01-26-2003, 12:13 AM
[font "Comic Sans MS"][size 3]Hit Bear Lake again today and hand a little excitement today. My friend, Ron, Had just bought an older used boat, put it in the shop to change the impeller / water pump and tuned up the motor. This would be her maiden voyage for him. He was pretty excited to finally get his new boat out.
We hit the ramp about 7:30 and you would of swore it was a holiday weekend in July. The parking lot was pretty much full. Saturday during the cisco run; what fun!
We went out to the rock pile with the 50 other boats that were anchored on it and picked up a limit of cisco for my buddy. While we were in this mayhem of overloaded boats and rip snagging fishermen, the guy in the boat right next to us dropped his rod in the water and barely got it back after sticking the whole length of his arm in the 35 degree lake. Another guy on the same boat caught a nice laker jigging for cisco. Getting Ron's limit took about an hour and then headed out to do a little fishing.
We checked on Crestliner and they had just got out there to start fishing so he had no whooper stories to tell yet. While we were idling the boat talking to Crestliner the heat alarm went off in Ron’s boat. Oh great! We shut her down and talked with Crestliner for a while. After a little bit we went to yesterday’s spot I had marked on the GPS. We decided to start there since we had caught a few fish there. The motor started up and the alarm was blaring but after 100 yards it quit. What ever was plugged blew out and the water was coming out of the motor once again.
We had just got anchored up and dropped our lines and I got hooked up on a pretty good fish. Ron got the net and we landed the fish. A 10-½ lb mack. Cool! While we were both on the same stern corner monkeying around with the fish, I looked down at the floor and there was water around my feet! Oh no! We’re sinking!
We looked under the floor and we must have had 100 or more gallons of water in the bottom of the hull! We knew the plug was in so the leak had to be somewhere else. We started looking around and found a hole low in the transom from a previously mounted motor had not been plug and was leaking water in at a pretty good clip. It had been covered by a board that had been mounted to the transom for added suporrt and caulked around it's edges.
Well, so much for fishing! Dang, it was stacking up to be a pretty decent day. We thought it would be a pretty good idea to head back to the marina so off we went. Well, with 800 lbs of additional weight in the hull, no access to bail with the bucket we had, and no bilg pump, our top speed was a dismal 8 mph.
We got back to the marina, got the boat on the trailer, and pulled the plug. It took 15 minutes to drain all the water out of that boat. We made it back alright but if there would have been heavy waves we might not of had it so lucky. Sitting so low in the water we could of taken a few over the transom and swamped her. Not fun in 35 degree water.
Anyway, here’s the pic of the one and only fish we caught today. Notice how calm and beautiful the lake was today. This is one strange January…… [center][font "Cooper Black"][size 1]![[Image: bl_1-25-03_1.jpg]](http://home.attbi.com/~bearlakemack/bl_1-25-03_1.jpg)
[/size][/font][/size][/font][/center]
[signature]
We hit the ramp about 7:30 and you would of swore it was a holiday weekend in July. The parking lot was pretty much full. Saturday during the cisco run; what fun!
We went out to the rock pile with the 50 other boats that were anchored on it and picked up a limit of cisco for my buddy. While we were in this mayhem of overloaded boats and rip snagging fishermen, the guy in the boat right next to us dropped his rod in the water and barely got it back after sticking the whole length of his arm in the 35 degree lake. Another guy on the same boat caught a nice laker jigging for cisco. Getting Ron's limit took about an hour and then headed out to do a little fishing.
We checked on Crestliner and they had just got out there to start fishing so he had no whooper stories to tell yet. While we were idling the boat talking to Crestliner the heat alarm went off in Ron’s boat. Oh great! We shut her down and talked with Crestliner for a while. After a little bit we went to yesterday’s spot I had marked on the GPS. We decided to start there since we had caught a few fish there. The motor started up and the alarm was blaring but after 100 yards it quit. What ever was plugged blew out and the water was coming out of the motor once again.
We had just got anchored up and dropped our lines and I got hooked up on a pretty good fish. Ron got the net and we landed the fish. A 10-½ lb mack. Cool! While we were both on the same stern corner monkeying around with the fish, I looked down at the floor and there was water around my feet! Oh no! We’re sinking!
We looked under the floor and we must have had 100 or more gallons of water in the bottom of the hull! We knew the plug was in so the leak had to be somewhere else. We started looking around and found a hole low in the transom from a previously mounted motor had not been plug and was leaking water in at a pretty good clip. It had been covered by a board that had been mounted to the transom for added suporrt and caulked around it's edges.
Well, so much for fishing! Dang, it was stacking up to be a pretty decent day. We thought it would be a pretty good idea to head back to the marina so off we went. Well, with 800 lbs of additional weight in the hull, no access to bail with the bucket we had, and no bilg pump, our top speed was a dismal 8 mph.
We got back to the marina, got the boat on the trailer, and pulled the plug. It took 15 minutes to drain all the water out of that boat. We made it back alright but if there would have been heavy waves we might not of had it so lucky. Sitting so low in the water we could of taken a few over the transom and swamped her. Not fun in 35 degree water.
Anyway, here’s the pic of the one and only fish we caught today. Notice how calm and beautiful the lake was today. This is one strange January…… [center][font "Cooper Black"][size 1]
[/size][/font][/size][/font][/center][signature]