Object Overboard Recovery

[anordqu42]

Just curious how successful people are on the recovery of items (in this case, rods), that go overboard, in deep enough water where you can’t see it?

This weekend I was on the St Louis River and with an errant cast I snagged a rod I had setting behind me (a never before used SC Avid/Shimano Symetre combo). Into the drink it went! I reacted quick and got it pinned against the boat, but it slipped away with the current, in about 12 ft of water.

FM’er Lota Lota was with me and quickly hit the GPS to mark the WPT. We proceed to grab the muskie rods, put on some heavy hooks and dredged the bottom. After about 20 minutes and many large logs being pulled from the bottom, I depressingly conceded. Lota continued his last dredge and while reeling in, snagged a smaller branch. As the end of the line neared the surface, that branch began to look a lot more like a brand new rod/reel combo…mine in-fact!! Can you say ‘kid getting his first bike at Christmas feeling’…I was grinning ear-to-ear!!

I’ve heard many stories of people catching other’s rods, but how many have been successful to recover your own?

And thanks again Lota Lota!!

[Eric Wettschreck]

This past winter my 2 sons and I were ice fishing on URL. We were just kinda standing around in the fish house when I hear a "Plunk." Down the drink went one of the rods. I pretty much chalked it up as gone.

The next day I caught a walleye barely bigger than my finger. There was a hook and line coming out of it's mouth. So, I pull up the line and, voila, there's my rod.

Funny thing is a little tiny walleye smaller than my finger pulled a fishing rod off the chair and down the hole.

[BobT]

I've had a couple. My son one time got so excited when he got a bite that he dropped his rod in the lake. He was about 9 at the time. We dragged the area with spoons and recovered it.

While ice fishing I was bringing in a fish and it got wrapped up in my other line, pulling it into the hole. Fortunately, I was able to retreive it when I brought the fish through the hole.

Bob

[deepportage01]

I lost a reel off one of my rigs two years ago on the rainy river it came loose hit the side of the boat and gone man I know the feeling, anyway as the day went on we drifed over and over the same spot with about 4-5 other boats catching fish and having a good ol time.about lunch time the boat next to us caught my reel! rite on the bail I yeld thats my reel! the guy kind of looked at me funny and said prove it.I told him it was an old deadbolt with with fire line on it after a short talk with the guys in his boat they tosed it to me, nice guys from Iowa.well there it is I did't catch it but I got it back.

[wayne123]

The best one I know of is my brother-in-law takes a neice fishing and she catches a fish, gets excited, and kicks a rod and reel overboard. I do not know the specifics but it was nice real and rod. The next year the brother-in-law is staying at the same resort and a business associate is staying there too. The associate goes out fishing and comes back in with the brother-in-law's rod and reel. Of course the associate did not believe it was my brother-in-law's rig. I think his wife made him give back.

[radm]

Reminds me of similar story many (30) years ago. Was crappie fishing with the wife (GF @ the time) over a hole with a tangle of branches / trees, etc. at the bottom. Wife got hung up, & laid the rod down. I start w/ the oars ( we were short distance from the dock). Needless to say as the boat moved, over went the rod & reel. Next year, same spot sure enough I hooked & retrieved it. Cleaned it up & used it for at least a couple more years.

[iffwalleyes]

I am getting pretty good at retrieving stuff out of a fishing hole. Two years ago I was augering holes in my house and I was sweating up storm so I wiped my brow and plunk down the hole when my Oakleys. Well I always fish with jigging spoons so that was I was using a half hour later I caught them and still have them. I have caught probably about as many ice poles out of the lake as I have lost luckey for me none have been any of my Thorne Bros rods.

[SlipperyRod]

We were out spearing on a little lake and when we got the hole opened up off in the one corner there was something white it looked like the gas tank off an ice auger....we caught it with a big treble and low and behold there was an auger attached to that tank....my buddy took it home and the next day he called me all excited... he had dried it out fogged the cylinder put new gas in it and it started right up......don't ask me how a ice auger got in the bottom of the lake, but what a find!!!!

