Rough water and your experiences

[mabr]

Reading another thread over in the boats and motors section got me thinking back and reliving the few times I’ve been in pretty hairy situations in a bass boat. So here are a few that come to mind.

Santee Cooper SC, fishing tourament on Lake Moultrie (East Lake) with a 25+ north wind. It was unreal making it back to the weigh in on the canal with 4-5 footers the whole ride in. One of the other competitors had to leave via vehicle they froze with fear of losing their lives (they lost 2 fish finders, every rod on the deck) besides being frozen to death. Another time, Lake Mead come out of a cove to find 4-5 ftrs again, Had a co-worker with me who was almost crying (he couldn’t swim) I calmed him down after showing him the difference between finding the right running speed or taking every wave trying to go slow. He had never seen rough water from a boat and thought if we stayed at idle we would be better off. He sure didn’t like having to gasp for breaths of air between waves was too much fun and then accepted what we had to do. The last was on Minnetonka, good ole party barge through a roller I never saw coming and speared it good. Water up to the seats, hat gone and soaking wet. I’m sure I made their day seeing it happen. Took 10 minutes of bilge pump just to get it where I could get on plane again.

I’ll never claim to be an expert in running in bad conditions FAR FROM IT. But I think I’m ok with as much seat time as I have had in my years of fishing. But check out this guy in this video!!!Man would I like to be able to handle a boat like him. I was just in awe. Call it stupid or disagree, this guy knows how to run a boat. Its a pretty long video but I couldnt leave it till i seen the whole thing. Im surprized he never flipped it or speared a wave the whole time. Rumor is it was filmed on lake Ontario.

So what about all of you? Any you want to relive or still cause you night mares?

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[polarsusd81]

That video is intense. I was clenched fist while I watched it. I haven't been in water like that with my 14 Lund, but I have nearly flipped it end over end on a big roller and crazy wind gust combo. I also got whipped 180 degrees and nearly tossed out running about 28 mph when I came out of a bay racing a storm and caught a straight line wind. Not fun. Ran back in the bay and beached it under a tree to wait out the hail.

[Superduty]

A couple trips across Lake Pepin in big waves and high water come to mind. The waves were stressful enough but with the river being flooded, I had to constantly scan for trees bobbing around in the waves. Not fun.

Another interesting experience happened up on Rainy Lake. It was rough but I have seen worse. We had to get through the narrows however. The standing wave at the narrows was huge! Have to hit the gap and turn on a dime while bouncing off the big wave at a pretty good rate of speed or you will end up in the rocks! Now I know how so many boats capsize or sink in that spot.

[RK]

Hiya -

I got kicked off of Lake Superior by the Coasties twice in one day when I was younger... Out in my 16' Lund tiller. Heard there were small craft warnings and thought "I have a pretty big boat..." Later learned "small craft" meant anything under 32 feet. More guts than brains back then.

I have a couple that come to mind though. One was me, one I was just a witness.

I got caught about 35 miles from home on the Canadian side of Lake of the Woods once, when a big front came through. Had to go through one channel to get home where 3 channels converged and funneled down - something like what SuperDuty is talking about on Rainy. Waves coming into the channel were 4s and 5s, and the standing waves in the channel were massive, and ran for about a mile. Going up you'd see nothing but sky, and coming down you'd see nothing but water - power up the face, back off the throttle and surf down the back and try not to pick up too much speed and spear the next one. Friend that was with me was screaming "We have to turn around! We have to turn around!" Kept telling him we turn sideways in this, we die. He's Japanese, and he turned as white as a sheet... Had to pull into a bay and get myself together once we made it through.

