1 More Stupid thing for you NOT to do...

[TrepMan]

O.K., most of us have done (and yes, i've done them all) the "forgot the plug", "left the keys at home", "locked the keys in the running truck on the ramp" but this last one took me a while to figure out:



Last Friday I am getting the boat ready (it stays in the garage when not in use) for a little tubing and cruising with my 4 year old and his buddy (also 4 years old and never been on a boat) and his buddies' dad. I'm unplugging the on-board charger from the wall and notice a sickening smell near the back of the boat. Since it's Friday (Trash day) and my trash can in next to the boat, I figure my wife must have thrown something from the back of the fridge out. So I don't think about it and get the boat hooked up, head for gas, pick up the little ones and the other Dad and we head to the water. We get to the lake, i'm unhooking the tie-downs and transom saver while the other dad parks his car and get's the boys ready (life jackets, swim suits...).



I keep smelling that odor when I decide to open the rear baitwell to place my tie-downs in it and low and behold there is the offending odor's source!



The Friday before I had taken my boss and his son out with live bait (both bait well's full) and it seems that I remembered to pull the plug in the baitwell but forgot to make sure the bait-bucket was empty too. So you go figure how a few shinners (or what is left of them) smell like after 1 week w/no water, 90+heat and humidity!



Let's say it was not just smelly but it seemed to MOVE too, that's right MAGOTS!!! So here I am, big boat owner taking 2 kids and a dad out and we've got a NASTY bait well in back. Luckily we were not planning to fish, so I flushed the baitwell once on the water.



Great day, kids loved the beach, to tube and cruise. Noah's friend Emmet kept saying "go faster Mr. Mike, go faster", for a first time boater that little guy liked his speed - to bad the 40 merc would only push us about 28



Got home and cleaned with vinegar and water. Now I need to add to my "leaving Lake" checklist - Make sure all live and bait wells are EMPTY of water and FISH!



TrepMan

 

[Julio Santana]

I can appreciate that ... not only has it happened to me as well, but... I work in financing and used to be a loan officer with a bank. One guy was so mad at the bank for something (bounced check fees or something) that he closed his accounts, but left his safe deposit box open....



We noticed that same rough smell coming from the vault. After the course of a few days it kept getting worse and worse, so we finally narrowed it down to a few boxes and called owners and such to come in and open the boxes for us (need their key and the bank's pass key unless we were going to drill 'em out and that's a nightmare).



You guessed it. He took a big piece of fish of some sort and left it in the safe box and put it in our vault to stink up the bank. It wasn't fun..but I laugh about it still... I guess he thought our bank didn't really stink enough.

 

[Russ Charles]

Even check you livewells if you're not using live bait. The other night after removing our catch for weigh-in I found a large shiner that one of the bass had coughed up.



Russ

 

[Chris Leiting]

YUMMY!!!!!!!! dont feel bad..... could have been worse... heard from a guide buddy down at fork that took 2 clients out... 1 male and 1 female... female had to go #2 if you know what i mean... so he told her to use the livewell and they'd clean it out later.... needless to say he forgot about the brown trout swimming in the livewell. and you can figure out the rest of the story after a couple days in the hot texas sun.

 

[Scott S.]

Had a Frog get under the floor of another Boat in the family. He got in by the cutout for the bilge pump area.. And did not want to come out or must have got trapped. Smelled for a while. Moral of the story... Do not let Frogs in the Boat!!!

 

[Marke Cicero]

Here's one. We have have a large chest freezer down in the basement. We have just moved into our new house and haven't had the need to use the freezer yet. My buddy called and told me that he had about 50 Mackerel in his freezer that he'd been saving for Striper bait. He was going grocery shopping and asked if I would take the bait and keep in my freezer. I said sure, it will give us a reason to plug it back in. So I get the fish, throw them in the freezer and plug the freezer into the wall. A week later Jill said "Now that the Freezer's plugged in I'll stock up at the grocery store".



Well she came home from the store, opened the freezer and almost vomited. Somwhere between the old house and the new house the freezer decided it wasn't going to work anymore. The whole basement smelled like rotting Mackerel. I'm still paying for that one....LOL



After that, worms left in the back of the refridgerator don't seem so bad anymore )



Marke