Hey guys and gals, ever had any embarrassing or humbling experiences we could share for some good wintertime reading. I know I have and will share mine with you all. I will post one at a time hope you enjoy and join the fun. Johnnie
Years ago:
Once while bank fishing for bass with live minnows, my Uncle on my left and best friend on my right, and me in the middle of course wern't having much luck. Suddenly my Uncle went on point, that always meant he had a strike. When Uncle Ken gets a bite on live bait he pays out line by hand allowing the fish to swim away with the bait for a sure hook up. While Uncle Ken was paying line, my firend also went on point and starting paying out line. Of course me being in the middle meant I had to reel my line in and get out of the way. My Uncle set the hook, my friend set the hook, both were fighting what appeared to be a nice fish. The see-saw battle lasted a short time and when my Uncle won the tug of war we found he had been fighting a battle against my friend mostly. Both had hooked the same fish, the two pound bass had both their hooks in its mouth. Of course, there was some argument as to whose fish it was, I wasn't in the argument. My Uncle won out since is was much larger than my friend and he said he got the frist bite. Never been outfished by two people at the same time with the same fish. :rolleyes:

Well, mine are just dumb. My first boat was a 12'V, with a homemade trailor. The very first time I tried to launch it, the trailor went into a hole in the ramp; the trailor went onto it's side, and almost capsized the boat. The guy with a real bass boat had just put his in the water, and like a true and generous "texan" he said "partner ya need a little help?" Hell yes, we got it back on the now bent trailor and I was off to bank fish. With my next boat I launched twice at busy ramps only to forget to put my drain plug in. :rolleyes:

My favorite is my buddy who fishes year around, follows what ever fish he can catch. Before he got to the point where he could afford to do this , he was a a low rent guy like the rest of us. He lauched his boat, and the brakes failed, so the boat, and pickup went into the water. This was down in New Orleans area. Well, with the truck bed under water 10,000 empty beer cans floated to the surface! Needless to say he was in a big hurry to get his rigs out of there fast. I know none of you have ever launched without a drain plug. Happy Holidays, Carl.

Oh my were to start the list is so long. Lets start at the championship this year..

Last day of tournament I launched the boat and parked next to my brother who was helping everyone else launch their boats. (NOw mind you the wife has done took off with the truck to park) I'm sitting there talking with several friends while waiting for the wife to come back and all the sudden the bilge pumps kick on and shoot water all over the couple I was talking too. Then it dawned on me I had not put the plug back in after washing off all the ants that had got in the boat the night before. So now my new no longer friends are all wet and I have to go waiding to put the plug in. I was thinking the water would be really shallow right there that close the bank and start waiding in, then the bottom falls out and I'm standing neck deep in water holding on to the boat needless to say now I'm soaked. The couple that parked beside me left all wet and a new couple pull up beside me while I'm drying off and the wife steps into the boat and pushes us off the bank, just then the bilge kicks in again soaking the man pulling up beside me. I know it was not funny to him but my wife busted out laughing. Now I've soaked myself and two diffent boat with water. First thing the wife says when she see me is "DID YOU FALL IN AGAIN??"

What an embarassing day. It was probably a good thing she was sick and we had to leave early so I wouldn't have to face the music for soaking those folks..

Good one Conley!

Ok I'll give ya another one..

First tournament in my old boat.. The wife and I are working down a bank on the main lake when our son and all is friends pull up in one of his friends boat. We start talking and cutting up about my boat compared to his and all. Guess I made him mad about his boat and he takes off and thows a big wake. I had a hand controlled trolling motor and I reach down to turn it up a notch to turn into the wake. As I bend down we hit the wake and I just keep going down head first into the lake. This whole time my wife is still trying to carry on a conversation with our son and laughing and cutting up with them. She doesn't even know I'm in the lake. She turns to say something to me and I'm no were in site. She starts screaming my name and I answer telling her to look down. I'm holding the trolling motor stick and my rod tring to hide from the other boat but it was too late. They saw the whole thing. Said it looked like a slow mototion cartoon.. Pretty embarrasing moment there too..

