Your Most Embarrassing Fishing Moment

[ozarkgunner]

Ah yeh, the rod's snagging a tree trick. Same thing happened to me, but I was out pre-fishing from my partners boat by myself one fall day and had about 5 rod's a combination of his and mine get pulled over the side. I was fishing Beaver Lake down in Indian Creek, so the water was clear, I could see the rod's about about 6 ft down, nobody was around, so I stripped down to nothing, dove down retrieved the rods, got dressed and continued pre-fishing for my tournament. No one else was around, so not so embarrasing, but a good story.

Anyone ever hear the story about the cop who was fishing on Table Rock back in the late 1980's? Apparently a big snake fell into his boat from one of the trees. Instead of using a pole or an oar to get it out, he emptied his .38 into the bottom of the boat. I sometimes think this is an urban legend.

[Bill P]

I won't bore anyone with any one particular incident. I will admit,that over the years,I've committed every possible embarrassing thing one could do at a boat launch.

Thankfully,these incidents occur much less frequently,but I'll never say 'I won't ever do that again'.

I've long thought about making and marketing a video tape called "Boat Dock Blunders'. I'm sure it would make big $$$.

[Hunter91]

I took my wife out fishing one day during the week last spring when we were catching crappie on Stockton. We launched at the old state park ramp. My wife backed me down to launch and stopped in the waters edge to let me unhook the front of the boat. She got out of the truck to put something else in the boat, the door closed and locked. Just like SAM, the engine was running and we were blocking the ramp. It closed all the way, only spare keys were in my wife's purse (in the truck!) and one on my son's key chain and he was in High School that morning. Had to walk up the road to get cell phone signal which we luckily had already put in the boat. Called my sons school to get him out to bring us keys. Luckily no one wanted to launch the two hours our truck and boat was on the ramp. when my son showed up, he said he deserved to fish a couple hours before going back to school. We gave in and had an excellent crappie catching trip after a bad start.

[wily]

like many -- mine has to do with forgetting the plug -- we were staying at trout hollow and using the ramp at riverlake. i had backed my ranger in...jumped in it and started it up. i backed the boat off the trl and into the middle of the lake, and waved to my father in-law who was to take the truck back to trout hollow and then i'd come pick him up.

about the time he cleared the ramp...i look down and the floor is full of water. i panicked...gun the ranger to get it back to the ramp and jumped in. laying on my back with all my clothes on trying to find the hole to put the plug in.

there was a pontoon boat full of people fishing about 50 yards from me.

[zander]

This story is actually my uncle's, but he had just bought a loaded out brandnew bass boat. This thing was sweet. He hooked it up to his truck and left his home in Wichita, KS along with his wife and headed on down the road to Grand Lake in Oklahoma. Got to the ramp, put it in the water, it slid off the trailer like butter far away from the ramp. It was at that moment that he began to wonder where the keys to the boat were. Turns out he had left them on his kitchen table back in Wichita, KS. He was mad as could be, but it is funny to him now.

[MOBass]

I can attest to story number one because I can remember driving up to see the later part of said incident. I am somewhat disapointed that you didn't relate my story about the Mill Creek ramp, rolling into the boat in front of me, forgetting the plug, going for a quick swim and then stripping to my skivies in front of the tournament about to take off.....and the full blown feet in the air fall onto the courtesty dock at Mill Creek to check on my truck later that day. I believe I was awarded "Best Comic Lake Adventure" that year. Surely you remember that one.

O.K. 2 stories:

Several years back we had a club tournament the same week the BASS Open was in town. Our club was a bunch of retailers so we had our tournaments on Wednesday while the BASS boys were practicing. We went out of Aunts creek, I launched with my partner and tied up to the dock. Looked up on the ramp and my buddy was trying to launch with his partner, a young lady about 4'10". He asked if she could back him in and she said no problem. He climbed into the boat and she started the truck. She didn't realize he had a three speed and not an automatic, she managed to get the truck in neutral and it began rolling down the ramp, at 4' 10" she couldn't reach the brake and the whole rig went in to about the head lights. My buddy dove out of the boat swam to the truck and managed to get it back up the hill. He pulled into a parking spot and opened the door, it looked like a cartoon with water pouring out of the truck, I expected to see fish swimming on the parking lot.

By now I had run up to him to see if I could help, he said he was o.k. but needed some dry clothes for him and his partner, I gave him my coveralls and her a pair of sweat pants and a sweat shirt. They changed and we had managed to retreive his rig and pull it to the dock. He gets to his boat and it is full of water..... forgot the drain plug. Wearing my coveralls he dives back in the water and inserts the plug, climbs out and starts the bilge, bilge doesn't run. We decide to put his boat on my trailer because his truck won't start. I back in my trailer, we manage to barely get his boat on and my 1 ton truck struggles to get the boat up the hill. We let it drain, he changes clothes yet again, now fishing in a rain suit only. The entire episode happened infront of about 30 BASS Open guys, I don't think they laughed that hard in their entire lives. Oh, he went out an hour late and managed to win the club derby.

#2

I decided to improve my odds by setting some brush piles on a "local" lake a few winters ago. Air temp was about 40 and water temp was about 38. I had planted about four brush piles and noticed a real good looking sycamore that had blown down on the bank. I beached my boat to retreive the tree, I grabbed it and started back to the boat about the time a gust of wind blew my boat off the bank. I walked about 50 yards down the bank following my boat before I gave into the inevitable and waded out chest deep to retreive the boat. Freezing I stripped down to my birthday suit and put on a sweatshirt and sweatpants I had in the boat and decide it was time to head home, cold but relieved that no one had seen the fiasco. Pulled the trolling motor and went to fire up the big motor and heard clapping on the bank behind me, I looked up and three couples were on the deck of their house watching the whole thing.

EP