Fun time I bet....but you were damned lucky. Sweepers a killers if you get
up against them.

john\

"Frank Church" wrote in message
.11...
My first day out this year to fish, hoo ha! A gorgeous day not a cloud
in the sky so methinks to float the local Elkhart R. which is home to
smallmouth, although generally smaller than the Maine variety I have come
to worship. However, the following will suffice for the trip report;

I dang near went to sleep with the fishes this morning. The river had a
fair current, nothing I couldn't handle. After about 2 hrs of no fishing
action I came upon a "sweeper" that almost blocked the river, except for
a small part that would be room enough to get the boat thru. The current
picked up at the narrow point and I didn't get the boat lined up just
right. It went broadside to the current (with maybe 6" standing waves)
and I went into the sweeper broadside. The pontoon nearest the tree went
up on the trunk, the upstream pontoon went down in the water and the
current flipped it over in an eye blink. Ass over teacup I went, hit the
bottom, came up and hit my head on the trunk. Went back down aways, came
up again and hit my head a second time. (I thinking now, a helluva Reid!)
By now I was running out of air and ideas, so I swallowed some dirty
river water and came up under a pontoon! The boat had done a complete
rollover and the current had kept it against the tree trunk. I managed
to float it around the end of the sweeper (my feet are touching bottom
now) and guided it over to the shallow water where I boarded it again.
Didn't even lose my glasses. The camera bag got wet but the camera
stayed dry. But I lost my lucky fishing hat. During my time in the
water, my waders filled up to the knees, no problem until I tried to get
out of the boat to empty them out, it felt like I had lead weights for
legs. Dumped about a bucketful out of each leg and put them back on.
After that the rest of the float was boring. BTW, didn't even get a
strike the whole float. An interesting addendum: today was the first time
I wore my new SOSpenders and during my underwater time I never once
thought about them. Totally forgot I had them on. I wonder what would
have happened if I had pulled the lanyard after being tossed in? Would
they have shot me up like a cork and really conk my head on that damned
tree trunk? Maybe it's just as well I don't know. :-/

A dryer and wiser pontoon driver...

Frank Church
..beat that one Reid!