Favorite Screw-ups

[Randall]

Funniest thing I have seen on the water was a guy who for got to tighten down a 82lb thrust trolling motor on the transom of a jonboat. Motor was running and making big jumps out of the water and back into the water in a circle as his other transom motor also an 82lb thrust was still running taking him down the lake. Nothing was holding the motor except the wires attached to the batteries. He knew he needed to get the wires on the loose motor pulled free from the batteries to stop it but the motor with a spinning prop going crazy wouldn't let him get close enough without taking a chance on getting his head took off. I think he was also afraid of losing an expensive motor. After around five minutes the prop busted and the motor stopped and he pulled it in. I know one other guy who told me he had it happen to.

[Long Mike]

I posted this several months ago and it is a true story.  It is not one of my favorite screw-ups, but it is, by far, my biggest.  I learned several valuable lessons from that little outing; not the least of which was to always keep a key for the truck in my boat.  Anyway, here goes.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.  It all started last week when I backed my Suburban up to the boat trailer and tried to hitch it up.  The receiver on the trailer would drop onto the ball OK but there was no way I could get it to latch down.  I tried raising and lowering it, shaking it, jerking it, banging it with a hammer and every thing else I could think of, but it would not latch down.  Finally, in desperation, I sprayed everything with WD-40.  I again lowered the receiver onto the ball and it latched with ease.  Go figure.

Finally on the road, I drove from Tulsa to Lake Skiatook (about 30 miles).  The moment I got to the boat ramp it started raining heavily.   I sat around for about thirty minutes and the rain didn't let up. So, I called my daughter and asked her to have a look at the National Weather Service radar.  She told me there was large cell in the vicinity, and that it would probably be at least a couple of hours before it passed.  Thoroughly disgusted, I drove back to Tulsa, and into sunshine.

When I got home, I checked the radar myself and discovered that the cell my daughter was referring to was due South of a place called Ponca City - nowhere near the lake.  The radar did show a couple of Popcorn showers that popped up over the lake and then fell apart right after I left.  Needless to say, I was somewhat perturbed to learn that my daughter was Geographically Challenged.

Back to the lake I went and was graced with a partly cloudy sky.  I was boating alone so I kicked off my new sneakers, put on my flip-flops and backed the boat into the water.  Because I drive a Suburban, I can't see the boat without opening the cargo doors.  No problem, I opened the doors, backed the boat in, and got out of the truck to get the boat free of the trailer.  Without realizing it at the time, I kicked one of new my sneakers into the water as I got out of the truck.  Luckily it landed right side up.  I waded around to the back of the truck and checked its cargo area before I launched the boat. Sure enough, I had neglected to place my tackle box in the boat.  There is a door lock button in the cargo area on the rear post.  I must have hit it when I reached for the tackle box.  It has a fifteen second delay on it, so I didn't hear the clunk of all the door locks until after I had closed the cargo doors. OK, so now I have a locked truck with the keys in the ignition, setting in water up to the running boards on a busy boat ramp and a new sneaker that is slowly floating away.  First things first.  I fired up the boat, chased down the sneaker and then tied the boat at the dock.  I waded back to the truck and found that there was no way I could get into it without breaking out a window.  I found a boulder about the size of my head and decided to break in through the window on the right-side rear seat door.  I swear, that glass must be bullet proof!  I literally ended up throwing that boulder at the glass and it would bounce off without a scratch.  After eight or nine attempts, I gave up and decided to try the front seat passenger side.  The boulder went through the glass like a knife through butter, scattering glass as if I had thrown a hand grenade into the truck.  The first thing the boulder hit inside the vehicle was the console and it knocked the lid off its hinges.  The boulder, and a lot of glass ended up in the drivers seat.  I do not want to discuss what those objects did to the leather in the seat.  I'll cry later.  OK, so my truck is still in the water.  Twenty minutes and several lacerations later I had removed the boulder and enough glass out of the driver's seat to allow me to get the truck out of the water.  That was a big relief!

