Dangerous experiences?

[Woody B]

Moroso Motorsports Park (now closed racing complex in West Palm Beach Florida) had a canal running along side that was full of big bass and gators.   We'd fish around gators all the time.  They seemed pretty docile.  One day one of them got mad at me.  Gators are really fast.  It chased me on dry land 30 yards or so before it turned around.  I was an athletic 25 year old at the time.  I doubt I could outrun it today.   I don't know how dangerous I was really in but it got my heart pounding and my feet going.   I suspect it was just "flexing" and didn't really want to catch me.  I'd guess it to be 5 or 6 feet long.   I had a couple bass taken by gators in that canal.   I also caught a nice 8 pound Bass.  

[ironbjorn]

4 minutes ago, Woody B said:

Moroso Motorsports Park (now closed racing complex in West Palm Beach Florida) had a canal running along side that was full of big bass and gators.   We'd fish around gators all the time.  They seemed pretty docile.  One day one of them got mad at me.  Gators are really fast.  It chased me on dry land 30 yards or so before it turned around.  I was an athletic 25 year old at the time.  I doubt I could outrun it today.   I don't know how dangerous I was really in but it got my heart pounding and my feet going.   I suspect it was just "flexing" and didn't really want to catch me.  I'd guess it to be 5 or 6 feet long.   I had a couple bass taken by gators in that canal.   I also caught a nice 8 pound Bass.  

Gators can run 35mph on land. The fastest a human has ever ran is 27.5mph (Usain Bolt) and it's thought that 30mph is the human limit. I'd say you were both in danger and lucky (lucky that gators tire quickly).

[MidwestBassAttack]

Since I bank fish public waters, I’m often adventurous to get to any spot that looks good but hard to get to. 
 

Early in the spring, I was fishing a great spot about an hour away. This spot was about 25-30 feet below the trail I was on. Holding three rods and my tackle bag on my back, I “graciously slid” (#fell #tumbled) down to the spot. This was early spring so the cliff/hill side was soft and muddy with protruding roots and branches which my gonads were introduced to many times. Got to the bottom covered in scratches, caked in mud, with ripped jacket and bibs.

 

Finally after about an hour or more of fishing and getting skunked in the process, decided to pack up and try another spot. Then I realized the daunting task of wondering how the hell Im going to get back up. After an hour of failed attempts, pulled muscles, and sweat pouring down my face, I managed to get back to the top…only to bump my tackle bag and watch it tumble all the way back down to the bottom. 

 

At that point, I did what any true BassResource angler would do. Said screw it, got back to the truck, went straight to Bass Pro and bought a new bag, tackle, bibs and jacket to cure my pain and suffering. Walking through Bass Pro I felt like Steve Martin from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles after he made his trek on foot from the rental car lot back to the counter.

Was not a pretty scene.

 

[Catt]

9 hours ago, A-Jay said:

Didn't wear no underpants going home at the end of that trip.

I had to use them. 

 

Most important piece of equipment in my boat!

 

 

Y'all ever seen the Perfect Storm?

 

135 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico during a storm that made a 70' boat look tiny. Still will not watch that movie today!

[Captain Phil]

5 hours ago, Woody B said:

Moroso Motorsports Park (now closed racing complex in West Palm Beach Florida) had a canal running along side that was full of big bass and gators.   

 

I was a regular at Moroso for years.  Before Moroso bought it out we had to regularly remove rattle snakes from the bathrooms.  We always sent an escort with our wives when they went to the bathroom.  The pot holes in that drag strip were huge.  It recently closed to make way for another housing project.

 

When we lived in South Florida, we would regularly run many miles offshore to fish, often in sight of Bimini.    One summer day we were trolling about 40 miles out when I thought I smelled something burning.   I opened the engine hatch and it was full of smoke. I turned off the battery switches and the smoke seemed to stop.  Our boat had twin diesels and they were still running, but all my electronics were dead.  All I could think about was my wife and I hanging onto a cooler drifting in the Gulf Stream. It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  We made it back and found a salt water wash pump had shorted out.  I don't want to think about what would have happened if the boat burned to the water line. ?

[the reel ess]

More painful than scary, but watching a $30 bait sink when I broke the line the first time I used it.

[Mobasser]

I was caught, along with a partner in a bad storm on Missouri's Truman lake many years ago. We made it back to the marina, but it was horrible. I'll never let that happen again.

[scaleface]

A duck hunter shot at me from about 100 yds away . I didnt get hit but pellets were dropping in the water all around me . I took the hint and moved .