AW YES, this is fun stuff!!
I have a very low profile bass boat where the rear is only about 2 inches from the waterline. Every time I shut down in a hurry, which is every time I shut down, water comes over the back. In a days fishing this can add up. I was fishing a tournament on Lake Springfield, Ill. and the day was over. I was on the intertstate heading home starting up a long hill. Obviously I wasn't going quite fast enough for the guy behind me, he kept riding my prop pretty close, as the the hill got steeper he decided to pass, so I naturally stepped on the gas too. When he was along side the rear of my boat the automatic bilge pump kicked in. I watched as the dirty old water splashed all over his windshield, then into his open drivers door window right in his face. I think he thought that I had somehow did that on purpose!! Needless to say I broke the speed limit for some time before I exited and thankfully he didn't. Johnnie P>S> guys, (knock on wood) I have never left the drain plug out yet! In fact, I've never taken it out, stored in garage and when it rans on the road the Auto-bilge will take care of it, sometimes at a bad time though!! JC :p

I can see this getting ugly after a while, so I will start off with one of my worst moment first (Just so everyone is clear on this one, “I am NOT proud of this moment, but looking back find some sick humor in the tale”):

While pre-fishing for a two-day Foxwoods tournament on the St. Lawrence River (1,000 Islands, NY), my partner (Joey) and I had located some big largemouths in a small marina that were spawning. One of the fish that we found was pushing 7 lbs and its bed was located directly under the back end of a floating dock with only about 4" of clearance for casting.

Our game plan was fairly simple, we had enough large bass located to carry us through 2 days and have a good shot at winning and if not, at least taking a check.

Day 1 of the tournament arrived and I went straight to that 7 pounder's bed. Because the bed was located at the shallow end of this long straight dock, I needed to pull my 21' boat all the way into the boat slip. If you can picture this, the dock with the big bass bedding is on my right, I am facing the shoreline with my boat parallel to the dock. There is a dock to my left with a house boat tied up to it. The door to the house boat is open and a man is sitting at his table having his morning coffee and breakfast. Joey and I say good morning and inform the man that we are fishing a tournament and are trying to catch a very large fish which is located under his neighbor's dock slip. The man, interested in watching us do battle with this lunker, decides to stand in his doorway while enjoying his hot cup of morning coffee.

I make a cast under the dock with a 3 1/2" tube rigged with a 1/4 ounce ball head jig. I see the big female spin around and she strikes the tube. I set the hook and at the same moment I swing, she opens her mouth and ejects the tube, which hurls through the air at what seemed like “Mach 1”, over my right shoulder and hits the man drinking his coffee right on the cheek! The man spills his hot coffee all over himself and buckles to one knee. The sound at the moment of impact was like a nicely connecting, open hand slap to the face, and the look on his face wasn’t far from what one would expect.

“I am sooooo sorry, Sir. Are you alright? I can’t believe that happened”, I exclaimed

“I’m OK, boy that really stings” He replied

HERE’S WHERE IT GETS WORSE:

Instead of leaving, after a few moments of reflection and apology, I can’t seem to let go of a chance at the big Lunker and I decide to make another cast at the fish. The man is now standing at his sink which was located in such a way that he was facing our boat. The tube falls into the bed and with a little coaxing, the big slob grabs the tube. I set the hook and this time I’ve got her… she makes a surge for the surface and tries to jump. She just gets her head out of water enough to give a few shakes… and guess what? The hook comes free. That’s right! With the amount of tension that my rod was under, the tube is doing “MACH 2” and before I could even try to divert its path, it shoots through the door on the house boat, into the man’s kitchen and blasts him right in the chest… and on that note, I put the trolling motor on high, backed out of the slip, started the big engine and floored it until we were far away from that marina. I felt so embarrassed, that I could even say I was sorry to the man again.

