What's Your Worst Series Of Unfortunate Events ? What

[Slade House]

Ever have those days where one bad thing happens after another?  What's your worst series of accidents or mishaps you have had when fishing? and what thing makes you madder than anything else when it happens fishing?

mine would be the day I lost 7 shaky heads (all of them), got my line caught in my trolling motor twice, and then to top it off at the end of the day i drove over a sunken tree branch that snapped my prop shaft in half.  That or the weekend i took a friends friend fishing and camping. and the guy (330lbs of him) snored so loud the first night that i slept in my car friday night. the guy slept from 7am to 4pm on my boat the entire day, and slept the entire saturday night snoring.  (he had sleep apnea and narcolpsy) .  needless to say that sucked. 

 

When im fishing the thing that makes me madder than hell is getting hooks stuck in my clothes, period , i hate it 

 

[everythingthatswims]

Lost a swimbait, went back to get it with a cast net, ripped the cast net in half.

[Slade House]

Lost a swimbait, went back to get it with a cast net, ripped the cast net in half.

that sucks, but that's really funny.  what swimbait was it?  

[everythingthatswims]

that sucks, but that's really funny.  what swimbait was it?

It was only a spro BBZ. That's the worst part. $30 bait, $60 net

[RSM789]

The most recent was when I was trying to lob a drop shot rig up against a retaining wall that juts out a little into the lake (part of a green belt area).  I was so focused on the cast that I forgot about the huge oak tree on said greenbelt that hangs over the retaining wall.  I made a horrible cast and the rig ended up in the tree, about 25 feet in the air.  Irritated with myself, I gave the line a quick rip and snapped my rod in half.  Now I'm really ticked off, I grab the spool of the reel (to eliminate the drag system) pull down & away from me so I don't fire the weight into my head.  Instead, the branch breaks & falls on me.  Leaves all over me & the boat, I just started laughing...

[F14A-B]

Keep the comedy coming guys, that's some funny stuff...lol

[Blues19]

I was about 15 and my parents dropped me off at a local park where I did all my fishing. It was like my 3rd cast of the day, throwing at a big brush pile. Bait was stuck, couldnt get it out so I tightned the drag and pulled. Felt the bullet weight hit me in the forehead after the line snapped. Only problem was the line didnt snap and it was the hook that was sticking in my head, not a knot from the bullet weight.  So I only got like 3 casts in before having to call my parents to pick me back up.

[Blues19]

There was another time when my partner and I were set to go to a tournament, but we both had to work the first day, so we were a day behind.  We left earlt the next morning, got a flat tire. Fixed that, got to the ramp backed the boat in and had a dead battery, had to go get a new one, and got back. we were about a day and 3 hours behind everyone else by the time we started.

[papajoe222]

Two weeks after I purchased my new SUV and only two months after purchasing my boat, I took a day trip to a little lake well off the beaten path.hidden deep in the woods. Eight straight hours of fighting a strong wind and very few fish I called it a day. My vehicle was parked under some big trees so it would be out of the sun. Unfortunately the wind had shaken most of the acorns off those nice tall trees and left my roof and hood riddled with dimples. If poured rain most of the way home. A truck kicked up a rock that chipped my windshield and the pin on my swing trailer tongue popped out and the trailer rammed the bumper on the exit ramp a mile from home...............can you say a day to forget?

[Bankbeater]

Well there was the time when I was out pond hopping and I lost my car keys. Luckily the car was unlocked and I could get into it. After spending an hour and a half tearing the inside of the car apart and emptying out the trunk I found my keys in my coat pocket.

[gardnerjigman]

Fishing a union tournament at lake of the ozarks and we had an early limit. I caught a 3lber that would have culled. I was "on" the fish for some reason so my partner got out the cull beam to double check, but rather than clipping the securing bar on the cull bar he just put the fish on top of it. Bigger fish flopped causing an atomic bounce for the smaller one to do the same... Both hit the back deck heading for water. I pulled an iaconelli and dove towards the bigger of the 2 snapping 2 falcon lowriders and burying a spook treble in my shin. Lost both fish, snapped 2 rods and got a tetanus shot for good measure...