[Jar11591]

42 minutes ago, the reel ess said:

Watching a $30 bait sink when I broke the line the first time I tried it.

So the danger was for anybody who looked at you funny afterwards
 

 

Was bank fishing as a kid and had a timber rattler sitting on a rock next to me without realizing. My dad just calmly told me to walk towards him without telling me why, so I didn’t panic and startle the snake. Then I looked back, and the thing was just sitting sort of coiled up on a big boulder right next to where I was standing. 
I’m always cautious when fishing on rocky shorelines now. 

[the reel ess]

1 hour ago, scaleface said:

A duck hunter shot at me from about 100 yds away . I didnt get hit but pellets were dropping in the water all around me . I took the hint and moved .

I was fishing one nice late winter day last year and a duck hunter came by me and warned me he was going to be shooting a couple hours. I said "OK" because I knew he wasn't likely to shoot anything there. I rarely see more than a couple ducks of any variety and he had no decoys out. It was also too nice of a day. It was quiet the next couple hours and he motored back to the landing. It's an electric-only lake, BTW.

[Bankc]

Lots of scary moments.  Don't know which was the most scary.  But nothing got too far out of hand.  

 

Once ran across about 100 cottonmouths in a mating ball.  They were coming in from all around and carpeted the ground.  I was completely surrounded, and none of them cared I was there, so they had no problem getting up right next to me.  Of course, they weren't focused on me, so it wasn't as dangerous as it felt at the time.  Had a few chase me in my kayak as well on other occasions.  But a hard thump of the old paddle on the water when they get close changes their mind about their place on the food chain pretty quickly.  

 

Been caught out in a few violent pop-up storms that had me question whether I should beach the boat or kayak and just wait it out in the woods.  Gone from sunny and nice to 40+mph winds and lots of lightning in about 5 minutes.  Each time I made it safely back to the dock though.

 

Had a meth'ed out pimp yell at me and chase me off the lake.  I guess he saw me call the cops on them.  It's a city lake in the middle of nowhere that most people don't know about, so there's a lot of crime that goes down there.  But I've called the cops out enough times that there's less of that type of stuff now, at least during the daytime when I'm out.  

 

Lots of stuff that could have gone sideways very quickly, but luckily never did.  But that's life!  

[Skunkmaster-k]

My goofy butt got caught on the lake when a tornado came through. The scariest part was getting swamped, the most painful part was getting the crap beaten out of me by hail. I couldn’t see five feet in front of the boat. There was nowhere to escape. I was just praying my motor didn’t die. After it passed I caught some nice walleye though. 

[king fisher]

Charged by brown bears, ran over by a moose, in one plane crash, when I wasn't at the controls, 3 engine failures and, many almost crashes when I was at the controls.  I have been stranded for days in bad weather 300 miles from civilization, with no means of communication, or help on the way, living on porcupines and prayer, fallen through ice many times, and worst of all, I lost a bass in the teens, right next to my kayak.

[roadwarrior]

Wow!

If that's an invitation to go fishing with you, I think I'll pass.

 

 

                                                              

[GReb]

Some friends and I were camping on the bank of Kentucky Lake at Land Between the Lakes 10 years or so ago. Woke up one night to a pack of animals in our camp, going through our gear, and circling a tent. Their snouts were pushing in on the sides of the tent and sniffing. There were at least 3 of them and we never knew for sure what animal it was. But there were paw prints all over our campsite the next morning. I’m sure it was coyotes but have always wondered if they were red wolves since that area had a small population. One curious paw could have sliced the tent and things could have gotten really interesting 

[volzfan59]

First, this is not a knock on Norris Craft boats at all. Back in the mid 90's I fished a draw tournament as a non-boater. The guy that I went out with owned a pretty rough looking Norris Craft with a Mercury 225 on it. We chatted prior to blast off about a little bit of everything including boat storage. I kept my Champion in the garage, he said that he kept his rig outside, uncovered. Said that he did it that way for years and I was just taking up space with mine in the garage. Cool, whatever. We blasted off, I could feel the floorboard buckling/moving under my feet. Sinched down the pfd even tighter and started praying. For the rest of the day every time we hit a wake, the floorboard moved. It all ended well, but I was pretty scared. I don't know if storing his rig uncovered in the elements caused that or not  All I know is that to this day I still keep my boat in a garage or covered up in the carport.