Joey spent the rest of the tournament recapping the chain of events, over, and over, and over… you get the point… He sure knows how to rub it in when your not at your finest!

What are the chances, Brendon?

Not once, but twice!!! :rolleyes:

Oh my gosh I cant hardly type I'm laughing so hard on this one. That has got to be the funniest one I've heard in a while!!!

Funny thing is while I was reading it I could see it in my mind.

Thanks Brendan I needed that!!

Good one Brendan,
looks like most of us have had some disasters we describe as "experience". It's only fitting that the top Dawg of BASSIN' should have some good stuff and the courage to admit it. Anyone else???

Here's another that happened this fall on Lake Norfork. I was fishing with Uncle Ken for bass and I was in the back of his little 15 foot champion. Kind of cramped for space when you have eight rod and reel combos and tackle.
After we had fished awhile, I made what I thought would be a long cast with a crankbait. Somehow the crankbait hooked another of my rods on the backswing and it went flying. Luckily (for me) the rod hit my Uncle square in the back. He never said a word, he's used to fishing with me. The resulting backlash was what we call a "pocket Knifer" cause that's the only way to get it out. Start cutting.
A little later I did the same thing, hooked my back-up rod and reel, but this time it went over mu Uncles head and fell into the water, luckily (again)Uncle Ken simply reached down, grabbed the line and retrieved my rod and reel. This time he lokked back and said, If you don't want that rod and reel, I'll take it. Result-another pocket knifer.
Yea, you guessed it, I did it one final time, same rod and reel, I know because it was the one I got for retireing after 32 years of hard labor. This time, the rod and reel sailed way out from the baot and the crankbait, let me down, it didn't stay hooked do I could save the rod and reel.
Though we tried, we never got the rod back. There I was, favorite rod in the lake and two hopelessly backlashed. Guess that's why I carry eight rods-seven now. Uncle Ken just said, wish you'd gave it to me!! :rolleyes:

LOL That's a good one Johnnie... Somehow I think you would rather have the rod & reel sitting of the bottom of that lake than in your Uncle's collection!

I took my (girl friend)out bass fishing now my wife for 25 years. She was tossing a pre-rigged worm and I a spinnerbait. I began catching fish and she did not. After awhile she asked if I could put on of those spinner things on her line so she could use one as well and I did. On her first cast: She hauled back with the spinnerbait, it wrapped completely around my rear end, and the hook lodged into my zipper. All I could do in was scream stop!!!!!! in a very high pitched voice. People came out of there houses to see what all that commotion was about. There I stand in a aluminum row boat, a spinner bait firmly lodged in my zipper, I'M pale like a ghost, my girl friend is laughing like hyena.

Bassin Butch

Butch-stuff night mares are made of. Imagine if it penetrated and you had to go to the hospital!!! Why'd you marry that girl anyway??

One more. While fishing the Great Plains Tournament of Champions tournament on Saylorville Reservoir, I had a solid limit of fish in the first hour. I was fishing right beside a marina and talked to several people throughout the day. My draw partner had only one fish and I wanted him to catch another so we went looking, later in the day-key word-(later). I knew a good spot close to the boat ramp where we put in and when we arrived I saw several boats loading up and assumed they either had a limit or had given up. By my time, we had two more hours to fish. No bites, so we headed back to the marina and my partner did manage to catch one more fish. By now the day seemed to be really dragging on, but I figured it was because I'd taken an early limit. With what I thought was fifteen minutes to go we decided to weigh-in. We arrived at the landing and there was only a few boat trailers left A tournament official asked where I had been, he said I was two hours late and there was three boats at looking for me. Sometime during the day my watch stopped, but re-started. I asked what won the tournament and he said nine pounds, I weighed mine on my digital scale as I released them. 14# even. The watch is somewhere on the bottom of the lake now. If only I'd ask anyone at the dock what time it was??