Also on Lake of the Woods, but I saw a guy swamp a 21' Ranger in about 10 seconds. Wind had kicked up from the West while I was muskie fishing in the NW Angle, and I was headed home down the Tug Channel. Got to the bottom end of the channel and stopped because the waves coming down the Sturgeon Channel were absolutely huge, and because it was a neck down, they were short spans and really, really steep faces. I don't know how big, but I'm guessing 7s and 8s. Big enough that even though I had a big glass deep V, I still wanted no part of it. So I was turning around to go back up the channel and head home the long way through Johnston's Passage when a 21' Ranger bass boat with two guys in it came flying past me at Mach 2. They didn't hesitate at all and just barreled out into the channel. I spun around in time to see them go up the first wave and take the boat just about straight vertical. Driver panicked and backed off on the throttle or took his foot off the hotfoot, and the boat started to settle back down into the wave stern first. Thought it was just about to go over backwards but he had enough momentum to carry him over, and the crest pulled his stern out from under him. He slammed the hull down onto the back face of the wave. By then he'd realized too late that he made a mistake backing off on the throttle and hit the gas, right when he should have been backing off it. Shot down the back side of the wave and absolutely speared the next wave. The *entire boat* disappeared and shot out the other side, then broached sideways up the next wave. Only thing that saved his bacon was that he went through the wave so fast and it was so tall and narrow that his motor somehow didn't swallow water and he was able to limp out of the channel back into relatively (3 foot waves) calm water in the Tug. I went over to see what I could do, and the whole boat had been sluiced out. Rods, tackle boxes, net, depth finders, windshields on both consoles...gone. Bow mount was hanging by the cables. The passenger had a big gash on his forehead where something - probably the windshield - had hit him, and the driver caught one of his console depth finders right in the chops. Both guys were pretty shook up and very battered. While they bilged out their boat I asked them what in the world they'd been thinking, and he said "well, the waves in this channel seemed ok..." Yeesh.

Thing about rough water is it's not just wave amplitude it's frequency and vector. Big rollers with a long cycle from one peak to the next and all going in the same direction are a piece of cake - crawl over them or span them if your boat's long enough, or better yet, pick a trough and run it. Run a trough right and it's like driving on a flat calm day. What I hate are choppy waves that are short cycle and high amplitude, or when waves come from different directions at once so if you square one set, another drills you from an angle. Leech is the worst for both of those. Wind wraps around the points and the waves go every which way, and they're short, steep and close together. Much rather tackle Mille Lacs on a windy day than Leech...

Cheers,

RK

[bASS_BLASTER]

Only thing I'm concern in rough water are hooks.

How do you fish in this condition?

[TonkaBass]

Leech Lake kicked my butt a couple years ago. My fishing partner and I had trouble walking straight the nest day. Gotta use common sense and once your in the big waves, the turtle always wins the race.

[Cecil]

Your trolling motor was sad that day too!

[motley man]

Missouri River by Akaska, S.D. - 8 to 10 footers and currents, rain and wind with my 13 year old son in 16 foot Lund tiller. Heck of a ride that we both remember today. Those storms come in fast and leave the same way. I waited 5 minutes to long and got caught, got into a small bay for 10 minutes and then back to fishing.

[mabr]

Good reads so far guys, theres got to be more though.

RK I felt like i was with you watching it happen. Superduty, I know exactly what you were talking about on Rainy. Wife amd me went there one june a few years back. You get a ways past the narrows and have no clue whats happening on the main lake. We got through the narrows and hit the main lake only to find dark skys ahead, this was my first time on the lake with no GPS. Me being a rookie to glacier lakes I think HEY LETS RUN CLOSER TO SHORE its not nearly as rough. Needless to say I paid for it, one big rock and one small but exspensive hole in the boat.

[Prairiefire]

I was about 18 when I got my first bassboat, a Ranger R72 with a 115 Johnson. After the first season with it I was ready to put it away in the fall and I had taken all of the gear out of it. So, I deceided to take it out and see how fast I could go with just me, half tank of gas, and no gear. It was a pretty windy day, with about a 3 foot chop on the windy side of the lake. I figured out that going straight with the wind I could skip of the top of waves and my boat that normally went about 45mph was going 51; pretty fun stuff for an 18 year old. So, I'm doing 51mph skipping accross 3 footers with no life jacket, no kill switch, and nobody else in the boat in late October. All of the sudden the boat drops into a wider set and then launches off a steep wave stright airborn; I get thrown out of my seat on to the front deck. Luckily I manage to catch the front seat post as I'm laying on the front deck; the boat continues to race down the lake with no driver (no hotfoot). I was able to crawl back to the driver seat and shut it down with no harm done. I can tell you I was shaking for a couple of hours after that ordeal. I can only imgaine what would have happened if I would have been thrown completely from the boat.

[TR21HP]

Going across Sam Rayburn with Randy Howell with 40 mph winds at 75 mph in 4-5 footers. Absolutely terrified despite him obviously being a great driver.

