From feeling mad to dumb

I was headed in the boat with just me and the dog yesterday morning. The spot I wanted to go to is through a lot of uncut timber, so I slowed down and trimmed up. As soon as I put it in back in gear it died. It cranked right back up tho. Hmmm, weird. Put it in gear and it died again immediately. Did this a few more times. I tried to trim it up all the way so I could see what was going on but it didn't seem to have enough juice to do so. Well, maybe the battery fried. I manage to put the trolling/headlight battery in its place and the same exact thing happens. So, something is mechanically really out of whack. For grins I put it in reverse and it didn't die. I happened to be close to the mouth of a cove that I've hunted before so I carefully backed through the stumps into the cove, dropped off my gear, and hid the boat down the way a bit.

The whole time I was thinking what I was gonna do after the hunt. I can't reverse all the way to the ramp into the wind. Who could I call... most likely my brother. Then I started thinking about what it was gonna cost, $1K in my head, to fix a boat that isn't worth more than $2,500. Now my weekend is screwed, all these thoughts going on. First group of ducks come in and shot a triple. Shortly afterwards I heard shots from only a few hundred yards away. I guess they had lights out when I came in, but I was glad cuz that may be my ticket out of there. A few minutes later got a single. Now if I could just get two pretty quick I could walk over, introduce myself, and hope they could tow me back to the ramp, which isn't very close by.

A little after 8 AM and there they go speeding by. Too late! Well, I thought I'd better get moving so I wouldn't burn all day. I go to push the boat off the bank from the front and notice that the rope I have tied on the front is under the boat and really tight. Derrrrrr, felt like a big dumb arse. Got it out of the prop and all is well again. Of course as I'm doing that the last two ducks are landing in the spread. Oh well, I'm going with the theory that it's better to be a dummy short of a limit than to be stranded.

First thing I did when I got home was cut that rope a few feet short of the transom.

Good luck sir

We've all had those moments, glad it wasn't something major..

I've never felt that way.... Well maybe a little.

Glad you got birds. I've had a slow season and now I'm stuck inside waiting to see if I have coronebola.

When I was 16, my Dad let me load the john boat in the back of the truck and take it by myself for the 1st time. So a buddy and I went down and signed up for a bluegill tournament on Bedico Creek near Lake Pontchartrain. Got the boat launched, cranked right up and same thing, started down the creek and the motor died. Cranked back, put it in gear and it died. We decided we would just use the trolling motor. About the 2nd cast I hung my fly rod up in a tree, jerked it and it snapped in half. Trolled back to the ramp and when I undid the motor to pull it off, I lifted up and it pulled back. From then on, every boat I've owned has a front rope that is 2 feet shorter than the boat.

Just so you know you can go backwards all the way back to the boat ramp. Been there and done that. Unfortunately we didn't shoot any ducks that day.