re: What’s your best boat breakdown/got lost story?

Not necessarily the best but the funniest was when I forgot to tie the boat to the trailer, put boat with family in the water and boat drifts away. Yell to the wife to start it up and bring it on back. Click. Battery dead.

4-year-old starts yelling "don't panic" at everyone. I yell back, I'm on the dock. I'm not panicking.

I had to swim.

Don't feel bad. I swam a "broke down" jet ski about 1/4 mile before realizing I had the lanyard attached to my wrist. I told everyone the battery cables were loose when I got back, and just pretended to mess with it

Had to spend the night in the marsh in Venice. First time down there and we were out bow fishing on a dual GTR rig. We came around a turn at wide open speed of 25 and the driver decided to cut into a pond. Well the pond was 2 inches deep and complete sand. We skidded to a halt 30 yards later and were stuck at low tide around 1 AM. We pushed pulled, and even winched and couldn't get the damn thing to move due to the suction.

We came to the realization that we were spending the night just as the hangovers started setting in. Tide finally came back up a little bit around 7AM and we were able to free the boat.

Went with neighbor and his family member in his bay boat to Golden Meadow. Went to launch and boat wouldnt crank. We tried everything for over an hour. Pissed and dead crank battery we set off from the public launch under trolling motor power. It was pretty damn embarrassing.

We trolled around, coasting where we could to conserve battery. We just destroyed the fish. Batteries started really struggling around 10am. We barely made it back to the launch under our own power. It did kill one of the trolling motor batteries.

It is still the best boat fishing trip Ive been on. The three of us caught 3 man limit of reds with throw backs after, 2+ man limit of trout and a few flounder all within 1.5 miles of the launch. Ive covered more territory in my kayak. It was the kind of day of catching redfish that just got mouth around the popping cork and never let go, another one caught while the hook/shrimp was just hanging over the side of boat while helping net someone elses.

I was 7 or 8 and went fishing in Vermillion Bay with my dad, uncle and cousin. By the grace of god we actually get on a decent trout bite. We can tell that there are storms building up but who gives a shite when you are catching fish. Keep fishing and all of a sudden it looks like someone turned a light switch off over whole bay. So we pack our shite and start hauling arse about the time that the rain and HAIL start falling. It was so heavy that my uncle ran on the opposite side of a channel marker and we got stuck on an oyster reef. In the rain. And hail. With lightening cracking all around us. All of them hop out of the boat and start pushing on the bow while they have me get on the boat and try to use the motor to get us off. We finally get off and make our way back to the launch just as the rain and lightening stop. That was the day I knew I loved saltwater fishing because I wanted to go back and fish Sunday.

50 miles out of venice on overnight trip in a 34ft center console. Around 7pm we realize voltage is slowly dropping and motors aren't charging the batteries for some reason (lol mercurys). Start heading in and as voltage is dropping both motors go into guardian mode limiting them to 3500rpm (lol mercurys). Halfway back to the pass and the port motor then starts intermittently rolling back to 1500rpm. So now we are struggling to stay on plane, coming off step every time the port motor rolls back (LOL MERCURYS!!!)

About 10 miles from south pass and the Garmin is now only reading 7-8 volts, so hitting the trim tabs, vhf transmit button, or anything that even slightly uses more power kills all the electronics and makes them reboot. Before we can see the first buoy of the pass, we lose Garmin's, VHFs and all other electronics besides nav lights.

Keep in mind there is no moonlight, so we now have to navigate into south pass in pitch black darkness with no radar, no gps, or any other navigational aid other than the pass markers. If you know south pass than you know this is a pretty sketchy situation. Not to mention the pass was full of grass and shite which looked like the jetties (in the darkness) but in the middle of the pass. The butthole pucker factor was very real coming into the pass.

Luckily we made it into south pass and spent the night at port eads while waiting on seatow to come down river.

2 things I learned from that trip:
1) lol Mercurys
2) A garmin can still operate at 8 volts (although there is still some question as to how accurate the gps is at this low of a voltage

Where do I even begin? Between my dad and I we have had our fair share of boat breakdowns and mishaps.

-After making a midweek September teal hunt, I am heading out of the swamp in my dad's boat equipped with a 27hp longtail. Making the turn into the main canal, I hit an old cypress stump with the prop and break the shaft off right before the prop. Luckily I was able to retrieve the prop and after a few phonecalls my buddy shows up in his wake boat to tow me all the way to the launch.