[mww24]

I had my GPS come off its mount and land in my lap last year on mille lacs from smacking a wave pretty hard.I have never speared on though and taken a ton of water in one shot. I've been on lake of the woods in big walleye boats where you couldn't see other boats when you were in the troughs. Those are the days you quarter the waves slowly and take your time to get back safe. The guy in the video seems to be doing a lot of that launching on purpose to put on a show for the ad. Any normal person wouldn't be driving like that.

[st.crioxfishin]

Some pretty good stuff here guys. I'm finding myself laughing at all of these, but it's definitely not fun in the moment. He is my lone experience...

Two years ago a buddy and I were down on Lake Dardanelle for a regional college event. We were making a 40 minute run to get to our starting spot. Day one was smooth sailing and quite possibly one of the best tournament days I've ever had - we ended up leading the 75 boat field going into Day 2. Lake Dardanelle is a river system and on Day 2 the wind was blowing 25mph against the current. Being boneheaded along with a bit of adrenaline thrown into the mix - we decided that we had to make the run up to our spot again. The camera boat that was supposed to follow us said we were nuts and decided to trailer their boat to another launch near our area. About 15 minutes into our run the river turned a bit and lined up perfectly with the wind direction. We began to get into some massive waves. Much like a few other stories have explained, we shot up the front side of a wave and slammed down into the trough right behind it, next thing we know we were blasted with a face full of water. Rods were strewn everywhere (not sure how we didn't loose a single one!), my bow mount electronics were gone and the windshield was completely smashed. I stood up in the bottom of the boat and the water literally came up to my waist, I thought we were going down. The boat finally popped above the surface and thank god the motor started on the 2nd try. We ran the bilge for 15 minutes and plowed our way up to our spot for the next hour. The camera boat found us soaking wet, freezing, and pretty shaken up from what had happened. To make the day even 'better' we ended up weighing in a big goose egg and having to get trailered back to the weigh-in because the tournament director would not allow us to run back down river. Never in my life have I had such a swing in fishing going from the highest of highs on day 1 to the bottom of the barrel on day 2. I learned a lot from it, but it still eats at me today...

[mabr]

Going across Sam Rayburn with Randy Howell with 40 mph winds at 75 mph in 4-5 footers. Absolutely terrified despite him obviously being a great driver.

TR21, curious what he did different than you or me would have done. I would love to be in a boat with someone who really knew what they were doing in those conditions. Like i said previously, I feel pretty confident, BUT im not running WOT in those conditions and dont know i could.

What I liked about the video is the guy never seamed to be out of control. I cant say that for myself. I actually wondered if he might have been turning a really small prop to get that boat to respond like it did. My Ranger with the max HP "200" will not do what he did.

[mabr]

Good stuff guys. Lets hope we all learn something through this. That was my reason for starting it. I searched a little online today and its hard to find anything regarding driving in rough water in a bass boat. Lets fce it, its eventually going to happen if you spend any time on the water. And being from the south I can say. I think MN waters get rougher than the majority of waters I've fished down there.

Prairefire, You are one lucky guy that could have turned out so bad and I know you know it.

Just reading your post made me remember another bone head move i made another time. Blast off, Im like 3rd boat out running wide open cause thats what you do in tourneys right, Well im fishing the back side of an island, im on the right side coming up to it still wide open and begin my turn, I know i need to trim down or im going to slip through the hard turn. DOWN alright, I trim all the way down still at full power. I was almost LAUNCHED out of the boat, had my pertner not grabbed me just in time I may have been out in a split second.

[bobbymalone]

Some good lessons for using that kill switch in here...

I'm pretty new to driving a boat and I'm not gonna lie, waves creep me out. I just don't know how to hit em right. I haven't even fully mastered crossing wakes nor am I good judge of what's a big wake or a too big wake. The theory is mostly there in my head, I just need more experience. I'm working with how to deal with whitecaps and if the waves are more than what i'm comfortable with I hand the controls over to the wife Hey, laugh all you want. Can your wife a run a boat?

I've been out in big waves on Mille Lacs a few times, but never running the boat. And I have no idea how gramps could work that tiller and get us across the lake, much less to where we were actually trying to go. and without a GPS --- I remember just seeing sky and water, sky and water and holding on tight.

