The worst "Uff-Dah!" (Long): A cabin fever competition

[Mark Hofman]

My response to Bob about fishing Taneycomo got me to thinkin'. (I know, that's dangerous territory for me, but...)



What's been the absolute WORST "Uff-dah!!" boating experience you've witnessed?



Let me explain. This is where you're near or on the water, and you see some OTHER guy or gal do something so bad that you'd die of embarrassment if it ever happened to you. Like I alluded to in the jet-boat thread, here's mine:



In June, my dad and I are anchored at a spot on Taneycomo near Short Creek. Before I proceed with the story, let me paint a picture for you of this particular location.



Taneycomo is nothing but a river with a dam at each end. Table Rock Dam holds back the water on the White River and forms, of course, the infamous Table Rock Lake. About twenty seven miles downstream, there is a much smaller dam called "Powersite". This dam blocks the flow of the White River to form Lake Taneycomo. But the funny thing is that Lake Taneycomo isn't much wider than (at most) a hunnert yards at its widest spot.



Above Branson, going toward Table Rock Dam, the lake gets shallower and shallower. In fact, if they aren't letting water loose through Table Rock Dam, you can wade across the lake almost all the way across. Not all the way across, mind you, because there is still a river channel. Experienced boaters on Taneycomo know where this channel is - and it is a very important skill as we will soon see.



If they let water run through Table Rock, the lake really becomes a river. My Motorguide on "5" will keep me pointed upstream, but I won't go anywhere. With the water running, the lake level comes up and you can boat all the way up to Table Rock Dam.



On this particular day, however, no water was being released from Table Rock, so my dad and I decided to fish a spot called "Short Creek". We motored up to where a tiny creek enters the lake from the south. You know you're at short creek because of two things: a stump sticking up out of the water, and a condominium building that looks like its going to slide off the hill into Short Creek. The lake, at this point, is about fifty yards wide. Short Creek is on the inside of the bend. The channel is on the outside of the bend, and there is a steep cliff above.



Using my depth finder, I located the drop-off from Short Creek Shoal (keep that name in mind) into the channel and dropped anchor. We proceeded to fish leisurely for the next hour. (continued)

 

[Staci Matheis]

Waiting............

 

[Mark Hofman]

Part II.



Now let me tell you about this "shoal". If the water is running, you'd have nothin' to be worried about. There would be about four feet of water to run your boat through. But....



With the water off, you couldn't get your boat to the bank. Beneath the six inches of water that lies below Short Creek, there is a chunk rock and gravel bottm. Oh, its GREAT for holding trout, but you'd better not think about being within ten feet of that stump as you motor up-lake.



So, here my dad and I are, sittin' throwing small jigs and spinners. We'd caught three or four and were having a ball. So much so that before too long, there were a half a dozen other boats anchored in various spots around us, all right over that drop off. Then I hears a roar.



I look way up lake and I see a BEEE-YOO-TEE-FULL white bass boat, throwin' a rooster tail six feet into the air. And its a-comin' right for this group of boats. I think to myself, "Boy, I hope he comes off plane before he gets here. These boats are too clustered for him to go shootin' through on plane like that."



He keeps a-comin'.



Then I see his stern swing toward the outside of the channel, and his bow points to the left....



....right at the stump.



I think to myself, "Maybe I should try to get his attention. Wave my arms or somethin'. Naw....any guy runnin flat out like that has to be pretty confident about where the channel is...."



He keeps a comin'.....



....right at the stump...



Then he sees it. Makes a little steerin' adjustment to miss it. (This is like a bad dream. You can see it comin', right???)



It is a gorgeous white Triton TR-21 with a 225 Opti hangin' off the back end. Three guys sittin'on the bench seat. Driver is chompin' a cee-gar.



I stand up in the boat to wave him off plane. He doesn't see me - or he chooses to ignore me - and flashes right on past....



There came the most gawd-aweful "bang/crunch" scrapin' noise you could imagine. He goes a slidin' along that rock gravel bar for about thirty feet. The engine dies. They finally come to a stop. The boat actually lists off to the port side a bit.



Both passengers lean and look over the edge of the boat and one says, "Dang, Ed, it's really shallow here!"



At that point in time there commences the most vicious tirade of foul, four-, five- and six-letter words that my virgin ears had ever seen strung together, nor have ever heard since, all at about ninety three on the decible scale.



I look over at my dad. He's reelin' in his lure...straps the rod down to the deck. I pull up the anchor, we crank the big motor and head off to a different part of the lake.