-On my way to make an afternoon bowhunt in my surface drive boat, I am running in the middle of the canal and all of a sudden the engine hits the rev limiter. In turning my head around to see what happened, I catch a glimpse of my prop spinning across the top of the water just before it sinks to never be found again. Shaft had sheared an inch before the prop. Few phone calls later and one of my friends is towing me back in. Luckily he had just moved a few minutes up the road from where we hunt.

-Same surface drive boat, a friend and I went bowfishing. We drove around, hit a few spots, shot some reds, the whole while motor has been running either wide open or idling. Coming into a pond, prop catches a stump and stops the motor dead. Try to restart and cant get it to fire up. Motor spins but sounds weak. attach jumper from one of the trolling batteries and still cant get it to spin over. Try everything I can think of and no go. Called a few people and no luck for a tow. So we start paddling and push poling against an outgoing tide and finally make it to the launch just before daylight. About 400 yds to go, my phone dings. Still need a tow? Couldn't help but laugh at that.

-I've had a couple occasions where I've stopped a boat somewhere and then couldn't restart. After trying for a long time, finally realizing the dead man switch had disconnected or I had inadvertently knocked the fuel tank connector off. Definitely makes you feel like an idiot. I now have a checklist in my head for situations like that.

Its inevitable that things like these happen so its best to be as prepared as possible. I now carry a lithium jump pack and it feels like enough spare parts to build a new motor.

Fishing Trip to Hell!

This great adventure happened in 1997. I think it was in 97', its hard to remember now because I have tried to block it from my mind every since it happened. The story starts out innocent enough me and my fishing buddy, who shall remain nameless to protect his identity as well as my own well being from the beating I would get if I ever divulged his name. The goal was fishing, offshore fishing. As almost always, the trip was to be out of Venice, Louisiana. Every thing was going fine as we made our way through The Jump and into the Mississippi River.

Then the first indication of things to come happened. The boat was running fine until we tried to give it a little more gas to see what the new carburetor would do. We had gotten 43 mph out of it in a test run at home in the Miss. River near Baton Rouge, and it only needed a minor adjustment. It was bogging down at full throttle. We didn't want to make the adjustment in the Miss. R. that day because the river is not a place to be messing around with your engine if it is running. That is a lesson we should have remembered as we headed down the river anticipating a icechest full of snapper and tuna and whatever else might happen to bite or lures and baits. So the tweak was made at home and then the engine performed flawlessly (not under a load).

"Well let's just make one small adjustment." That word would change our lives. So we pulled to the side and proceeded to make a minor adjustment to the carburetor. "O.K. lets give it a try!" we said as we couldn't wait to get those couple of mph more to reach our destination that much faster. Well of course the engine bogged down worse than before. So what did the two idiots do? Well of course we put it back the way it was. And what happened do you think. You guessed it we now could not get on plane hardly. AAAGGGHHHH!!!

I don't remember the details, because like I said I really have tried to block it from my mind, but some how we ended up 10 miles from the mouth of South West Pass on side the river messing with the carburetor. It got so bad that we had torn a seal on the carburetor adjustment screw and had to make another one out of a piece of rubber or something I had in my tool box. Once we fixed it so that it wouldn't spew gas all over the engine we called it quits. Seems we had been keeping track of the screw head position and not the threaded part it screwed into. Obviously, as we discovered upon taking it apart we had everything screwed up and now we had a gasket that we dared not touch. Well no big deal we thought we are almost there and we will still have all night to fish anyway. We will be trolling the next day so we don't need to go fast anyway.

Don't go the fun is only starting.

As we reached the mouth of the River it was of course dark since we had arrived much later than originally anticipated. As we approached the mouth which faces Southwest, we were faced with a WestSouthWest wind. As we idled out it became clear that the Gulf was going to be much too rough for our 19ft. wellcraft. So with me at the helm we made the decision to turn back upstream. That's when the night got darker the wind grew stronger and my heart sank, as I feared for my life like I have never before!

As I was turning the boat the steering went out. I can't see the rocks but I know they are right in the direction that the wind is blowing. So as we made our circles over and over it was pure chaos. Ray, oops! I mean my fishing partner started to get seasick. Now keep in mind we are in huge waves and we are going in circles as I try to power the boat away from the rocks whenever the boat is facing away from them. After a while the steering goes out completely and it is apparent that we are out to sea (thanks to the rivers current) since the rocks have not yet splintered the boat to a million pieces.

