Looking over several of the 2007 reminiscent posts got me remembering about one particular outing.  So I got to thinking, how about posting some bonehead fshing stories from 2007.  You know the ones I'm talking about, the ones we say to ourselves Man, I'll never do that again!

Mine was a night trip fishing with the Muddy Man.  I was cruising up the lake at top speed on the trolling motor, in the dark, in about 6-7 feet of water.  It was an area filled with boulders larger than Studebakers, and I well knew it.  I hit one boulder good and solid, first the trolling motor and then the hull.  Well, we barely limped back to the dock at about .000001 mph.  Come this spring I might have to replace that supposedly indestructible TM shaft, and I'll have to do a little hull work.  Man, I'll never do that again!

Tried to free a Rapala crank from a small rockpile with the tip of my crankin rod.  Result, six inches missing from the tip of the crankin rod.

Forgot to put the plug in the boat on a 10 hp limit lake.  I couldn't get the boat on plane to get the excess water out since I have a 90 hp.  Should have seen me getting that thing back on the trailer.

Bought a bunch of spinner baits and forgot to put them away before getting the boat on plane.  All of them except three went into the lake in about 40 ft. of water.

I'm sure I could think of more bonehead things I've done last year but those are the first that comes to mind.  :-[

I sank an orange tree in effort to create bass habitat.  Not knowing any better I sank it 200 yards from the nearest cover / structure that holds bass so it is more like an oasis in the desert.  A bass might hang there for a rest, but he won't make a home out of it.  Results... I haven't caught a thing.

 I hit the trim tilt up button in the front of the boat so the motor starts going up,my buddy freaks out and hits the tilt down button in the back of the boat.  Burnt the motor out and only $600 to get a new one.

  Also have a story about getting pulled across table rock lake because of a kill switch incident but I come out real bad in that one  :-[

I put the trailer in the water and climbed on it to pull out the winch strap so that I could snap it on the boat as my buddy drove the boat on the trailer.  Of course I slipped and fell in the water.  My buddy almost wet his pants because he was laughing so hard.  

In another incident we were just getting up on plane on the potomac in my partners boat.  I saw a stump sticking out of the water and pointed to it so that my partner would turn right or left.  He didn't see what I did and we hit it at 30 MPH.  It wasn't a stump but a log!  The motor kicked up and broke the cowling when it hit the back deck.  I should have yelled at him to avoid the obsticle!  

Was tying on a large rattle trap when a yellow jacket lit on my left hand.  Without thinking (obviously) I swatted at with my right driving one of the trebles into the side at the bottom of my index finger up to the bend.  Was able to get it out myself, but, next time I will let the bee sting me.

I put my boat in the water and left my friend to attend it while I parked the truck.  When I return he looks at me with a straight face and asks is it normal for water to be filling up the back of the boat.  I then jump in the boat and by the time I get the plug in it is to late to just bail. I had to go back and get the truck to load the boat again.  I know I made a bonehead mistake by not putting the plug in but my friend asking was it normal for the boat to be filling with water.  What a MORAN!!!!!!!

Last spring while flipping shallow buck brush I was looking at my next flipping spot when I felt the snug little feeling of a bass; set hook really fast only to be rewarded with a 3/8 oz jig to the top of the head as I ducked.

Last spring while flipping shallow buck brush I was looking at my next flipping spot when I felt the snug little feeling of a bass; set hook really fast only to be rewarded with a 3/8 oz jig to the top of the head as I ducked.

I know exactly how that feels.  Then I look around to see if anyone was watching me get my brains knocked out.  ;D

5/8 ounce lipless crank to the back of the head last february

I was fishing a small pond brush pile with a 4 inch senko in the summer time. I got a hit and set the hook as hard as i could. Thing is the fish was a dink and came flying out the water and got stuck in the tree behind me. Was quite funny...

Buy super special space pen at the Ft Sill PX on Saturday.  Hit the lake back home on Thursday, use special space pen to make a few notes about lake conditions in super special spy notebook with waterproof paper.  Put notebook and pen into tackle bag.

Flip top flap of bag over to get box out, send super special space pen out of boat into 25' of water.

:'( >

Oh i forgot my other bone head move....

I purchased the rocked rod.

april 28, 2007 - my wife's birthday. promised her i'd go out to eat with her and the family that evening. had all day to fish. something told me to check my favorite lake close to the house for bedding sows that morning, but i didn't. instead i went to another spot and caught dinks all day. coming back home, i decided to swing by the aforementioned lake as an afterthought. had about an hour left before i had to leave. walked the bank looking for beds and quickly spotted the biggest bass i had ever seen in that lake sitting on a bed and acting very "catchable". she was easily even bigger than the 10-3 i had caught out of there earlier that month. i was furious at myself. but i had an hour. had to get something to catch her with - fast. the clock was down to about 50 mins. now. i knew a live bluegill would work the fastest, so i walked over to the bluegill hotspot in that lake and finally caught one just the right size after about another 20 minutes. i might just be able to pull this off after all i thought! hooked up the gill on a big 5/0 hook with a heavy sinker to make it stay put and got it on the bed just right. now it was just a matter of time. after leaving briefly, she came back and attacked the hapless gill with a vengeance! this was too good to be true! then it happened. somehow, while the gill was sitting on the bed, the hook had gotten turned around in it so that when i set, the hook just went right back into the bluegill, and all i succeeded in doing was just jerking the whole rig out of the bass' mouth, spooking her badly in the process. she never came back in the few minutes i had left. and she never came back to the nest in the days following either (believe me i checked!)

