The evening regarding this story was a local club tournament starting at 7 AM and ending 4 PM. At the time blastoff there was a very heavy current causing my partner and I to decide to take a run down river to avoid some of the current and fish a few holes that were somewhat sheltered.
This was the beginning of the Bad as we had traveled about 5 miles down river when my 200 Yamaha slung one blade off the prop. Luckily I got the boat shut down without any damage to the motor or boat although the prop was shot. Leaving us 5 miles down river with heavy current and only a 65 pound thrust trolling motor to maneuver my 20 foot Bumble Bee back up river against strong current to get back to the ramp, and weigh in.
During our slow trip back upriver we were able to fish a couple spot's, and I caught one nice Smallmouth about 3 pounds that was promptly deposited into the live well. Not knowing if we would need all the battery power for the trip back upriver we decided not run the pro air or aerator pumps and watch over the fish for signs distress.
About 10:00pm the power generators shut off, leaving the water calm and very little current. We decided to slow our pace and try to pick up a couple more fish along the way. I stood to make a couple casts to a rock pile that normally holds fish and promptly fell head first into the lake.
Luckily I hung own to all my gear and had a rain suit in the boat, so after my partner helped me back into the boat and joking me about rules against fishing out of the boat, I changed out of the wet garments and into my rain suit, finally we got back to fishing.
Concerned about the fish in the live well I ask my partner to look for signs of distress. He lifted the lid of the live well and the fish jumped out of the live well and completely out of the boat. I mean it never touched any part of the boat. He must have been doing laps around the live well to jump that far and touch nothing but water.
We stood and looked at each other dumfounded with our bad luck. After my fall in the river and our only hope of success jumped out of the boat we found ourselves running short on time and fishless. To make it back to the ramp before weigh in we would have only about 15 minutes of fishing time left, all the remaining time would have to be spent trolling back to the ramp.
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