Your Scariest Moment on the Water

[HitmanHill]

I know wolfe that I should learn to swim but I really don't like being in the water just on top of it. I did learn a very valuable lesson that day though and that is to make sure you have your life jacket on especially if you don't know how to swim. I have never really been afraid of the water and my kids can swim like fish but maybe one day I will take the plunge and take some swimming lessons.

[Carl]

I have a few and most of them have to do with bad weather and a few stupidities.

Gouin Reservoir in a 14 foot tinny and very very far away when we returned the wind blew up... that was a long ride back

Lake O with Joco How did I know he was going to bring this one up. Wave surfing with a boat is interesting to say the least.

Lake O was not coopering with me last year. Each time I went there was huge waves. I was a little smarter the few times after that first experience with Joco.

Quinte in a 12 foot tinny isn't a good thing either when the waves pic up.

Being younger we used to canoe a lot and being young and stupid the canoe tipped over so many times.

[wolfe]

Being younger we used to canoe a lot and being young and stupid the canoe tipped over so many times.

Hi Carlco. Seems quite a few of these incidents involved canoes, huh?

My brother and his buddy took a trip into Minnesota and rented a canoe to fish some lake or another where the water temps were still barely out of the 40's. Said buddy stood up to take a leak over the side. You can put together the rest of the story. Not only was the water shockingly frigid, but my brother likes to swim about as much as a housecat. Funny, but I imagine it was scary at the time.

I can remember, on one of our portaging excursions into Algonquin, paddling into a crazy-strong wind for all we were worth and barely making headway. It wasn't scary so much as exhausting...and I actually recall getting ticked off at one point 'cause the shore and campsite we were working towards just never seemed to get any closer. As if that would help (getting POd)....but maybe it made me paddle just a little harder.

W.

[Graembo]

Just wind/wave experiences personally, more boat damage than personal damage so it's all good.

Maybe ask this guy (from a site in the US) what his best day was? Ouch!
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b7 ... bsnLlwzasf

OR





Bad days on anyone's acocunt. I enjoy learning what NOT to do!

G

[wolfe]

Graembo...



I am amazed that the guy is (sort of) smiling for the picture!

Thx for sharing those crazy pics.

W.

[gussser]

In the 80's I was fishing in the Gulf of Calfornia. Cabin was in Cholla Bay Mexico. Got Caught in a storm & was blown over to Pacific side of gulf. Reaching land about 50 miles from cabin. Had to spend the night tied to shore & being thrashed around. Small cove offered little protection. No houses or cabins anywhere near. NO RADIO OR OTHER COMMUNICATIONS DEVISE. Scariest part was facing wife back at cabin. She was extremly angry. GUESS SHE ALREADY HAD THE LIFE INSURANCE CHECK SPENT.

[Seabass81]

Brought this one back from the crypt . Very interesting read as well as some good lessons to be learned .




John

[fenderbender]

I've had a few in my 45 years or so of fishing. Probably the worst was about 10 years ago in Algonquin Park. It was the second weekend in May and the weather forecast (for Pembroke) for the weekend was sunny and about 20 deg with light winds, down to + 8 at night. So, I packs up me trusty old canoe and head in for a couple of days of brookie fishing up around St. Anne's. Got in Friday night and set up camp just before dark. Woke up to a beautiful sunny morning and ventured upriver. Got through two portages, fishing some little holes along the way and it started to cloud up and get cold. Half hour later starts to rain and got much colder. An hour later it starts to snow heavy. Lucky I took my parka "just in case". Two hours later there's almost a foot of snow, so I hunkered under a big overhanging rock to wait it out. The snow didn't let up and it was getting late in the day so I thought I better head back to camp before dark. The portages were treacherous because of the snow, and by this time I was about soaked through. Got back to the camp just as it was getting dark, and found the whole campsite under a foot of slush, tent totally collapsed, not a stick of dry wood anywhere and by this time I was freezing.