I then reminded myself that despite the fact that it was now 3:00 PM my intent since 6:00 AM had been to try to catch a few bass.  So, I hopped in the boat and went tooling off across the water.  I was so angry with myself that all I wanted to do was haul azz across the water.  I did this for about an hour and then cooled off enough to try fishing.  I found a point and half-heartedly fished it for about twenty minutes, all the while thinking about all that glass and blood  in my truck.  Needless to say, I gave up and headed back to the landing.

In my absence, a Park Ranger came by, noticed the shattered window, and left me a note advising that he had notified the police of the break-in.  Luckily he also left his phone number, so I was able to cancel the Red Alert.

And then the kicker.  I had the boat out of the water and was getting it ready to tow when a Game Warden drove up.  He had the audacity to ask "Had any luck today?"  What I said to that poor guy is not fit to print.  Let's just say I was VERY vocal about the luck I had had.  He never did ask to see my fishing license.

[bocabasser]

dropped my boat in on a coooold december morning, beached it and went to park my truck. came back to find my boat on the other side of the canal. took all of my clothes off to swim across and get my boat, because i had no extra clothes. when i got to my boat i cranked it up and beached it again. i took one step off of my boat when a BUS LOAD of senior citizens was pulling in for their weekly tennis tourny. naked as a j-bird i just smiled and waved. can't even imagine what they must have thought.

[Schaefer]

running your line through the eyes of your rod only to realize you missed one after you make your first cast >

[Guest muddy]

running your line through the eyes of your rod only to realize you missed one after you make your first cast >

OR MY USUAL: You threaded the line through the side of the tip instead of through it

[Catt]

Driving 50 miles to the marsh, launching your boat, unload all your tackle only to realize you forgot your rods at home.

Backing down your boat & almost sinking it because you forgot to remove the transom tie downs.

Deciding to cut the tag end of your line with your nephew's new knife instead of biting it only to slice you finger to the bone.

Setting hook on what you believe is a good fish only to have you buddy's seat break leaving you sprawled out in the splash well knocking the wind out of you and then not having the breath to tell your buddy the fish is still on

[Fish Chris]

I'm guilty of about 95% of every mistake listed here !

One of my favorites is when I thread all of my guides, tie on a leader, and a lure, or hook.... then realize my line is on the wrong side of the bail ! Doh !

Or, don't you just love it when you thread all your guides, right up to the tip..... and then let it slip out of your hands and slide right back out through every guide down to the reel ? Of course this only happens when you just sighted a big fish, or stopped on your best spot..... Urgggg.

Anyway, I don't think a trip ever goes by when I don't stop to call myself a dum-bass at least a time or two :-) Oh well. Glad to see I'm not the only one who has a few problems :-) Great thread BTW.

Peace,

Fish

[jeremyt]

At the lake this summer trying a chatterbait for the first time,  throw it out start retrieving go to set the hook and nothing. Repeat the proccess another time only to realize I didn't remove the hook guard.  

[Bassin_Fin@tic]

I'm guilty of about 95% of every mistake listed here !

One of my favorites is when I thread all of my guides, tie on a leader, and a lure, or hook.... then realize my line is on the wrong side of the bail ! Doh !

Peace,

Fish

I STILL DO THIS ON OCCASION,THEN COMMON SENSE TOLD ME FINALLY TO POP OFF THE SPOOL,OPEN BAIL,AND PUT SPOOL BACK ON.HOW MANY YEARS UNTIL I FIGURED THAT OUT LOL.

[foul hooked]

Set your canoe paddle on the dock before you pack your gear bag. Then have the wind blow you 30 yards away from said dock while packing your gear bag.  

[tntitans21399]

I've done 1 & 3.  I forgot to pull the anchors up once when I was in party cove with my dad and his friend was coming in with his house boat and I was moving to make room for him, and forget the anchor was still down and then got it stuck.  I couldn't figure out why I wasn't going anywhere.

#3 I have done numerous times, usually it's because I flip it down and it puts back up before I throw the lure or I didn't flip it down enough and it comes back up and I go to throw a good long cast and the lure goes no way.  The first second I look at it like what the hell, and then look down and see the it is flipped up.

[slomoe]

I must be targeting those bird-fish hybrids, because I lost a brand new jig to a tree this weekend.

I was also walking the trail at Mercer a couple months back, Decided to try some lesser traveled spots, only to end up knee deep in a beaver den.

