Dumb things you have done on the water

[Rebbasser]

Haven't had one of these in a while, so:

Launched without the drain plug.

Tied on a lure then clip the main line instead of the tag end.

Used my telescoping lure retriever as a makeshift push pole and lost the bottom section when it got wedged in the mud.

Closed the rear hatch and broke one of Flyrod's rods.

Left the engine down as I pulled up the ramp.

Just to name a few

[texasbasser]

I cut the main line instead of the tag end about every other cast if i dont watch it, I am really bad at that one lol... One time I launched my paddleboat, get out on the lake to find that I left the ropes (tied to each corner of the front part of the boat) in the water, and they got stuck up in the pedal underneath the boat so.. I was being blown across the lake without being able to pedal or drive so i had to drag the boat along shore back to dock bad experiance!

[jooleyen]

Lol. Today was one of the first times I cut the main line instead of the tag end. I was angry

Today I also had another rod behind me and casted. My lure caught onto the rod and I had a HUGE backlash.

[flamez]

rofl texasbasser my first fishing boat was a paddleboat good freaking times man then upgraded to canoe and now kayak but i still have that kayak and it still brings back memories i swear when the bass hear the chug chug chug chug, chug chug chug chug they know whos coming

anyway i stood up in my kayak to get a better hookset on what i thought was a good bass in some pads i set the hook and then it started i tilted to one side of the kayak then the other then the other over and over untill finally it looked like i was gonna go in and i tip to the otherside and do a summersault into the water =P

[FlyRod]

Originally Posted by Rebbasser

Haven't had one of these in a while, so:

Launched without the drain plug.

Tied on a lure then clip the main line instead of the tag end.

Used my telescoping lure retriever as a makeshift push pole and lost the bottom section when it got wedged in the mud.

Closed the rear hatch and broke one of Flyrod's rods.

Left the engine down as I pulled up the ramp.

Just to name a few

I could write a book! But then Zooker would eat it.

FR

[carolina-rig-01]

launched boat without drain plug...forgot to remove tie down straps from back of trailer. once i was flippin a brush pile and lost a giant right at the boat, in an emotion driven tantrum i fell to my knees on the deck of my boat and slammed my brand new falcon flippin stick on the console, and the console won that battle when it made my flippin stick about 2 foot shorter.

[mymomisbecky]

on my fiberglass bass boat there is a recoil inline system in the bow, for anchors and such. anchor down. drive off, ruin the entire system.
call the company that makes em. 65 bucks normally. they sent me a brand new one, next day air. boat was 10 years old when it happened. thats amazing customer service.

[Recon8541]

As my fishing partner from up north will testify....Im notorious for jumping out of the boat. I cant help myself...I love the water.

On a slow day of fishing, Ill get us motoring across the lake, running fairly well, then just say "hell with it im outta here"

get up and jump off the back of the boat while its going across the water. I generally do this on days when the fishing sucks, and it is kinda entertaining to see. My partner generally starts cussing me for giving him heart failure, but he always comes back to get me!!

Note: I always make sure its open water, and noone else is close by.

ok so he and I come to florida to fish (before I moved here) slow day on the harris chain....i jump out of the boat....hey theres a log ill swim over to it till he comes back the logs pretty close....um....er.....and its swimming....

turns out the "log" was a notoriously big gator which harris is known for....

thankfully the fight or flight response in that gator was to chose flight....I havent jumped much since.

[JB]

fishing a rogue on super windy days, after a few hours ya hold your rogue up in the air to help a co angler or just talk, and the stupid wind buries those sticky sharp trebs all over your sweatshirt, hat, or hair, or jeans, or boat carpet, or your buddies head...all the above have happened, and chances are they will happen again this year!
oh, yeah bout forgot, worse thing I ever did was yell over to some carpenter that was working on a new dock, "Hey buddy your azzcrack it showin" ....right before he beat the shYtOutaMe rofl

[keithdog]

