Bill, its great to hear from you. What have you been up to?
Greg, that must have been one painful landing. The guy is lucky he didnt crack the hull hitting it that hard.
I have been on the non boater end of some pretty stupid stuff too. The guy in the 21' triton comes to mind, in 2' swells he managed to bust a windshield, loost a fish finder and i lost two rods off the side from stuffing waves. I wasnt that bad out there by any measure but i was a non boater and thats who i drew. I had my little champ at the time and i know for a fact with the waves out there i would not have even gotten wet. This guy didnt know what the trim was and was full thrittle all the way with the bow just buried.
Id have to say the all time worst was as a mass bass state fish offs on Champlain a number of years ago. I was stuck with a guy that had a 16' junker with a 150 on it and 4+ footers. They never should have allowed this guy out there but they did, he had no place for me to tie rods down, no handles to hold onto and he drive like a mainac. We didnt make it from appletree to keeler bay and i lost 4 rods and had to tie the remaining two i had left to my leg to keep them in the boat. After we got there his TM died, he ran back to appletree to get his spare and i said hell with this and left, my dy was done at 8am and i was hurting bad.
All time most painful on Winni would have to be two years ago when we fished the fish offs at there. I think you were that at that tournament if i remember correctly. I brought my boat and fished the practice day but i was a non boater. The day 1 draw i was in a 19' ranger fish and ski and boy what a beat ride. It was safe but just a very harsh riding boat, he didnt try to overdo it either. I wish i could have convinced him to take my boat on day 1. It wasnt that bad out there and we would have been dry and comfy in my 882 instead of beat up bad. I ended up having to go for a lonjg ride in my truck with the heated seats on to loosen my back up after that deal. At least on day 2 i got to ride in a 21' cobra with a driver that knew what he was doing.