[KU_Bassmaster.]

-  Drive 100 miles to that spot you love but only go maybe once a year. You get there and realize you got the battery this time (forget that last week :) but left the trolling motor this time.

-  Go night fishing for one of the first times. Tie the boat up to the dock and park the truck in the lot and proceed to the boat. Parking lot has no lights and you can barely see your hand in front of your face and of course the flash light is in the boat. Get to the boat and step off the dock. You do the infamous splits between the boat and dock and eventually decide to make the leap for the boat. It's a quite clumsy leap but you are dry and in the boat after some MAJOR rocking. Thankful, you troll the electric only lake in your bass hunter/pond hopper type boat about 20-30 minutes to the other end of the lake only to find ......... NO RODS!!!!!! You realize that you probably kicked them out by accident when you jumped in the boat from the dock. Make your way back to the ramp and pack the boat up and sleep in the truck until daylight. At daylight go "diving" for your rods. After an hour you have 3 out 4. Call it "good enough" and drive home wet, cold, and fishless.

[roadwarrior]

Drive 100 miles to that spot you love but only go maybe once a year. You get there and realize you got the battery this time (forget that last week :) but left the trolling motor this time.

Go night fishing for one of the first times. Tie the boat up to the dock and park the truck in the lot and proceed to the boat. Parking lot has no lights and you can barely see your hand in front of your face and of course the flash light is in the boat. Get to the boat and step off the dock. You do the infamous splits between the boat and dock and eventually decide to make the leap for the boat. It's a quite clumsy leap but you are dry and in the boat after some MAJOR rocking. Thankful, you troll the electric only lake in your bass hunter/pond hopper type boat about 20-30 minutes to the other end of the lake only to find ......... NO RODS!!!!!! You realize that you probably kicked them out by accident when you jumped in the boat from the dock. Make your way back to the ramp and pack the boat up and sleep in the truck until daylight. At daylight go "diving" for your rods. After an hour you have 3 out 4. Call it "good enough" and drive home wet, cold, and fishless.

DING! DING! DING! DING!

We might have a winner!

That is a pitiful story.

:

[Guest muddy]

Drive 100 miles to that spot you love but only go maybe once a year. You get there and realize you got the battery this time (forget that last week :) but left the trolling motor this time.

Go night fishing for one of the first times. Tie the boat up to the dock and park the truck in the lot and proceed to the boat. Parking lot has no lights and you can barely see your hand in front of your face and of course the flash light is in the boat. Get to the boat and step off the dock. You do the infamous splits between the boat and dock and eventually decide to make the leap for the boat. It's a quite clumsy leap but you are dry and in the boat after some MAJOR rocking. Thankful, you troll the electric only lake in your bass hunter/pond hopper type boat about 20-30 minutes to the other end of the lake only to find ......... NO RODS!!!!!! You realize that you probably kicked them out by accident when you jumped in the boat from the dock. Make your way back to the ramp and pack the boat up and sleep in the truck until daylight. At daylight go "diving" for your rods. After an hour you have 3 out 4. Call it "good enough" and drive home wet, cold, and fishless.

THIS IS MOOK WORTHY

[foul hooked]

All hail KU Mookmaster !

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Drive 100 miles to that spot you love but only go maybe once a year. You get there and realize you got the battery this time (forget that last week :) but left the trolling motor this time.

Go night fishing for one of the first times. Tie the boat up to the dock and park the truck in the lot and proceed to the boat. Parking lot has no lights and you can barely see your hand in front of your face and of course the flash light is in the boat. Get to the boat and step off the dock. You do the infamous splits between the boat and dock and eventually decide to make the leap for the boat. It's a quite clumsy leap but you are dry and in the boat after some MAJOR rocking. Thankful, you troll the electric only lake in your bass hunter/pond hopper type boat about 20-30 minutes to the other end of the lake only to find ......... NO RODS!!!!!! You realize that you probably kicked them out by accident when you jumped in the boat from the dock. Make your way back to the ramp and pack the boat up and sleep in the truck until daylight. At daylight go "diving" for your rods. After an hour you have 3 out 4. Call it "good enough" and drive home wet, cold, and fishless.