[Hydra Sport]

slippery rod, Under that same category of how did that get there ? I had a mechanic working on my boat motor one time and as we shot the bull he tells me that his buddy for some totally mysterious reason had taken the floatation out of his boat. Sure enough it gets swamped on FL. I chalk this up as one of the more stupid things that I have heard of in a long time . Only to hear a few months later from a Ramsey County sherrif who had helped with the recovery of a snowmobile that went for a swim. He tells me "it was the weirdest thing we went down to hook up the sled and what do we find" ? A boat. But the really strange thing was it didn't have any flotation.

Strange but unfortunately true !

[ChuckN]

Teaching some people in my boat how to cast they have let 'er fly when in motion. A quick grab of my bouy marker tossed over the spot, then rake the area with a big hook has retrieved 2 rods so far out of 8-10' of water. Funny to see that...

My largest catch was when ice fishing my Lazer auger head fell off while I punched a hole in 20' of water. The bolt loosened so much it gave out at the perfect time, and down she went. The look on my face at that point was priceless while holding powerhead and no auger attached.

With help of a underwater camera, the original Angel Eye spoon and heavy line I caught the auger, positioned it right below the hole perfectly and used a long rachet strap and metal hook to hook and catch the auger. I pulled the auger head up within a couple hours of work. Managed to get it before the prime time walleye bite, luckily, to save the trip.

The Angel Eye spoon is the best recovery lure ever made (and a fine fish lure!). It swims in all sorts of directions. It's caught a leatherman tool and a clamp on rattle reel that went down the hole also.

[Fishin4Life]

Chuck good story, gave me a laugh when I pictured to look that you probably had on your face. Then I can just picture myself doing the same thing! LOL, now if it happens i will know what to do.

[BobT]

I remembered another incident I had. I was fishing with my step father. He had hooked a fish and so I laid my rod down so I could help him net it. While manning the landing net my back was turned to my rod and soon we heard a splash as my rod was pulled over the side of the boat. We were deep enough that there were no weeds to hook so it remains our belief that a fish had inherited a fishing rod and reel combination. We never did recover that one.

Bob

[Bobby Bass]

Many years ago I was fishing with my youngest daughter, I had just tossed a plastic worm to the back of a long dock when my daughter when casting tossed her rod overboard. Quickly thinking I used the rod tip of my rod to wrap some line around the tip of her rod before it sank. At the same time a fish picked up my worm, I grabbed my line and set the hook. Pulling the daughters rod now hooked to my rod I did not notice till I heard the fish hit the bottom of the boat, my daughter seeing I had hooked a fish grabbed the line and pulled the fish in. I think she was 8 or so and we still discuss who gets credit for catching the fish.

[caseymcq]

While fishing URL two winters ago I lost a Motorola two-way radio, Tazer light attached to a clippers on a lanyrd and foreceps down the hole.

I fell asleep and didn't notice the Mr. Heater melting the snow under the minow bucket I had several items sitting on. I woke up when I heard the bucket tip. Everything went right down the hole. I walked over and told my brother the story. He gave me his Aqua-Vu to se if I could see them.

I dropped the camera down the hole and quickly found the lanyrd floating up off of the bottom. I hooked that and recover it, the clippers and light easily.

I dropped the camera down a little further and sure enough there was my two-way radio. IT WAS STILL ON! After about 10 minutes and a lot of luck I hooked it and was able to bring it back up. Still on, still working. I use it to this day.

The forceps is, unfortunately, still on the bottom of URL.