The only way I was going to survive this was to pack up and the half-mile or so downriver and venture back across Grand Lake to Achray, where my truck was parked. By this time it had dropped to well below freezing and the wind was probably blowing 30-40 kms and the whitcaps were a good 3 ft high. I wasn't too too worried about the waves as I pretty much grew up in a canoe, but I was starting to get hypothermic. So, it's "do or die", literally. Took me almost a hour to get across the lake in the pitch black, praying the whole way. There really has to be a God, cause I came out not even 100 ft from the boat launch. Seems like it took my old truck forever to start blowing some heat. THAT was a close one LOL! #$&^%$ weatherman!

Lesson Learned? Never venture out May without raingear and dry wood, despite what the weatherman says!

[scuro]

Algonquin Park early eighties. 4 teenage boys out to do the northern thing in the brilliant fall covers. Too much alcohol. Alcohol being consumed to make paddling into the rain tolerable. One tipped canoe into very cold water. I swim for shore with no life jacket and make it!...I laugh like a madman at my own stupidity and my dumb luck. I am unable to control my legs because of the cold and can't get out of the water. Surely my friend who was in my canoe and is treading water, will die as he waits to be rescued. Perhaps they all die in the failed attempt. My best friend in the canoe that hasn't tipped, does a canoe over canoe rescue that he learned in camp that summer. He is loaded as he does this. They leave him in the canoe drifting while they come to shore and pull me out of the water, then they go back and bring him to shore. We are in the middle of a large meandering river that goes through a giant wetland. We start a fire but can't find enough wood to keep it going for any length of time. It's raining. The two of us who are frozen spend the night sharing the one dry sleeping bag. We are naked and spooning for body warmth. Even at eighteen my friend is hairy and fat but I don't mind one bit. All of our clothes are soaked and there is no other option.

I have a deep respect for water, and especially cold water now!

[RiverBank]

1) 2 bear chases with fish in hand.
2) lightning storm heavy downpour on the st lawerence in a small boat..not good!
3) boat being pushed into rocky cliff by high waves from an ocean liner,while not paying attention trying to net a huge carp.
4) listening to your friend say dont worry,lots of gas in the boat when its a foggy night and there isnt enough gas or a light aboard.

[Mr.J.]

Does fishing with K-pin for 6 hours on the Rideau listening to him talk about his ex-wife count ?:!:

Your killing me

[joco]

once i was me/and friend in my princraft fishing boat near ottawa down town ottawa river i was going full speed..aprox 38 mabe..and i saw something in front so went to a full stop....but there was a boat in my back/right side that i did not no was going to past behind meside to side..but he was doing this while i was going full speed but wit my stop i trick is thing a bit..anyway that boat a full cruiser big big one just past about 3 feet behind me..and man i got the WAVE off my life goin in my boat and splash both off us me and friend...we never saw the boat coming..we were looking forward wen we got splash..man that was... ..if we would have been hit.it would have be not to nice.


onother time me/wife wen for a fishing again buckam bay....put the boat in water...go for a troll a few miles on the river..wife say why is there water up to 1/2 the lenght off the boat...... ..for got the plug......... ...............that is what i taught...NOPE..it was not that.

it was the intake for my livweel..it brok flush to the boat cant do anything... ..now i have my finger in the hole but cant go no where..anyway..found something and went back to shore and fast on the trailer..but again..wen i went to shore...line up for the boat launch.... ...we did ok.


and 2more boat insident..but no the boat.....ME in the ski behind the boat..hit a flaothing dock in ski..broke bth skies in metal drums under the dock.

and onother time...i did notice the water drop..but did not notice the water pipe that goes in the cottage was an 2inch over the top off water..my skies went under the pipe.. ..can i tell you wen i flap flat on water my eyes open they were clean..

ho well..younger days off water sports.

this is why i am now paddling.....quiet and safer. i think.


joco

[Lunker Larry]

