Frank Church wrote:
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...

Man! Glad you're still with us, Frank. It could have been a lot worse,
but instead it makes a helluva story. Lil Frank's got nothin' on you!
--
TL,
Tim
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http://css.sbcma.com/timj/