Nightmares & bloopers

[Hydra Sport]

I think it being the beginning of the season and all, it might be instructive for some of us to share our nightmares with other FM folks. We missed an opportunity to be on the Aitkin hospitals wall of shame last year. NOTE-- It no longer exists due to the Feds Hippa laws on privacy. Bummer ! We certainly earned it. We had a new guy with us in the boat who hadn't fished for a while but started off by kicking some butt with his new Crane baits. He landed another northern but this one was respectable. He looked at us with trepidation but none of us exactly jumped up to help him since we were fishless and becoming more disgusted by the minute. In a flash as he's begging with his eyes for help, the fish jumped out of his hands but never hit the floor. Because two of the treble hooks were buried in his forearm and the about 12 pounder was hanging from his arm. It was hard to tell at that point who was more distressed the fish that was hanging by its lip or the fisherman who was dancing around in paint but keeping his arm as still as he could as he danced around. You had to be there. I quickly grabbed the fish and took the weight off of his arm as the others tried to figure out what to do next. After we got the hooks out of the fish, (CPR you know) we began to concentrate on how to get it out of his arm. Unfortunately one of the hooks was through one side and out the other and quite deep in the muscle. Of course we had the best intentions of clipping the hook and getting back to business but 1st things first and his priority was not the hooks but "whatever you do don't mess up my new crane bait" Lucky for him we didn't happen to have a side cutter along. To make a long story shorter, 3 hours later we were getting out of the hospital and heading for the water. Lesson being, carry a side cutter! In all seriousness we messed up and whenever there is a new person in the boat they should get some extra supervision or support until it is clear that they are skilled in the art of safe fishing.

[eyepatrol]

Nightmares and bloopers? Man, I've got one, and this all happened on one vacation. I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but there's LOTS that happened!

Canada fishing trip probably 20 years ago or so, dad went to launch the boat, there was a rock retaining wall with a metal post sticking up to mark the end of it, dad misjudged the location of the metal post and ran it over with the "holiday roader" (station wagon). Punched a hole in the oil pan I believe while trying to get unstuck.

Then, after finally getting the boat launched, couldn't get the motor started. After lots of cussing and swearing, discovered the fuel hose was pinched off.

Two days later, after my grandpa, uncle and I caught some nice northerns, grandpa took off and forgot to bring up the electric. Tore it right off. Threw out the marker buoy and fortunately my uncle loves scuba diving and retrieved the motor later that day. Grandpa still is using that same one.

Same day, another uncle in a different boat leans over to take a pic of a fish and drops his camera in the lake. Same deal, threw out the bouy and scuba uncle retrieved it. Don't remember if it still worked after that though. Scuba uncle got lots of scuba time in that day.

Next day, grandma gets a hook through her thumb from an errant cast attempt by one of my aunts. To the hospital to get the hook out.

Later that same day, lost the anchor on rocks (had to cut the rope).

Two days later, grandpa has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital. Grandpa & grandma's trip cut short.

On the way home, my grandparents were trailering the boat behind their RV and they forgot to put the latch down on the trailer hitch and forgot to hook on safety chains. Trailer comes off the ball, boat and trailer run down into road ditch, and luckily end up okay. Imagine that!

Not kidding one bit about this.....all this happened on ONE vacation!!!

Five years or so later, at a different resort (never went back to the ill-fated resort), grandpa, grandma and my cousin were headed out to go fishing, traveling about 1/2 throttle. Another guy comes out from around a point going about 1/2 throttle also, wasn't looking where he was going and grandpa was looking the opposite direction....guy hits grandpa's boat on the side, bottom of boat runs up grandpa's boat, but front end of guy's boat goes up at 45 degree angle and slides back down, doesn't land on top of grandpa's boat. Nearly killed my cousin....only missed him by a foot or so. Big dent in grandpa's aluminum boat (other guy had fiberglass). Turns out, other guy was a grandpa who forgot to put the plug in his boat and was turned around talking to his grandson trying to tell him how to put the plug in. I watched the hole thing from shore and kept saying to my mom...they're gonna hit...they're gonna hit! Sure enough. Nobody got hurt thank goodness.

There, that's about enough of the nightmares and bloopers. Two other Canada vacations my grandpa has had mild heart attacks. Hoping the big one never gets him while up in Canada, but he has said in the past if he were to go, that's one of the places he wouldn't mind departing.

Got other bloopers and nightmares too, but this is enough for one post.