Johnnie I have a similar story. A guy from my bass club was fishing a ProAm on the Great Lakes. Day 1 they were atop the leader board. Day 2, they maxed out, and had the thing won, but on the way back the pro wants to stop and hit this spot. My friend tried to talk him into skipping it, since they had it won, but he stopped anyway, didn't catch any fish, and when he went to start the motor, zip, nothing, had to be towed back in. Carl

Man, that's a killer. Things like these keep fishing interesting at least. In most tournaments if I'm doing well, I'll try to get close to the landing just to make sure, of course I'm still at the mercy of a watch. I was so bummed over my watch stopping that I wore one on each wrist for two years!!!

Those were really funny guys.Ok let's see about mine.I was fishing a tournament in Lake Havasu City,Az,and my partner,Tim( on his first tournament ever )hooked into a nice hog of about 8lbs.After setting the hook,and a nice battle,Tim got the bass up to the boat.The bass made one last ditch effort to get away,that the bass jumped into the boat.While Tim went to pick the bass up,the bass jumped again,and hooked himself right in the thigh,hand,and carpet of the boat.How he did that I have no idea.After getting the bass unhooked,I put the bass into the live well,while Tim tried to get unhooked.After about 5 min.(forgetting about the local t.v.station was there) Tim took off his pants,to get a better grip on the hook.After Tim remembered about the t.v station,Tim put on another pair of pants,and finished the tournament with me.Commonly to say,that when the tournamnet aired on t.v.,we all laughed our butts off.Tim's wife still to this day,tells him to keep his pants on while fishing. Ed (bassman)

Bassman that's got to be my favorite, even tops Johnnie and his two watches.

That would be embarrassing all right. But; If I had an eight pound bass I would strip butt naked and dance a jig for the tv. Johnnie

Ok that story was great!! All have been so far.

My first boat was a little two man Water Spider with an electric trolling motor and a 2.5 horse Mariner motor on it. It was a site to see me fishing just about every lake in North Texas with this little boat. Matter fact I probably fished more back then out that little boat than I get to now out of my big boat

Anyway to the story. I was on the Famous Lake Fork fishing and hoping to catch a big Share a Lunker bass. It was early spring and I had just read an article on fishing jerk baits. So I go buy some Smithwick Rouges and hit the lake. The first fish I catch that day was about 15inches long I fight the fish to the boat and go to swing it up to me to unhook it and the fish goes nuts. Now mind you that the fish is hooked on the middle set of trebles. The fish jerks out of my hand and falls in my lap with hooks being slung every were. The back set hooks into my right leg and the front hooks grab my right leg and the fish is hanging in the middle thrashing around. Now I'm in pain and embarrassed hoping the middle hook doesn't end up "you know were."

I finally get the fish unhooked and start working on myself. I take a pair of pliers and start yanking on hooks. I guess it didn't look very well because a man came down on his dock and asked me "what the heck was I doing?" When I turned around to face the man he saw were the hooks were and just died laughing. He said it embarrassed his wife so bad she had to go in the house. Then it hit me how it must have looked with my back to them. I got the hooks out and went home and to this day have never gone back to that cove. I'm sure that story was told over and over by that guy to many of his fishing buddies.

Good one Conley! I bet it didn't look to good from behind. Man, we can get ourselves into some real messes huh??

Great chuckles guys.

A couple of additions to the Hall Of Shame from this old Okie.

Some years back my partner and I were fishing Tenkiller, about mid June or so. We had a 15 point deficit to make up in two tournaments to make the Championship that year.
The water was very high, about 8 or ten feet if I remember right, the bass had moved behind the shoreline trees, you had to force your way into the timber at the very back end of every cove to make a consistent bag at weigh-in. We had worked our way to the end of a clump of willows, we were concentrating on our presentations so intently we didn’t notice what was hanging from the eve of the boat dock a few feet away........

A wasp’s nest, a biiiiiiiig wasp's nest. Those red wasps we have around here, not as bad as say, yellowjackets, but bad enough.

As we got close to it I noticed a few of them flit by, but didn’t pay much attention.