[SirSnookalot]

My first trip to Lake Anjigami in the Algoma region in Canada the week of Memorial Day 1970.  I went with 2 of my buddies, had the tent  and sleeping bags packed, stopped at the SOO to pickup a rental canoe.  None of us had ever been on a canoe before, we tipped it over within the first 10 minutes, my clothes and backup clothes were soaking wet.  We learned the canoe and we were off running, or paddling I should say.  Can't say how far we went went over the next few days, we had a map drawn by a friend of mine that was a guide there 20 years previous, the map with all the portage spots was perfect.  My clothes never completed dried, each night we had frost on the ground and the worst part was this was black fly season, each meal we had to paddle out to the middle of the lakes to eat.  Walking thru the woods and hearing all kinds of noises was a bit unnerving, one morning at sunrise this moose walks out of the water right thru our campsite, scared the crap out of me.  Not having surviorman on TV then we were totally un prepared, didn't even boil water.   We did what we were told was an Indian method, running the water down the paddle to purify it, we didn't get sick so maybe it worked.  Cold, damp, bitten by black flies, we were miserable but caught a ton of fish in a weeks time.  Each lake seemed to have it's one species, one lake was pike, another walleye, and when we got to Little Dozier lake it was all trout.

We made that trip 2 other times, we were much better prepared as we knew what to expect.

[corn-on-the-rob]

I just spent the last 40 minutes typing a long one and nearing the end I miss-clicked and the page refreshed and gone... fitting. So frustrated.

[Catch and Grease]

Can't really think of much terrible stuff that has happened to me but I did get my trolling motor stolen once, then the next morning I was paddling the Jon boat through pads just flipping and pitching all day and I got tons of bites but could not for the life of me get any fish to the boat....

[Sam]

1.  Crack heads stole the copper pipe from under my office on December 19. Merry Christmas.

2.  No water so I closed the office.

3.  Installed a security alarm in the building.

4.  Took two days for plumbing contractor to replace the pipe with 'non freezable plastic pipes" and upgrade to code. They finished yesterday, January 2, at 5PM.

5.  The plumbers found one toilet leaking; the kitchen faucet hose leaking; and the water heater may be leaking.

6.  Friend, who is an outstanding bass fisherman, is coming over on Monday to replace toilet with a one of those high ADA toilets and install new kitchen faucet.

7.  VAMAC is closed on Saturdays so I will have to go there at 7AM Monday morning to get the toilet.

8.  Have to go to Lowe's for the kitchen faucet today or tomorrow.

9.  Had to go to Lowe's and buy a new bathroom vanity and faucet for my office bathroom and the plumbers installed it for me.

10. Will be expanding the alarm system (it is wireless) to the crawl space door. Don't really know why since the as*ho*les already took the copper.

11. Total cost for the plumbing is $4,400.

12. Will have to invest in new ADA toilet and kitchen faucet.

13. Will have to pay friend to do the toilet and faucet repairs.

14. Expect total bill to exceed $5,000.

15  Do you guys know what fishing stuff I could buy with $5,000?

 

Want to know anything else?

[Sam]

Corn, that has happened to me may times while typing on the Forum.

 

I now go to my Word document and type up the replies and then cut and paste to the "Reply to this topic" box.

 

Give it a shot.

[lordpaxin]

I have a bad habit

When the creek beside my home floods I can not resist the urge to toss in a bait and let it float away half a spool or more

I don't know why

Every time I lose it

I've lost 6 baits this year but I keep doing it

And every time I tell myself how stupid I am

Over and over

[Sam]

I have a bad habit

When the creek beside my home floods I can not resist the urge to toss in a bait and let it float away half a spool or more

I don't know why

Every time I lose it

I've lost 6 baits this year but I keep doing it

And every time I tell myself how stupid I am

Over and over

 

Lord, you should run for a government office!!!

[lordpaxin]

Lmao

It's a disease

I picture all those trophy fish hanging out and my frog/ worm/ random lost bait floating by

I am 0/6 for retrieving my baits lmao

[whitwolf]

I'll leave the back story out of this.

 

I decided at the last minute to go fishing and having been sick the entire week I wasn't as prepared as I usually am. We were taking his boat and Instead of throwing all my stuff in the Jeep the night before, I decided to load up the next morning. I decided to take the car Instead of the Jeep that morning and as I detest being late I hurriedly loaded my gear in the car and took off. I stopped and got us both a biscuit and drove to his house. As I was walking around the car I noticed my worm bags and a sweatshirt were still in the trunk. My heart sank. I looked inside the car hoping against hope that my tackle bag was Inside. Of course It wasn't.

