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2009 Slush Pile

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A Fishing Story

2009 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

In the seventies on the day before Thanksgiving I went fishing with my older brother and my father at Keystone Power Damn in Armstrong County Pennsylvania. We had planned to inflate our 3 man rubber raft and troll the shore area with large bait because it was feeding season for Muskies, Pike and Lake Trout. When we pulled out the raft we noticed the screw in plugs were missing and in the spirit of innovation my father and brother found round tree branches that were nearly the diameter of the air holes and then placed extra clothing around the sticks so it would have traction when getting 'screwed in'. So we went fishing in an underinflated raft and after several hours my father hooked a very large Musky. If I had to guess it weighed about 40 pounds and when my father fought it the fish was slowly turning around the raft. At the peak of the battle I started to feel water on my leg and looked back at the engine, I was the engineer, and I was a foot from going strait down into the 150 foot deep lake. Under non-winter circumstances that would not be a problem for this past 2-time certified lifeguard, but the lake had frozen parts and small ice bergs were floating around us. Fortunately the line snapped on my father's rod and I immediately aimed the uninflating raft to the safety of shore. I know this is a near miss and the irony is that the youngest member of the party, myself, had the presence of mind to head for the safety of shore (rather than my fish intoxicated sibling and parent.) After we arrived on shore we (uneventfully) ice fished for Lake Trout and caught several.

Submitted on 12/25/2009

Submitted by: Anonymous
Reference: Personal Anecdote

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

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Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Heading out onto a cold lake in late fall in an under-inflated and improperly inflated raft should have been obviously dangerous! You're lucky you're all still around to tell this story. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Darwin said:
Definitely Keep: Personal Account
Good one, Anony-moose, I love the incidental note that the person with the most presence of mind was the youngest! I've often said, even a 5-year-old can see that the Darwin-winning plan is A Bad Idea.

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