Left out the drain plug once. Swatted a horse fly from my face and accidently sent my prescription glasses to the bottom in 35 foot of water. And the worst thing I ever did was actually a small story full of missery. Went fishing one early morning. Strong storms rolled in and we had to ditch into a large tube connecting the two lakes we were fishing. Should have watched the forecast first. After the storms, we kept fishing to no avail. Lousy day of fishing. Sooo, I let my brother talk me into water skiing instead. Something I had never done. His friend had brought the gear to ski at some point. I got into the water, skis in place and the boat roared into action and off it went. I had a nice bass boat at that time. Up I came out of the water and then bam, down I went. One ski smashing my forehead and face giving me a bloody nose, the other ski smashing my nether regions, vertually turning me into a eunuch. Surviving that, I decided to head back to the launch in the other lake. I decided before leaving though, to have fun driving my bass boat through a set of 20 floating markers at full throttle. like someone driving a car through an obsticle course. Zig zagging through all of them back and forth. My brother got behind the wheel for a couple drive throughs, and then me again. It was a blast. That fun ended when to my total disbelief, I heard a siren and saw the county police boat on my tail. Apparently what I thought was bouyees used by skiers turned out to be markers for the no wake zone. Sooo, $50.00 less, I headed back to the launch to head home. THATS when I discovered my dead battery in my truck, from leaving the lights on all day. This was in the days before cell phones, and there was no phones available for me to call from. Luckily for me, the guy who was collecting the launch fees from his lawnchair drove home to get me some jumper cables. By the time I got home it was definately Miller time.

[3dkicker]

Landed a fish, needed pliers to remove the hook, got the hook out and had the fish and pliers in one hand and the bait in the other. I tossed the fish back in the water without realizing that I was still holding the pliers in the same hand. I found out how quickly pliers sink.

[Kevin]

1) Hit a big flying bird with the bow of the bass boat at 65+ mph.
2) Tried launching but forgot one of the transom tie-downs was still on.
3) Bought a real nice rod/reel combo and within first 30 mins of use on water lost grip of it on a roll cast and went in water, gone forever.
4) Came up on a barge wake way too fast, had the boat airborne at least 4 feet, came out of my seat completely.
5) Wanted to change lures so I cut off the lure I had on, but then retied the same lure back on.
6) Forgot to take off the protective plastic tubing over the hook of a saltwater swimbait (Wildeyez) I trolled for about 25 mins before realizing.
7) Got Zara Spook trebles in my hand fishing at night (very dark out), had to drive home with spook still in hand.
8) Too many to even remember I'm sure.

I'm still waiting to hear the story of someone pulling their boat out of the water, pumping out their livewells, but forgetting there were fish in them... then storing the boat for days/weeks. I know this has had to have happened before... still haven't met that person though.

[crankybait]

Hmm... baitcasting at night, getting horrible backlashes
I casted a worm at the same spot of the pond for hours because I kept seeing splashes and thought they were bass... I looked up and saw stuff falling off the tree, making the splashes
Walking out on a log for a spinnerbait... I ALMOST fell in, thankfully didnt.
Cutting off a lure for no apparent reason.
Oh, and once while with friends, I was tying a jig on. He distracted me and while we were talking, I stopped tying at just having the loop through the eye. The jig flew, and I thought it was still on my line. I was like wow longest cast ever!

[mack]

1) hit a goose with a roostertail (by accident)
2) jumped in the water after my personal best after it got caught in some branches (went in up to my waste and got him)
3) clipped the main line
4) using a baitcaster in front of a tree and when i went to cast, my lure got caught in the tree and backlashed horribly

[adamchasejones]

Live lining an LY for mackerel one time and caught an osprey. It eventually freed itself. I did NOT want to take that sumbeach off the hook.

I have been fishing fluorocarbon and go to cast and backlash and my spinnerbait/jig go FLYING....i get laffed at a lot for that one.