[TOXIC]

I’ve had all the “normal” scares, reels sparking in storm, spearing waves, getting in rod locker during storm, shore snakes, wading snakes, being swept fly fishing, having a Gator climb in the back of the boat, being in waves so big my boat hit bottom in 12ft of water, but the worst was shoreline camping with my son on the Shenandoah river in a canvass pop up trailer and having a bear decide to join us.  I was mere seconds away from unloading a 38 into it but I was afraid I was just going to make it mad.  Luckily we both stayed calm and it decided to exit the same way it came in.  

[Catt]

Not fishing related but one of the scariest moments outdoors. When ducking in a local marsh my friend Reid & I were dropped off at our blind about two hours before daylight. I stepped up on the front deck & dropped into the blind when something ran between my legs making a crazy noise. I jumped back up on top of the blind & unloaded 3 quick shots. 

 

d**n Nutria Rats! ?

[Zcoker]

It was late one night on the Florida east coast beaches, maybe midnight. I was kayaking a bait out for land based shark fishing, solo. I was out about 250 yards near the second bar when suddenly a rogue wave came out of nowhere and slammed my yak up and over. Nothing I could do about it. Gone! I was underwater in mere seconds and when I tried to swim up, something had hold my right foot, yanking me hard! I finally managed to surface only to see my kayak being swept away by the waves, and every time it got swept away, I was again yanked hard underwater. Mind you, all of this was happening in pitch black darkness! Fear kept the pain away. Adrenalin kept me focused. I finally managed to get to shore and lay on the beach. And when I looked down at my bloody right foot, I was like what the #@!%&@. The 24/0 giant circle hook was stuck clean through my foot! Somehow it managed to free itself from a large chunk of stingray bait and then planted itself clean through my right foot near the ankle area. All of this happened in short seconds while being flipped over. Just wow. Thank goodness I debarb all my hooks! Easy out. The rest of the line was a tangled mess with the kayak, a big mess which had been swept in by the waves, pulling me with it. Very dangerous situation, to say the least! 

[volzfan59]

1 hour ago, TOXIC said:

I’ve had all the “normal” scares, reels sparking in storm, spearing waves, getting in rod locker during storm, shore snakes, wading snakes, being swept fly fishing, having a Gator climb in the back of the boat, being in waves so big my boat hit bottom in 12ft of water, but the worst was shoreline camping with my son on the Shenandoah river in a canvass pop up trailer and having a bear decide to join us.  I was mere seconds away from unloading a 38 into it but I was afraid I was just going to make it mad.  Luckily we both stayed calm and it decided to exit the same way it came in.  

Gator climbing in the back of the boat normal? Holy smokes!!!

[webertime]

Terrible concussion from running from Sandusky to the Detroit river in 4-8 fters. (Head snapping back and forth). Lost vision twice.  Had to wear sunglasses for 2 months after.

[TOXIC]

5 hours ago, volzfan59 said:

Gator climbing in the back of the boat normal? Holy smokes!!!

Haha.  Anybody who fishes Florida on a regular basis understands.  I had to learn the hard way not to tease a Gator ? with a buzz bait.  I was pretty close to letting him have the boat but he turned around and went back out over the splashwell.  

[volzfan59]

@TOXIC, I'm told that we have gator's in some of our south Arkansas lakes and rivers. Haven't seen one since I've lived down here. I a gator or cotton mouth board my boat, I'll probably give it to them! 

[Alex from GA]

While fishing a river in MT in the mid 60s I was camped on the river several miles on a dirt road near the water.  Had my ice chest in my station wagon with me sleeping beside it.  Something woke me and there was a bear with it's front feet on top of the car looking in the window.  I yelled then knocked on the window and the bear got down and still wanted what was in the ice chest.  I loaded my .270 which I took along, rolled the window down and hollered again for the bear to leave.  It didn't leave and ended up as a rug and on the dinner table.  I had a tag.  A couple of years ago I backed into hornets nests twice in the year while fishing the river.  Got stung a couple of times each time but managed to get away without too much damage.

[JackstrawIII]

I was salmon fishing in the Oswego river up near the first dam (in Oswego). Most guys fish from the sidewalk area along the river, but a friend and I put on our waders and crossed the river so we could fish the calm water by the dam. We caught many salmon, it was great...

 

Then the alarm started ringing, meaning they were going to open the dam. My buddy says, "We should cross back over the river now." So, like idiots, we started rushing back across the river so we didn't get stranded over there.

 

They opened the dam up when I was halfway back across the river. My waders filled with water and I was gone downriver. 

 

Eventually, I got to the surface, rolled over onto my back, feet facing downriver. Somehow, I managed to swim sideways and reach the bank before being dumped out into the Lake (Ontario). Gear was gone, but I was alive.

 

Scary moment for sure. Genuinely glad to be alive.