My son-in-law and I enjoy fishing together on one of the outstanding East Texas lakes. He likes bass fishing and I like catfish and crappie fishing. Now my son-in-law is a big boy. Almost 500 pounds big.

This was a bass fishing trip. He was standing in the stern of the 16 ft. boat casting and reeling, casting and reeling, etc. All of a sudden he yelled for me to turn around and go about 25 yards behind where we were because he had seen a whopper turn over on the top of the water. I started a turn and he yelled "faster." I put the gas to the 100hp Yamaha and heard a yell and a THUMP. The bow went up, the stern went down and the boat immediately started taking on water. I turned around to see what had happened and my son-in-law was laying in the bottom of the boat unconscious. When he fell, the transom went under water, the boat sank almost up to the gunels and we were dead in the water. After a few minutes my son-in-law started to revive. I started the engine again and we pulled the drain plug so that when I speeded up the water would drain out of the boat. That worked, but when we got to the dock we forgot to put the drain plug back in and the boat started to sink again. We finally got the boat out of the water and assessed the damages. My son-in-law lost a $250 rod and reel and had huge bruises all over his backside. We had not caught a single fish. We had a great fish story to tell. Other than that, it was an uneventful fishing trip.

Submitted on 05/07/2009

Submitted by: Cy Stapleton
Reference: September 2008

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Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Thanks for an entertaining story, Cy, but having been around boats all my life I just don't see the self-selection here. If your son-in-law is as big as you state then simply being on a small bass boat can be dangerous. But his accident was caused by you speeding the boat up, and the operator is ultimately always responsible for the safety of all passengers on board. You should have been more careful when you opened up the throttle. And given the panic that ensued I don't see your forgetting to replace the drain plug as stupid either. I've seen mechanics at boatyards do the same thing, and they weren't dealing with unconscious passengers, just putting boats back in the water after working on them.

James said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I'm keeping this because of the amusing visual, as well as the cartoony absent-mindedness which could have led to disaster!

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
I agree with James. This is very cartoony, and the son-in-law deserves some of the blame for bugging you to "hurry, hurry, hurry" when he was STANDING in the boat! Thanks, Cy!

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