 

I told him to meet me at the ramp in an hour as I was going to back track and try to find my tackle bag and if I didn't I would have to go back to the house and and load up another. I didn't find the bag, went back to the house and put together a few things and headed to the ramp.

 

I was heartsick as I had just lost close to $300.00 worth of gear. As I got on the boat, not In the best of moods mind you, I bent over to put my rods down and *plop* my new $60.00 sunglasses slid right off my hat into the water and I watched them slowly sink out of sight. 

 

We had an OK day on the water but It was difficult to really enjoy things because of my carelessness. I took two Important things away from the day. I ALWAYS have my gear ready the night before and loaded in my boat or the truck and the other Is to leave yourself plenty of time to do It right the first time.

[Don't Tell The Wife]

I have been around boats since I was little and earlier this year I had my worst day ever while at a work fishing tournament. My motor blew up while on the water and I had to get a tow by one of the guys in our group. Then after being dropped off near the dock, it was windy, I went to use the trolling motor and the top plastic part snapped off so the cables came off. So now I am driving my boat into the dock laying on the deck, pressing the foot control with one hand and using the other hand reached over the front and steering the TM by the shaft. Dropped my partner off and he grabbed the trailer, remember it was really windy, and I am pulling into the trailer with the TM and I stand up to yank it up last minute and the rope breaks and I about fall in the lake. The TM hits the trailer, bounces me off, and the wind blows me sideways so I have to try again. Next run I have poor results so I get ticked/embarrassed as everyone is watching and I have to pull up my pants and ditch the socks and shoes to get it on the trailer.

[cyclops2]

First cheap little boat.  Left the drain plug out on first launch..........It was by the hole inside luckily. AS the water came up thru the floor boards.

[RB 77]

Disclaimer, I could write a book with these stories. Here are some excerpts. Oh the memories…

 

Three incidents immediately popped into my head. Story one is that I was fishing a local clear deep-water reservoir by myself one day during spawning season. All geared up with a brand new setup I told myself I would only stop on the biggest bass in the lake. Well after about an hour and a half of searching I found her. It took her another hour and a half just to get her to go. I danced with her for about a split second and then she jumped me off. I can still see my jig sailing through the air in slow motion. Just like that Nadine twirled away just like a breeze in the night. I took a knee and then a long break and proceeded to snap my rod tip on the very next cast. Back to back casts. Personal best lost. Brand new rod broke…

 

Second story to come to mind was the time I flipped my yak. I have fished some rough weather in my day. Personal boats on the local reservoirs and in the Pacific Ocean, Float tube, Kayak you name it. On about the one of the calmest day of the year I was out kayaking a local reservoir with a buddy of mine and accidentally knocked a set up in to the water. Instead of grabbing my net and getting it, I reached for it and miscalculated my balance. I’m sure yall’ know what came next. All five setups, all five tackle trays, scale, food, drinks etc into the drink. I was able to salvage all the setups and only suffered minor injuries, but needles to say there is some gear at the bottom of that lake…

 

The third story that came to mind has to due with a long drive home from a reservoir notorious for strict quagga mussel regulations. My father and I were anxious to fish a reservoir that had been kicking out some good scores of fish lately. Only problem was they have an extremely strict inspection process to ensure a persons boat is bone dry to help prevent the spread of the invasive quagga mussel. Well, the boat wasn’t dry but my father insisted he would take care of that. The reservoir is two hours from my place and an hour from my pops. Not exactly a couple minutes down street. I meet my dad at the crack of dawn and out of curiosity looked in the bilge. To my surprise there were inches of standing water! I’m tripping out. He nonchalantly assures me we can “wipe” it out. I know there is a ton of water trapped all in the boat. We dry once. Stop a half an hour later dry again. I insist we stop a third time right by the lake and he doesn’t like that one bit. “We either get in or we don’t”. Uh oh…

 

We end up stopping a third time, dry the last bit of water and go off on our way. We pull up to the inspection area and my dad jumps out of the truck and fires off a tirade of how this is inspection is unjust, he’s a hard working Government official and tax paying citizen, etc. The inspection begins, then intensifies, and then drags out. We pass everything, my dad pops off one last time. Right out of a movie, the inspector says “Oh yeah I forgot one last thing”. He lowers the outboard and single tear of water leaks out of the lower unit. Game over. Needless to say, that was one very long, quite ride home…

 

 