these 2 bonehead manuevers in one day (not checking the lake before i left for the other fishin' hole and not using a big treble in the bluegill instead of a single) still haunt me to this day. and to make it worse, i will forever associate my sweet wife's birthday with this horrible bonehead manuever. catching that fish this year (if she's even still alive in there) is the only thing that will ease the pain at all. i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

thank you for making me re-live this miserable day once again. ;D

That story reminds me of one of my bed fishing forays last spring.  A friend and I are cruising a shoreline Randall-Style© when I see the back of a fish in a very small shoreline pocket (just an indention in a steep dirt bank) tucked under some overhanging trees.

Now this lake is full of huge carp.  I make a comment to my friend about the huge carp there.  He comes back with, 'Carp hell, that's a $*$*#*$% bass!'.  

By that time I'm a good 50 yards past.  I whip the boat around and come back from the same direction.  We manage to get a jig in there twice before both male (about 2 lbs.) and female (about 7 lbs.) scatter.  The male holes up in some washed out roots.  The female gets so skittish that you can't get within 60 yards of her.  We tried every angle but she just wouldn't tolerate us.

A good object lesson on why it is important to remain 110% focused when on the water.

I backed the boat in and got in to start it.  noticed the back of my boat was really low and water was pouring in through the engine area (dont know really how to explain it).  I knew it wasnt the plug.  i ran to the front of the boat to hop back in my truck and i stepped on the trailer tongue to avoid getting wet.  The tongue rocked back and forth with the boat.  then i realized i didnt take the back straps off that tied the back down.  luckily nobody was around to see.

I left the boat key at home.

I left the boat key at home.

How far from home?

Hey GTHunter,

Don't be too embarassed if you know what I mean :-[  I did that at a club tournament this spring at Murray.  I realized at that moment that I had turned into the guy that we usually cuss for taking too long on the ramp  ;D

Last spring (still very cold) I launched at low tide on the Mattawoman Creek off the Potomac River.  It was low (really low) tide.  I proceeded down the creek channel in a 6 MPH zone.  When I got to the shallow areas I noticed a boat or too parked on certain spots.  I thought to myself,  "hey,  they must have found some fish."  When I got out to the end of the speed limit zone.  I opened it up and left the creek.  When I came back in I came in on plane in what is usually 4-5 ft.  The other boats were still fishing.  I was about 150 yards from the closest boat.   The water wasn't 4 -5 ft.  It was about 8" deep.  During the warmer months,  the pads tell you where you should be.  Without them all you can do is try to remember about where the pads usually are.  In the mud bottom I went.  I was very embarrassed think that everybody saw me get stuck.  I trimmed up the motor,  got out my paddle and started pulling my boat at the bow by digging into the mud and pulling.  

As I got myself unstuck,   I got the big motor started again.  As I got closer to the other boat,  he was waving me away.  My first thought was,  "I'm staying far away as I can from your fishing spot you jerk,  chill out."  As I went by he hollered  stay over there,  we're stuck (I though they were parked on fish)  I asked if I could help and he said no that they would wait for the tide to rise.  He then said, "I saw you over by that other boat,  is he still stuck?"  (he was the one that I was embarrassed because he saw me get stuck) (I thought he was fishing also)  He was on the way to help the other stuck boat and he got stuck.   They had both been stuck the whole time.

It would have to be a tie between the catch and release aligator incident, and the "3 hour" kayak trip. The aligator had a fondness for crankbaits, and the 3 hour trip turned into five hours, two of which being way after dark in a kayak, in unfamiliar water. Luckily my friends and I are able to laugh about both incidents.

Even narrowing it down to 2007, I do not have the typing prowess to finish today.

With the temperature in the 30's, I'm casting my net for shad, trolling around in search of them. After I fill my bucket I hop into the drivers seat and fire up the big motor and take off. WATER WAS FLYING EVERYWHERE!  I was absolutely drenched at this point wondering what the heck was going on, and I kill the motor only to discover that I'D LEFT THE TROLLING MOTOR DOWN!!!  

Well obviously BOAT Control on the fork documented here;

http://www.bassresource.com/bass_fishing_forums/YaBB.pl?num=1175290495

And Fishing on the Susqy, hooking my first Musky, Got him to the boat, did not hold my rod high enough , while my friend Dan was getting the cradle ready and the Muskie Shook his head, the Suick hard bait came flying right back at me END RESULT  Trebles buried in my scalp OUCH!!!!!

One of my club buddies launched his boat at the blast-off ramp only to relaize that he had not tied her to the dock.

So when he pulled his trailer off and went to park, the boat kept heading out to sea.

It was on the Pamunkey River so when we had some sunlight one of the guys took him to retrieve her.

All we could do is look at him and shake our heads. And then go into hysterics.  He was embarassed and we laughed our fannies off.