KNOWING WHEN TO CALL IT, LIVE TO FISH ANOTHER DAY

[Harold Scoggins]

Greg Blanchard made a good call when he turned his kayak around and returned to the launch. I've made the same call a few times and even though it seems to deliver a blow to ones confidence, or ruin a day on the water, it just isn't worth your life. Those fish are not going anywhere, don't take unnecessary risks and live to fish another day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wopEoc-6gFE

 

 

[Brad Reid]

Harold, I saw Greg's video this morning, made a comment down below the video telling him it was one of his most valuable videos.

 

I've done it a time or two in the last few years. Here in Texas, one can leave expecting one kind of weather, get to your spot and it just isn't as expected. 

 

Note the image below: Texas Bad Weather. Gosh, I've seen the same thing so many times!

 

Brad

 

 

[Glaucus]

Maaaaaan he shouldn't have launched to begin with. That's wild. 

[Harold Scoggins]

33 minutes ago, Glaucus said:

Maaaaaan he shouldn't have launched to begin with. That's wild. 

I agree. I think it's good though that his fear brought him to his senses and he called it early. You only have to get caught out on water like that once, get a taste of that fear, to educate yourself on the limitations of a kayak. My lesson came 10 years ago and it's a lesson I've never forgotten. 

[kenmitch]

2 hours ago, Glaucus said:

Maaaaaan he shouldn't have launched to begin with. That's wild. 

Crazy determination to fish got the best of him. At least common sense kicked in before something happened.

 

I've been caught out in 30+ mph gusts before in my kayak and it wasn't a fun experience. Luckily for me I was at the end of the lake the wind and chop was coming from. It was a pain in the arse to get back to shore as the direction I need to go was cutting straight across the wind and chops direction. I wound up just cutting into the wind and chop going further away from my destination until I could get a decent angle back to where I needed to land at shore.

 

I don't take the kayak out if it's going to be really windy. Usually the wind picks up at my local late in the afternoon. I'll check the weather report the night before and before I leave in the morning just in case something changed overnight. I usually go early and leave around 1pm or so. In my area the wind usually doesn't pick up till that time or later even.

 

I learned my fear of boating and weather way back around 1990. I used to have a Tracker TX17 and was out solo one day. It started to get a little windy and choppy so I decided to head down towards the other end of the lake and fish in a little cove as I thought it would be somewhat protected. Needless to say you don't wanna be in the shallow water on the end of the lake the wind and chop is blowing towards. It was a bad decision on my part. The cove was full of rocks, timber and was shallow. When the wind started picking up more I decided to just drop anchor and ride it out. I should have just bailed out, but usually the wind comes and goes. It got a whole lot worse pretty quickly. There must have been 5-6 ft swells in that cove! It's crazy how much the chop gets intensified when it hits the shallow waters. The bow of my boat would rise up to around 60-70 degrees at times and then slam back down under water as the next swell hit. After 2 or 3 of these a person has to think very quickly. I'm lucky I didn't go into panic mode and swamp my boat. I figured my safest way out of the ordeal was to release anchor line, retrieve anchor line, rinse and repeat, missing the swells until it was safe enough to trim down the big motor and power out of the cove. I must have done this for 20-30 minutes before I was far enough away from the timber and rocks to trim down the motor, fire it up, and power away. One of those things I'll never forget as long as I live. If I remember correctly the lake was hit with 60-70mph winds that day.

[geo g]

I usually call every trip when mother nature calls.  When it's too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy, first sign of lightning,  too dark, too crowded,  zero bites, all these will cause me to call a trip.  I do this to have fun, when there is no fun, IT'S OVER!?

[Bankbeater]

There are times when I’m fishing from the shore and I think Man it’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be, I wish I was in a boat. Then there are times when I’m fishing from shore and I think I hope those guys out there make it in ok. 

[J.Vincent]

In the words of Kenny Rogers:

 

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run........

[JustJames]

I have not watched this video yet, even I’m one of his subscribers but seemed like he made a good call. I was once made a stupid call, taking my float tube out at main lake where the wind hit the most. I already knew it was kinda windy and hesitated a little when I got to the spot. I decided to take chance and planed to stay close to shoreline with hope wind would die down. “Wrong choice” 5-10 mins in the water I already out about 100 feet. The wind also pick up stronger. I kicked too hard to get back to shore and that I lost one of my fin. I used the other fin as paddle but no way I can get back to shore. I tried to hold a few of buoy I passed even cast my line out in hope of it snag to something with no luck. 

End up I had to call marine patrol to come and rescued me. He said this is his first time towing float tube behind lol.

 

[schplurg]

Greg Blanchard has a great channel. I've seen him and his buddies in some bad chop before when he was concerned. Clear Lake I think. I was surprised he launched in this latest video, but he wants to deliver content to his fans. Good move by Greg to turn around. Sometimes you don't know until you try I guess.

[jbsoonerfan]

I know this is about kayaks, but fishing large bodies of water from a boat can get scary. We were on Texoma one day and the storm was coming from the North. It looked like it was a long ways off but by the time we got almost back the wind was so bad and the waves were so bad we were forced to turn around and go back South. We found a place to stay and waited for the storm to pass.

[Catt]

Excellent video!

 

One of the hardest decision to make is saying no!

 

Not just in small boats either, larger boats give you a false sense of security.