I could go on forever with these types of stories. I could write a book about some of the ones that took place with an ex buddy of mine. Some of the trips with my girl and me are doozies as well.  That’s one reason why I appreciate the good times so much. I have also seen my share of stories that involve injury ranging from minor to quite severe. I have seen people take a spill and/ or hook themselves more than I would care to. God bless all and be safe out there…

[DaveT63]

Back in my young days in the Marine Corps, two of my buddies and I rented a bass boat for a long weekend from Special Services (now known as MWR) at our base. We drove 60 miles to a lake on Friday morning, planning on tearing them up for three days. About halfway there, someone pulls up next to us on the highway and tells us the trailer spare is dragging off the tongue of the trailer. Sure enough, it had been tied on top of the tongue with rope, but the knot loosened enough for the spare to fall and drag. There was a hole in the sidewall big enough to put your thumb through. We finally make it to the lake only to find out it is closed on Fridays. Should have done more research.

We head for town, start drinking until we can check into our hotel, and then drink some more. One of my buddies decides to “explore”, and got lost. Didn’t find his way back until about 4 a.m. At least that was his story. We get up early, head to the lake, and back down the ramp. I put my truck in neutral (three on the tree), set the parking brake, get out and unhook the winch, and feel the truck bumper hit the back of my leg. My parking brake is apparently a bit weak, and the truck is slowly rolling down the ramp. I run and jump in the truck and start pulling forward, faster than I intended. The boat zooms backward off the trailer as I pulled right out from under it. The guy in the boat almost fell out.

I parked the truck and trailer and head back to meet them at the ramp. But the guy in the boat is having trouble getting the outboard started, and has floated about 75 feet from the dock. After about 20 minutes, he finally gets it started and picks us up at the dock and we head off across the lake, stopping to fish at a good looking spot about a mile from the dock.

After a while of no fish, we decide to move to another spot. Once again, the motor won’t start. But this time, it never does. So we decided to just cut our losses and head back before things get any worse. We dropped the TM in the water, and head across the lake. In less than 10 minutes, the battery died out completely. We look for oars, only to find there are none. We break out the beer, and it’s only about 7 a.m. We take turns jumping in and trying to swim and pull the boat behind us. We were getting nowhere fast!

After about three turns swimming, one of the guys remembers there is a separate battery in the back for the outboard. So we grabbed it, hooked it up to the TM, and start making some progress back to the dock SLOWLY. A guy in a rowboat passed us about halfway and beat us to the dock by about 10 minutes. When we finally make it to the dock, we get the boat loaded and head home. The two guys with me start drinking beer all the way home, throwing the empties behind the seat.

We reached the base and pulled into the barracks parking lot. Just as we open the doors, an MP drives by, and sees at least a dozen beer cans pour out of the cab as we get out, and decides to investigate. So I got to go through a field sobriety test before noon. Fortunately, about the only thing that went right that day is that I quit drinking before we got off the water, never got drunk, and passed the test.

We returned the boat and explained our problems, and they offered us a free rental in the future for our troubles. Needless to say, we never took advantage of it. I learned a very valuable lesson that day. Ever since, any time I rent ANYTHING, I give it a VERY thorough check before I leave the rental facility.

[Catch 22]

Well after several hrs of non catching,I changed locations in a hurry only to run aground and mess up  the trim/tilt unit by blowing a seal. No big deal I could still  navigate. I then attempted a really long hard cast that resulted in snagging a relatively new rod/reel and tossing it  overboard into fast moving water. I lost an hour searching=======forget about it.Still no fish after hours so  I stayed and stayed.

 

Now the big hurt. About dark I hooked and landed a huge striper right at 40 lbs[yes fourty]. I decided to go home instead of weighing this fish at the tackle shop that night that was way out of the way. Being in the running  tournament at that shop, I took the fish over the next morning. It fell 1/4 lb short of taking third place that was worth $1000. I`m certain it lost more than  that overnight.

 

One more that just happened. I needed to replace my safety meteor flares for the boat[mandatory] . Off to Wally World to see a picture of them  on the hook where they would be if they have any, @ $22. Didn`t see any so I went to the local marine dealer where they cost $33.  A week later I get a photo finish ticket for running a red light for $112 while heading to  said dealer. Forward to today==at Wally World again to buy another set of flares for the second boat,the picture is still there and upon reading it  a little closer it stated  to "ask for assistance" .I did and the clerk told me they are  a controlled item under lock/key AND  that they always have plenty of them ,apparently the first time I was there too.So one more butt kickin I got. One set cost $145 and the other $22  GGGrr

C22