Back in the mid '70s when I was posted (I was military) to Canadian Forces Station Masset on the Queen Charlotte Islands (http://www.britishcolumbia.com/maps/?id=11) I had a pretty scarry moment while fishing. We used to go out into McIntyre Bay (see map link) to fish for halibut using the large 20 foot and very heavy life boats that were used on the destroyers. These were powered by a 45hp evinrude and we took a spare along with us.
It was a beautiful day when the 6 of us went out fishing. I was the driver this day. The ocean was calm and the sun was shining. In the afternoon the wind started to pick up and the tide began to come in. The swells started to get pretty high so we decided to hall lines and call it a day. By the time we got our lines in we were looking at 16 to 20 foot swells - huge walls of water lifting us up and dropping us down. I turned the boat to head back to Masset inlet but that brought the swells broad side to the boat. Very unerving sitting 16 feet in the air on a 45 degree slant sideways. Everyone in the boat hunkered down as low as they could go. I had to stay upright as I was driving the boat. Because of the swells I had to ride with them in towards the beach. There were times both the front and back of the boat were out of the water. Other times the speed at which we were travelling was scary. I remember coming down the front of a swell (almost facing straight down) and a buddy was laying on the floor in the bow looking up at me just shaking his head. Another fella who was a fair skinned red head looked almost transparent. Funny what you remember but his red lips didn't look real on that pasty white face.
By this time I was seriously thinking of beaching the boat but we thought if we could run in close enough to the shore, we could turn around and go into the waves and head to the small space between an island and the shore at the mouth of the inlet. This is only accessible during high tide.
Well the plan worked, but when we got to that narrows it was all white water. Here are 6 men with 2 motors and a boat around 1000 lbs being thrown bone jarringly HARD, all around as we navigated that stretch. When we got to the inlet, the tide was running fast and the water was smooth. A trip that took 15 mins to get to our fishing spot took 1.5 hrs to get back. My tiller arm was exhausted and I had to turn the boat over to someone else.
For the better part of 2 weeks everyone complained that they could not lay down without the some vertigo and motion sickness.

The pucker factor was off the scale on this trip. That is dangerous water and we got off pretty lucky.

[Tim Carmichael]

AVOID DAMS
Years ago we used to tie up beside a dam to fish for walleye. Two guys could catch 100 plus fish (mostly smaller ones but you could catch nicer ones and an occassional 5-8 lber) in three or four hours. Every once in a while a muskie or sturgeon was hooked too. Of course youth equals bullet-proof. The obvious dangers (at least I now see them that way) were ignored. Then one day when I arrived at the spot the motor quit as I slowed down. The boat drifted to shore. With the roar of the dam water my buddy could not here me screaming as he jumped out of the boat to push us off shore. I had to run to the front of the boat and fortunately he saw me and stopped. If he would have pushed us off I have no doubt the boat would have been sucked into the chute as with no motor to help we had no control. The chute was roaring out water and we were probably 20 feet from it. I never fished there again. Maybe you had to be there to realize how dangerous this was. Anyway, my respect level for water went way up that day and I became very aware of my own mortality.
So avoid dams. At least now most of them are barricaded and keep the foolish ones (like myself) away from danger.
Have agreat long weekend and play safe.
Tim

[bucketmouth]

Fishing with Joco at the Carillon Dam a few years back out of the kayaks for the American Shad run... the current was quite swift and we spent more time jockeying for position amongst the anchor boats than actually fishing. I decided I'd get out of the kayak for a bit, tie it to a chunk of rusty rebar and fish from shore (which was nothing more than some blast rock up against a wing wall of the dam). Little did I know we were about 40' from the main sluice gate to the one of the largest sets of locks in the province They sound an alarm just as the water surges out and I frantically leap frogged to my kayak which was triple half-hitched to the rebar. I was fishing a sit-in kayak at the time and it's not easy to jump in unless you actually in the water beside it.

Long story short, I fumbled with the rope and planted my butt on the seat just as a 3' wall of water came rushing at me. I learned my lesson around power dams that day and put on a heck of a show for the shad fisherman to boot!