THIS IS MOOK WORTHY

That means a lot coming from you ;D ;D ;D

[Big_Bass_Rock]

Heres a story my friend told me happened to his cousins:

They drift down the river in small boat with a 5 hp motor, then decide to turn around...and realize that the motor wont pull them against the current. It just stays in the same spot, but by paddling at the same time as going full throttle they can inch thier way upstream, that is untill they run out of gas. They ended up having to drift to shore and one them had to walk several miles to the closest gas station, and then they still had to struggle against the current to get back to the boat ramp.

This guy I worked with had a pretty nice 18ft boat, and he ran out of gas in the middle of the lake and only had 1 paddle.

[FishTank]

Here a few of mine

1) Fishing in front of the Park Ranger's station for hours with no fishing licence.  Then telling the ranger that these fishing rods are not mine, I just found them.  He was laughing so hard he couldn't write me a ticket.

2) Leaving a lure tied on, then putting my rig in the car only to hook that nice Lucky Craft lure into my wifes new leather seats.

3) Letting someone you don't know drive the boat while you're skiing

4) Catching a snake and for some reason put in the boat so you can take the hook out of it's mouth

5) Getting your spinning reels re-strung, driving for hours to your favorite strip pit to only find out that the spools are strung backwards

[Bassin_Fin@tic]

Here a few of mine

1) Fishing in front of the Park Ranger's station for hours with no fishing licence. Then telling the ranger that these fishing rods are not mine, I just found them. He was laughing so hard he couldn't write me a ticket.

2) Leaving a lure tied on, then putting my rig in the car only to hook that nice Lucky Craft lure into my wifes new leather seats.

3) Letting someone you don't know drive the boat while you're skiing

4) Catching a snake and for some reason put in the boat so you can take the hook out of it's mouth

5) Getting your spinning reels re-strung, driving for hours to your favorite strip pit to only find out that the spools are strung backwards

Have done the same thing with the Ranger.Laughed hard when I read this. #5,I wont even ask,but that must really be a mess to deal with LMAO.

[islandbass]

running your line through the eyes of your rod only to realize you missed one after you make your first cast >

OR MY USUAL: You threaded the line through the side of the tip instead of through it

Dang!!! I've done both!!!

And the one about cutting the standing end instead of the leader I do quite often when it is below freezing, but I've done it as many as 3 times in a row tying the same lure!!!

Making that "one last cast" and catching some obstable behind me. It sometimes ends up in a backlash that has to be undone at home.

Making a cast with a bc reel and forgetting to disengage the spool.  This is where the majority of my overruns occur.

Getting out to the lake with my fishing rods and fishing bag, then realizing I forgot to pack some hooks or some other important necessary item.

[burleytog]

Waking up in the middle of the night and hearing a rainstorm. You realize you had opened all the hatches in the boat so they could air out overnight. Jump up and run outside in your boxers to cover the boat only to hear a woman's laugh coming from your neighbors porch.

I've done that more times than I care to think about.  Sometimes with clothing, sometimes without.

Good thing my yard is dark.  

[Jake P]

Casting so hard that the end half of my rod flies off into the water

Trying to cast only to realize i havent released the line and watching it tangle up around the end of my pole

gettin caught on a big log and yellin oh i got one! and steadily reeling in while my friend is cheering me on and the hikers behind me have stopped to watch me reel in this massive trophy sized fished only to see that it is a log.

lining my pole and tying on a crankbait but not running it through the holes on my pole

standing on a ledge over the lake and staring out at the water and getting dizzy and falling in the lake.

hitting my buddy in the face while casting

[MFD_Firefighter661]

What gets me is when you have a 3 lb bass somehow break your line but you see a kid catch one in the neighborhood of five pounds on an ultra-light.

[bass109]

once i bought this expensive lure, when i went fishing i used up all my line but then i tried looking for fishing line on the ground. Conclusion while i was looking i tripped over a root from the tree and fell in the lake. Another story is i caught this huge bluegill 12ins. I put the stringer on the bluegill and dropped the fish in the lake, i jumped in the lake and swam after the bluegill. Once this guy wanted to kick my butt over a bluegill. ;)p.s. i need to stop drinking