[gunflint]

Last year I was fishing for walleyes with a triple hook crawler harness when I caught a 19 inch smallie. He hit the first hook. When I tried to get him off the hook he floped at the wrong time and hooked me with the last 2 hooks.

I was alone and in that situation you can either hold on to the fish with your free hand or remove the hooks but you can't do both at the same time. Every time I'd set the fish on the deck to try and remove the hooks from me, he would start flopping and bury the hooks deeper. It was a bad situation and a little painful.

Of course the wind was blowing me into the rocks by this time. I finally managed to cut the harness and free myself from the fish. After a stern lecture on sportsmanship and a brief discussion on mercy, I let the offending smallie go. I haven't used a triple hook harness since.

[Tonka Boy]

Wow basscatcher! Remind me never to go on vacation with you guys. LOL

[eyepatrol]

Some of our vacations have been pretty crazy, that's for certain! For a while our family (including grandparents and lots of aunts/uncles) could have been a traveling fun show! It's gotten better over the years though. The last "big" incident was when one of my aunt's husband, who just got a big heavy fiberglass boat, went running around wide open on the lake in Canada, drove right next to the red marker bouy, and sure enough, hit a rock with the side of his boat and put a hole in it. He made it back to shore as it scared the you know what out of him, but needless to say that was the end of his boating for the week. All we could think of was...DUH! We told him what those markers were for. He never did buy another boat...and they haven't come on another family vacation up to Canada since that time.

Other than that, the "ship" has been running pretty smoothly the past few years (knock on wood).

[Kab Dreamin]

I was on a houseboat trip 5 or 6 years ago in September on LOW when one of the guys in our group had a heart attack 35 miles by water from anywhere. Luckily, there was a houseboat full of doctors on vacation fishing in the same area and they gave us some instructions over the radio on some basic first aid. The owner of the houseboat service came out in the middle of the night in the pitch black to get our guy off the boat and to the ambulance. How he found us on a moonless night in the wilderness of LOW still amazes me.

After a week in the hospital in Kenora, our guy was able to come home. During the week, there was a fight over who go the extra t-bone steak, however.

[gunflint]

I thought that the rule was: If any member of your party is sick or injured "All Extra Rations" go to the member catching the largest fish on the day in question. I'm looking it it up now.

[Kab Dreamin]

I thought they always went to the biggest. At 6'6" and 350 lbs., I usually qualify. The steak was great.

[dfv87]

Gunflint,

You are correct in general for rations but under the "Steak Clause" in paragraph (12b) I do believe the passage reads... The extra T-Bone is raffled by the cook and awarded for cash if he decides the minimum acceptable bid has been offered.

[stmichael]

Post deleted by stmichael

[nofishfisherman]

I think it is safe to assume that they did everything they could to save the guys life. He made it so they did something right.

Basically you are saying that unless he gives you the minute by minute account of what happened then you will assume that they only did the bare minimum they had to do to save the guy. Lets not jump to such radical conclusions, I think we can all give someone a little more credit then that.

[stmichael]

I DELETED THE POST SORRY IF IT OFFENDED ANYONE AND FOR DOUBTING THE INTENTIONS OF ANOTHER FM'R

Please accept my apologies Kab Dreamin

[Kab Dreamin]

Apparently, living in the perfect world that you do, you don't seem to understand the situation. There was absolutely no moon and you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. None of us knew the lake well enough, or had a boat equipped with lights, to attempt a run from the Sunset Channel back to Sioux Narrows at midnight. Getting lost on LOW at night and wasting hours rather than the fifteen minutes you speak of, was a much more realistic outcome at that point. We followed the advice of the houseboat operator and stayed put and waited for him. Had this been daylight, there would have been no question that the fastest boat would have been on the way back.

I think you are off the deep end and I make no apologies for how the situation was handled.

[Ihateriversnags]

As a Paramedic myself I can say with absolute certainty that even in the best of conditions, there are times when a few minutes of planning can save hours and more importantly lives. The one thing that everyone assumes is that real life situations are like they have been portrayed on TV with shows such as the infamous Rescue 911. However those same people fail to realize that those are re-creations of the actual event. On TV everyone runs at a full sprint to the patients side, Reality says that when you are running and you break your leg because you didn't see that pothole, you save nobody. I know that's a poor example however I think it projects the idea of what I was trying to get across. I think you all made the right decision and the service owner was also correct in telling you to stay put. Think of what kind of discussion we could have had if you had run aground or sank LOL.

Tight lines this weekend everyone and please be safe!!