For those of you not familiar with the area the anchor would never reach bottom in these waters except next to the rocks. So here we are its about 9 PM and we are drifting out to sea in water that is too rough for any sane person to brave in our increasingly small boat. So now we did what anyone would do, we retrieved the flare gun and fired a shot. Thank god we were being approached minutes later by a large vessel, dredge I think. They secured us and we waited for a small crew boat to tow us in. They towed us just a few miles up river where there was a camp or headquarters for crewboats and such. We were informed that it would be sometime if ever that a boat would be going our way.

So after we determined that the steering was not fixable we eventually disconnected the steering from the lower unit and tied it straight with rope. We then could steer the boat by prying on the ropes with the rig hook (a large metal pole). So we started our journey up river only making about 3 miles per hour after you take into consideration the current.

All night we took turns putting up river. Daylight found us about 3 miles north of Head of Pass. Still a long way from home. This is when a small crew boat took pity on us and towed us back to the jump. He had to make a pick up so we made the last mile or so on our own limping back into port. We made the 4 hour drive back home and got home around 1 p.m. So our trip from hell as it is known saw us driving either a car or boat for 18 hours or so and the rest of the time was spent working on the boat. How lovely. Throw in the near death experience at the mouth of the river and I bet you will agree this was the trip from Hell. Incidentally if you had just met us at the dock with 200 bucks you could have gotten a boat cheap. Honestly.

This is about my favorite thing to do. Take the boat with the kids out to one of the Mississippi barrier islands and spend the night.


Then in May 2017 came The Trip From Hell.

The day started out great. A beautiful sunny day; we left Pascagoula headed out to Petit Bois. The water was calm and jade-clear. Dolphins swam about 30 feet away from us in the shallows on the west end of the island.


Running on the back side of the island, the motor started making a funny noise when running-- like a playing card in a bicycle spokes. Suddenly it made an explosive noise and I shut her down. We got the motor re-started, but it would not move forward in gear. Lower unit was shot. Reverse worked, so we backed in to the beach a few hundred yards away. Called SeaTow (I'm a paying member). They were backed up until late evening, so we made plans to camp anyway and they would come tow us in the next morning.

We set up camp on the beach, grilled steak and shrimp, hung out by the campfire for quite awhile and went to bed in our tents about midnight, with the boat anchored just offshore. There was supposed to be a cool front with some rain coming through overnight, with winds the next morning less than 9 mph coming out of the north. No big; might be a little rough in the morning, but nothing we couldn't handle.

That forecast turned out to be a heavy thunderstorm with rain, and with following winds of 17 mph (gusts to 26 mph) the next morning. I checked the boat periodically; the automatic bilge pump worked and kept the rain pumped out, and the anchor and rope held. But at about 6:30 AM I woke up to this:



The BOW CLEAT holding the anchor rope had broke, allowing the boat to drift free, and up on the beach, where it was overrun by waves. By the time I found out, it was a done deal. And it had turned COLD.

Sea Tow came and picked us up, but because of the wind and waves could only get us and a few of our personal things. It was like D-Day in reverse going out to the SeaTow boat through rough chest-deep waves in now COLD water. We had to leave all the camping gear-- tents, ice chest, chairs, air mattresses, sleeping bags--- and other stuff on the island in the tents (which we left up).

SeaTow waited a day or so till the wind changed and the tide was high, then pumped out the boat, pulled it off the beach and towed it in. They also TOOK DOWN my tents and put all of my camping gear and tents in the boat. They also 'pickled' the engine. Insurance totaled the boat, and worked out the recovery cost with SeaTow. I came away with $1500 in insurance money (enough to replace the lower unit) and possession of the boat itself in salvage. i then cleaned up the boat, got a new lower unit and new fuse system, and ran it again for another couple of years.

Oh I was pulling a guy on skis once in my grandparents old ski boat they gave me when I was in HS.

Engine dies. Friend is floating in the water as the boat drifts away from him due to wind. Engine will turn over but won’t crank. I spend almost 2 hours working on the engine as my friend floats in the lake trying to swim with skis on to catchup up. I take off the carburetor check the fuel pump all kinds of shite can’t figure it out. Right when I put it all back together and my friend finally catches up to the boat and climbs in I realize my elbow hit the kill switch on accident. Flip it and it fires right up. Needless to say my friend didn’t speak to me for 30 min