Until I grabbed a limb to pull us out, shaking it pretty good, and whacking the crap out of that wasp nest.

We noticed the wasp nest then, hoh boy did we notice!

Ol’ Slick looked at me, I looked at him, and we proceeded to run to the back of the boat. Over the back deck, cleared the motor with a single bound and into the water we went.

We didn’t get stung, thank God, but someone caught it all on film, which they sent to our club.

Which was shown during the Championship presentation dinner.

Several times.

(We didn't make the Chamionship Tournament, went to the dinner to rawhide those guys who did.)


A few years back someone I’ve known for a long time called me up and asked me to help him get some video shots for stock footage.

I had some solid patterns going on, no monster fish, but a lot of nice two to fours.

The shoot was going well, we were catching fish fairly consistently. He asked me a question about the lake, I talked for a couple of minutes (camera was running), all the while my bait was laying stone still at the base of a good sized root ball in a couple feet of water. While I was talking a fish picked it up, without thinking I set the hook, hard.

And missed.

Now, two people on the front deck of a good sized bass boat is not bad, but you add a cameraman...........

Who shot my rather inelegant backflip into four feet of water.

Who sent it to me on tape a few weeks later.

All of it, from the thunderous splash, to me rising from the waters, covered in black mud, the audio bleeping constantly.

What’s worse, just about every member of my wife’s family was sitting about forty yards away in a pontoon boat. Laughing so hard they were crying. To this day, quite a few years later, I still haven’t heard the last of it.

Hopefully :rolleyes: someday our memories will falter with age, then we can forget all these embarrassing happenings. For now, we simply live with it-isn't it great?
Thanks all this has been a fun post to help pass the long cold winters here in Iowa!!

There are some really funny stories here. Thanks everyone for sharing. What is it about falling out of the boat that is soooo funny? I have fallen out twice... well actually, I fell out once and was launched out the other time. Both stories have been told over and over again, and always seem to make people laugh.

Thanks again everyone for sharing!

Who knows why it's funny, most of the time.

I do know this, there are two kinds of well aged fishermen who answer the question "Have you fallen out of a boat?"

Those who admit it, and those who lie about it.

(The same could be said about replies to the question, "Have you ever left the drainplug out when you put your boat in the water?")

Richard.

I've never fallen out of a boat or left my drain plug out. Now am I a double liar?? I have fallen down inside the boat on several occassions, once even cracking my knee cap on a stupid pedestal seat floor mount, hurt like the dickens, only broke one rod though, the one in my hand when I tripped over my thermos.

I did forget my drain plug twice, that'll never happen again. Pretty embaressing with other guys waiting to launch, but I've never fallen out of a boat. One of the main reasons people fall out of boats, and main source of drowning, is peeing over the side, that's why I always have a coffee can on board. carl

Carl, is that a 3 gallon coffe can-I drink a lot of coffee.

Richard.

Lol peeing isnt the only reason to go overboard . Prefishing for a sat. night tourn. I took my wife with me about 7:30 pm I was sight fishing a pretty large fish and didnt want to spook it , were getting close to the dock so I asked her to push gently off there dock . Now she had on some jogging pants and lazily reached over the boat with her knees on the top of the nicely waxed top , when she pushed off she slid and fully extended with her hands on the dock and her tip toes holding her in the boat I heard splash . About that time a little girl on the deck of the house I heard go running inside screaming daddy daddy daddy , theres a girl on our dock . Her whole family comes rushing outside and upon seeing our prediciment they laugh sit and watch . now I have to get off my boat to go and pick her soaking wet back up onto the dock . While in the middle of this process the boat floats away so now I have to get wet swim retrieve it troll back and pick her up . When I retrieved the wife the family watching in there lawnchairs gave us a standing ovation .

Guy I used to fish with came by the shop today, needed a little work on his boat.
I took him to lunch while the service tech got him lined out.
This particular subject came up while we were swapping fish stories.
He reminded me of something that happened a long time ago. We thought you guys would get a kick out of it.