[BobT]

This isn't fishing related but it is a recovery story nonetheless. Last fall my neighbor was checking my oats to see if they were ready to be cut. He had his cell phone in his shirt pocket and unknowingly it fell out in the oat field. A few days later I swathed the oats into windrows. After about another week we started combining the oats. There was a quite a bit of grasses growing with the oats and in some areas they hadn't quite dried down enough yet. Of course, I plugged the combine. We worked for over an hour trying to get the machine going and in the process had opened the access hatches to the grain hammers (these beat the oats to shake the seed out). Inside this area of the combine is a shallow (about 4" deep) pocket designed to trap rocks that may get picked up by the combine. While cleaning out this pocket we found a cell phone. It was my neighbors and it was still turned on! We have no clue how the phone managed to get that far into the combine without being totally destroyed.

That's a phone that took a licking and kept on ticking.

Bob

[bwtrout]

At one of the Burntside bashes an FMer dropped their icescoop down the hole (Rick?) and managed to track it on the flasher for a successfull recovery mid fall.

[Doufish2]

4 years ago we went down to Missouri in April to get some early season bass fishing in. Tugged the Ranger down loaded to the brim with winter bought new baits and rods. I had my future son-in-law with me and his dad. My future son-in-law is a very metticulous fishermen and a hell of a good stick. He keeps his G-Loomis rods in a case. He had 5 new ones with and placed the case on the back deck of the boat. I backed the boat in, fired it up, figured I'd get it warmed up since it had not been started since late fall. As I hit about 50 MPH, I cought some movement out of the corner of my eye, sure enough, there goes the case with about $3000 woth of rods and reels flyin out the back of the boat. I swung the boat around, tried to grab the case in a panic and missed it as I watched it sink in about 25 ft of murky cold Missouri water. Needless to say, my son-in-law was standing on shore watching this. When I got back, I could see the tears in the eyes of a 17 year old kid that worked his butt off all winter at a bait shop to get these rods and reels. We ran into town, got the biggest treble hooks we could find, asked if any one had an underwater camera, no one did. We searched for a couple of hours, to no avail. It was a pretty quiet trip for the next three days.

On the fourth day, I took him to Bass Pro in Springfield, bought him the equipment he had lost. To this day, NOTHING gets left on the deck of my boat.

A side note to this story. Being the metticulous kid that he was, he kept every reciept for his equipment. Luckily, I have insurance for stupid things like this and insurance picked up the tab. A big lesson learned.

[colonel42]

One night up on URL we rented a sleeper and two other friends set up a clam next to us. While waiting for the big crappie rush we stepped outside to strech and make a toast to the crappie Gods. Kept the door open wide enough to be able to check bobbers. In the far corner of the house I see a rod slowly moving towards the end of the chair. ( Kinda like the movie Grumpy old men) before I could move the rod was in the drink. The f'en hymers were at full force. As I run into the house and stood over the hole with the look of frustration on my face I watched the other three rod in the house follow suite. At the time not a pretty site. In 15 seconds we seen four rods hit the floor and summit to the bottom of Red Lake. After this happened I recalled reading the Red lake forum and remembering stories about the triangle. Not all was over yet though. One of the guy's in the clam gets a bite. Ends up fighting a fish for about five to ten minutes and finally pulls in a 42" nothern. Attached to the fish were our four rods from the other house. We still sit and laugh about the event that happened that night. Believe it or not...

[danlk]

WAS bobberfishing walleyes on a hump that topped out at 21 ft and plopped a HMG into the drink. stripped to my shorts dove in, and used the achor rope for a guide and got my outfit back. another time got a diver. The waters to cold in may. hmmmmmmm must a clumsy fisherman.

[MNmikew]

In the BWCA many years ago. A newbie in the canoe with me decides he's gonna sit sidesaddle while fishing. Well he goes back to set the hook like he's marlin fishing and over we go. Of course all the gear we lost was mine. Two spinning outfits and a tackle box. After commendering all of his fishing tackle I went out to same spot the next evening jigging walleyes. After several nice fish later I hook into what seemed to be a monster. Turned out to be one of my poles from yesterday. Naturally I put on a daredevil to try to get the other one but couldnt.