidal creek. Apparently, the cables and terminal protectors got warm. Once we were out of the creek, we got on plane in the sound and it was bumpy.

The already warm cables touched each other and apparently arced.

I saw smoke coming out from under the front casting deck.

We stop, and I grab the fire extinguisher, not really sure what was happening.

I could not get the dang pin out of the extinguisher and then I noticed the trolling motor harness was melting. I grabbed a wet rag and unplugged it and hollered at Ralph to throw me a bottle of water.

I opened the front hatch and dumped the water on the battery and separated the cables.

It scared us something bad and we hit the dock right after that and hit the cooler pretty hard. Ralph told me he thought about jumping overboard when he saw me fighting the cables and smoke.

When I looked at everything the next day, I found that the beaker did not do its job.

I also finally got the pin out of the fire extinguisher only to discovered it would not spray.

I rewired everything, got a new battery, a different breaker and put the battery in a dang box instead of a tray.

Since then, I routinely check my extinguisher.

We also have a "plan" which is something we did have prior.

Caught fish tho didn't we? lol