I tried, I really did, but the man didn't see me or didn't want to see me. Musta been because I was in a lowly Tracker boat. There were lots of other folks around to help him get his boat off of that shoal. But I doubt he'd a-wanted any help.



He did get off of it because we didn't see him on the way in for lunch.



Thus endeth my "Uff-dah!" What's yers?

 

[Jim B]

I have a Good one.

Anyone fimilar with Lake Winnipesaukee in NH will know this area well. There is an area in winni called "The Witches". Its a massive rock shoal the size of three football fields or bigger. At normal pool alot of it is above water can can be seen from quite a distance away. All around this shoal is 20+ feet of water. Its also very well marked with many red and black bouy markers and also danger signs warning about the rocks. This shoal happens to be in a pretty high traffic area and also has some great fishin all around it.



Now one day i was fishing the weedline outside "The Witches" in 20+ feet of water minding my own business and long comes this guy in a power boat. You know the kind a bowrider over 20' with a i/o, throws a massive wake. Well it seems like the only thing he wanted to do was swamp my boat for a laugh. At time time i had my 16' champ. Well he buzzed me like 30' off my bow and left me a nice 4' roller to contend with. The funny part is he completly ignored the big warning sighs and drove straight for the shoal while looking at me taking water over the bow and laughing the whole way. Well after he ran his boat up and practially beached it on the rocks he stopped laughing real quick. I went over on my troling motor and gave the guy a good blasting. When i left a marine patrol guy asked if i could tow him over because he couldnt go in that shallow on his gas. So i towed the marine patrol guy in and he gave the guy a tounge lashing too. He saw the whole thing and in the end the guy ended up with a smashed up boat, a smashed up motor and a big ticket.

 

[Rob LaMoy]

I was waiting to weigh in at a Federation tourney some years back, amongst about 150 of my fellow anglers. It was a nice summer afternoon, so the pleasure boaters were launching as well. Well, in pulls this 20+ closed cuddy V-hull tin lake troller. The guy pulls up (on level ground) and proceeds to unhook the boat and tells his wife to "OK back it in". Well, it's on a roller trailer and the launch has a pretty good grade. We could all see what was going to happen, in fact I think the tourney director stopped talking, so EVERYONE turned to look. It happened so fast nobody could stop them. She started coming down and just tapped the brakes once, you heard this skreaching of wheels turning as the boat began to vey quickly unload itself off the trailer, which mind you was still a good 20 feet from the water. To stop it, she threw it into gear and tried to "pull" it.....unstrapped back up to the flat spot, which now that it was moving just launched it onto the pavement. All you heard was this grinding metal on concrete sound. And there it was all 20+ feet of it, low laying on it's side (since the v leaned it to one side) in the middle of the ramp. Everyone started rolling. Then to make it worse this macho man tries to cuss out his wife, and she wasn't having it. She lambasted him for unhooking the tongue and said, "see I TOLD you it would do that! They were still trying to get it back on the trailer when we left. We tried to help, but they needed a loader or tractor to get it on! I'll tell another like Jim's later.

 

[Mark Hofman]

HA!!!!! I can just picture it!!!



Awesome!!

 

[Jim Storck Sr]

I have one and sorry to say it happened to me.Show up for a federation open with a partner I've only fished with once before.I'm so use to fishing alone and using a rope to launch the boat that I let my partner back the boat in while I held the rope.It was 4:30 am and still dark and others were launching,standing beside the boat I gave the signal to back her in.and in she went with me holding both ends of the rope (DAH!!)I had to swim after the boat while laughter echoed in the background.I didn't think it was funny until I heard the story told at the club meeting a few weeks later.

 

[William Brooks]

I live on the Ohio river and our small town has a nice launch facility to put your boat into the river. It has dual concrete launch ramps at each end of the downtown waterfront with about 100 yards of concrete drive in between the launch ramps. This concrete drive is right next to the river and is convenient to drive to either ramp. We had just put the Tracker 175 in the water when someone with a big Cutty Cabin comes down and tries to launch in between the ramps about 50 yds down. Of course being a river there is nothing but silt and mud in between the ramps so the trailer on this rig just sinks into muck and mires down with no way to back the boat off. I'm not sure what they were thinking but maybe they need a sign that reads "Please use one of the concrete ramps at each end of the waterfront?" We just smiled and went fishing.

 

[Rob LaMoy]

Good thing for you he was smart enough and quick enough to realize what was going on and saved your arse.....er I mean hull!

 

[James D.]

sounds like a good friend. i er launched my boat one day without the bow strap hooked up on the other steeper ramp at the other side of the lake. glad someone came by to give me a lift out to my boat! never will do that one again.

jd