[JB]

We have taken off many times without pluggin the live well, as we sat and fished the live well had water, but as soon as you run and gun you can hear the fish flopping n have to stop to put a plug in..
Up at middle bass island at lake Erie small mouth fishing, I accidental got my line tangled in a ducks armpit, under the wing, as it took off for flight there my line with grub goes about 50 feet in the air before I was able to pull it free....also some dumb things on the boat, hitting high waves and wind at the wrong direction, turned my old 79 glass tron boat about 145 degrees facing the other directions once we landed, plus all the tackle boxes were swamped and floating around..
Another time we were sneaking in a taught harbor and I accidental hit the deck of a boat with my plug, making noise and the owner came out screaming and cussing, can't say I blame him..
Another time running in rough water forgot to put the hold downs on all the rods, two of my buddies rods went overboard to the bottom of brook ville lake.
Or...overfilled the gas tanks on our 86 ranger while talking at the shell station and gas puked up all over the place on the overfill hole...
or...caught tonys scalp with a rogue, was casting with out looking who was behind me...
another time at Ky. lake my jig got caught in a old wooden dock, went over to free it and discovered a rattlesnake in the same crack, needless to say I cut the line and moved on...
Have put a few pairs of pliers overboard while excited about unhooking a bass, thought the deck extended out to the right of me, but it was just water rofl.
The dumbest thing I probably did over and over was tell guys where I caught fish and how pre fishing tourneys...like that night in the cabin over some brews...
I am sure there are more!

[Rider]

Fishing docks with one of my dads expensive spinnerbaits, casted to the dock and it went onto the dock, it managed to drop between the spaces in between the wood and i couldnt get it back through, so i figured Ill cut the line to get it, the lure fell in the water . Then the owner of the dock came out and gave me a peice of his mind.

Then i went to tie on a crankbait, bad knot, sombody elses dock got another lure.
ive rolled up the window in the back of my dads bronco with a G Loomis GLX rod hangin out.
broke the trolling motor twice on the jon boat we used to have
And ive caught more people than fish with treble hooks

[zooker]

threw a spinner bait over the side of the boat. -forgot to tie it on.
sea gull going east to west met troller going north to south ..took me a month to get the fethers out of the boat.
fell backwards off the boat trailer-into the lake -
swung a fish over the entire boat and he still got off..

boy i could wright a book..glad to see that i aint alone in bird bashing..

zooker

[jooleyen]

Kevin, #5 happens to me all of the time.

[brushhog]

List is really long, but I'll give you two that haven't been posted yet...

1. Standing up in a canoe to attempt to retrieve a lure in a tree - results predictable ! dumped me, my son, our lunches our gear and my $100 sunglasses. Got it all back except for the glasses!

2. Left nightcrawlers in the styrofoam container in the jeep in 90 degree weather for a coiple days - results predictable... stench unbelievable!!

Great thread - nice to see some of the big dogs whose advice I rely on do some of the same things we new guys do.. Planting hooks in my pants swearshirt or hat is another favorite!

[texasbasser]

LOL, today in the paddleboat I was sitting there remembering this thread, and the wind starts to howl so I throw the anchor overboard.. not knowing it wasnt tied on to the front of the boat!

[Vabass22]

The most recent one that comes to mind, is at my last tourney. It was an electric only lake, but the wind was blowing, so my boat captain decided to put the Merc in. When we went to take the boat out, he realized he didn't charge the tilt battery enough to raise the motor. We had to switch batteries.

[Curado]

-launched the boat w/o the plug
-cut the main line
-left a bag of soft plastics on the deck and they blew off
-try to cast my spinning reel w/o flipping the bail
-try to launch the boat with it still strapped to the trailer
-forget to pull up the trolling motor

[flfireman]

My most recurring problem- Forgetting to pull the TM before taking off. Forgot a tie down strap, couldn't figure out for the life of me why the boat wouldn't come off the trailer. Thinking I can reel a fish in faster than the gator coming after said named fish.

[bassinbob]

Tied the boat to the back of my truck backed up and launched the boat. Pulled foward to see the boat sailing off into the middle of the lake. The knot came untied. Had to swim out fully dressed in 40 degree temps to retrieve as no other boaters on lake. Had change of clothes in truck so day was not total loss. Forgot to install drain plug a couple of times. Hold down strap once. Forgot to take clear plastic hook cover off a buzzbait and wondered why I wasn't getting hookups. After 3 or 4 hits finnally saw it. Threw anchor in and line wasn't attached to boat. Was able to retrieve because water wasn't too deep and line floated. Decided to sit out rainstorm on lake (no lightning) and had to bail out about 4 inches of water. Couple of times tied what I thought were good knots only to see spinnerbaits go flying for record casts. Funny it has only been spinnerbaits. List goes on.

Bob