[Stick in Mud]

Eh. All you guys are wimps. Try taking on some three-footers in a canoe on Saganaga in May or October. Or don't try at all and wait on shore.

[Superduty]

I would have to witness that myself to believe it! In my experience, it takes a lot of trim to hit 75 mph. A lot of trim has never been good to me in rough water.

[Bassburch]

Have you seen this one? This shows what can happen if you hit a wave at a bad angle while trimmed up...

[thatoneguy]

I've been caught on Leech twice in my 16' tin boat when unexpected winds kicked up. "White knuckle" doesn't even begin to describe it...the last time (last June) I was sure either my boat was going to come apart at seams or I was going to. Not fun!

[thatoneguy]

Have you seen this one? This shows what can happen if you hit a wave at a bad angle while trimmed up...

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[SkunkedAgain]

My week-long honeymoon on Vermilion was nothing but rain until that Thursday. We boated across Wakemup Bay into one of the smaller bays to the east in my 16' Fisher with a 1972 35hp Evinrude. About the time we got to a spot to fish for northerns, the skies turned black. We dropped gear and headed back to cross Wakemup. I don't know the height, but they were big waves for that boat. After quartering at half speed for a while we smacked a big wave. My wife flew off her seat, my tackle box and everything in the boat came rolling towards me. I came to an idle and the boat bobbed up and down in the waves. My bride liked that even less so I shifted directions to take refuge near an island. Once there I gave her a beer and said that we'd wait it out.

It wasn't long before I noticed water coming up from the bilge. We must have taken on rain water and waves. I pumped it down but it took a while. As she was finishing her beer I noticed that the water was back again! I flipped on the bilge but with the rain it was all it could do to keep the water level from increasing. I started the motor and it struggled to get on plane with all the extra water weight. My bride came to the back of the boat and I pulled the drain plug. As we hit waves and tried to plane, I watched the water ebb in and out of the drain hole. We hit one big wave and it popped us onto plane. Water started draining out the back and my bride was able to go sit in the bow seat again.

With the help of a neighbor, we got my boat on the trailer and discovered that the big wave had created a 4" puncture in the hull, parallel and right next to the keel in the middle of the boat!

I now own a bigger boat, I'm still married, and she still likes to fish.

[reinhard1]

i've been on rough waters at times and learned a long time ago not to go out on the water if i cant fish properly. not only that, i'm surprised i was able to make babies after taking some bad poundings on Mille Lacs and on Superior. should of had seat belts on in those times. the worst time i have had with wind was when i got caught out on the lake with straight line winds suddenly comming out of nowhere.

we had no warnings of any bad weather that day. we were fishing near the west shore on this lake with the boat landing a block away, but you had to go in a channel to get to it. the sky drew dark and it realy wasn't that windy. then from the east side of the lake came this wind which was so strong it pulled the 25 pound anchor up like it was a marsmallow.

i started the 115 Merc up and had my son-inlaw pull in the anchor. i had the motor a quarter speed facing east just to stay in place. it started to rain and rain hard. not straight down but at us like arrows. i decided to not try the landing for it was shallow at the entry and i knew we would be blown sideways into the brush.

so i dedided to face the wind and try for the opposite shore where a bay was. i did not open it up but even at half speed we were makeing progress but slow. what seemed like forever and soaking when from the rain and spray from the waves we made it to the other side. just as fast as it came it was gone with the sun out and started to get even calm out.

there was twigs and limbs and leaves all over the lake floating around. later we found out there was a tornado sighting or strait line winds in the area. well the bilge pump did it's job and i sure could of used a beer at the time. we continued to fish that day but trolling was no longer possible so we casted inbetween the mess and bobber fished. nothing after the storm. on the way home we stopped at the liquor store and bought a case of beer. the son-inlaw stayed the night . good luck.

[reinhard1]

got a tough lady there. sounds like a keeper. good luck.

[TR21HP]

mabr and Superduty, The only reason I knew it was 75 mph was that the only thing I was watching was the graph and the GPS. One hand on the handle to my left and the other on the ,"Oh dump" handle that came up from the seat that I could grab onto. Howell had his hand on the trim switch the whole time and I can't honestly tell you what he was doing but he had incredible control of the boat. We hit about every wave at the same angle and speed and got back to the weigh in in one piece, body as well as boat. After that I swore I would never buy a pro's boat even at a good price.