Those balance beam fish cullers had just come out.

Roy, being Roy bought the very first one the local tackle shop sold. He’s still the first one in line for a new gadget.

That weekend there was a Okie Team Bass event on Grand, we drove up there on Thursday, got in a couple days pre-fishing. Had a fair lock on three solid patterns.

During the tourney we started culling about noon, Roy was working the back end, doing clean-up with a salt craw behind my slow rolled spinnerbait in flooded brush. I caught one about three or so, swung it into the boat. Roy grabbed it, we’d seen two more wakes in the grass patch when I’d run the bait through it.

I didn’t pay much attention, heard the splash as the culled fish went back.

Third cast back Roy hung another one about the same size. I lipped the fish and handed it to him. Commenting it might cull another one. He grabbed the smallest fish out of the well, hung them both on the balance, then unhooked the low fish and tossed it over the side!

Once I recovered from the shock my commentary on this action could be heard half a mile away. It was quite obscene, questioning his ancestry, intelligence, personal hygiene and a few other intimate habits.

It took him a few seconds to realize why I was just a tad bent out of shape. When he finally got it, he looked at the culling balance, at me, back at the gadget. And proceeded to throw it about 100 feet out into the lake.

Now, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, we were two pounds out of the money. The two fish he’d thrown back wouldn’t have made that much difference.

But for the next year I absolutely refused to let him bring any newfangled gadget on my boat. Good thing we were, and are still good friends, or I might have ended up with a fat lip. I do get a kick out of corncobbing him about it from time to time. We get a laugh out of it.

Now.

(Side note, I have two of those balance cullers now)

Richard

The dread plug story. I took my new boat out for the third time, by now I am a seasoned boat pro. I lower my new Targa tracker 18 wt into the water and drive up to the parking spot, walk back down and start the motor idling, realize I forgot the tackle box in the car. I walk back up the 1800 or so feet up a pretty good incline and get my tackle box. When I get back to the boat and get in my wife says, Ed why is the boat so low in the water? Well I explain as it is a steep ramp the boat is at an angle, and she buys it God bless her. That is when I notice the water coming up to my shoes in the floor of the boat, the boat being a deep v hull it was pretty full of water. After a few minutes wondering what was up I hit the bilge pump and at the same time remember, oh yeah the plug !! I put my life jacket on and lower myself in the water and stick the plug in the first hole I could feel, but its a little loose, so I remove my life jacket and look under the water to see I am trying to plug up the livewell drain. Anyway after getting it in the right hole it was so filled with water I sat there for twenty minutes with the pump running before putting the boat back on the trailer and pulling it out of the water where I sat for 45 minutes till it drained out. I had at least 9 people laughing at me, being cute one guy said they float beter with the plugs in. Oh well, wet to the bone with my wallet laid on the dash with everything set out to dry I was going to reclaim my machismo by speeding away once out of the idle zone, well I also learned to not leave valuable papers out and that wet things sink quickly.
Ed

Great stuff guys. I still often wonder how we even survive let alone catch a fish now and then.

I was fishing on a charter boat for halibut. I was talking to a lot of the guys on the boat showing off my new rod reel combo witch I referred to as Tiffany my new girlfriend. After an hour or 2 everyone on the boat knew about tiffany. I had my rod in the holder with my line straight down from the boat when my rod doubled over. I grabbed the rod as the fish took off about 8-10 yards away straight out from the boat. I tried to slow the fish down by lifting the rod tip knowing I have a small line capacity on my Calcutta 151. In my adrenaline educed panic I put my thumb down on the spool off my bait caster.......... I heard and felt a Simultaneous thud/snap.............. The next thing I know my line is broke (20lb big game) and I have a knot on my forehead from smacking myself with my rod (Tiffany). From then on I was the first case of spousal abuse on a man on that boat. Thinking back on it I don’t know if I should laugh or rub my head

We may as well laugh at ourselves, everyone else does!! LOL Johnnie