Thrillseeker, you have my condolences. Losing a friend or family is always difficult, seeing them in the condition after death is awful.

My unit in Vietnam was all "point men". I saw some of my comrades leave on a mission and some I had to pull off of helicopters by their boots when they came back in. Very traumatizing.

Watched my roommate and his dog fall 120 feet from a helicopter and land thirty yards from me on a steel landing pad.

I will say some prayers that will hopefully ease your pain.

Thank you for the prayers guys.

The news reports were accurate in that he couldn't swim and didn't wear his life preserver. I hadn't fished with him in a while, but when I last did, he wore his PFD the whole time.

He had been fishing bass tournaments recently, and he may have picked up the habit of only wearing his PFD while running across the lake.

He was found in 6 ft of water, and it appeared that he may have slipped while trying to retreive a lure that was stuck in a brush pile.

The news reports were inaccuate regarding a fisherman who "saw something out of place and called TWRA" There were two guys fishing in the cove where Mr Stafford's boat was found. I went back there to search, even thought I knew OEM and TWRA had probably searched that area w/ a fine toothed comb.

I passed the fishermen and started turning around to do another lap through the cove, and they started yelling and waving to get my attention. I went over there and they said they saw a jacket in the water but didn't see anything else.

I went over and I saw my friend's body, so I threw out a marker buoy. I called his daughter and asked her to tell the OEM dispatcher to send a boat to the back of the cove where I was. I showed them where the body was and they asked me not to say anything to the family until they recovered him and confirmed it was him.

Silver lining is that I asked one of the TWRA agents where they've been catching crappie and he told me of a couple of spots. I haven't had much luck this fall, so I 'm going to try them soon. One this is for sure: I won't be fishing in Elm Hill Recreation Area for a LONG time.

Sad story. My condolences to all involved.

Jim

Very sad.....my condolences. I made up my mind on the trip to the White River back in July that no matter the vessel I was in on the water I would wear a PFD. It was hot on the river then and we were in a 21 foot boat....but I kept it on. To me it is just the prudent thing to do.


Regards

Alpha you are right. You just never know when the slip, trip, or stumble is going to happen.

I wear mine when I bank fish. I am a competent swimmer and have trophy lined walls from my time on swim team. I've done some extreme water trips, some that required me to tread water for 20 mins(no pdf) before I was allowed to go. And, I still wear my PDF even when bank fishing. There is no acceptable reason not to.

Unless you have polio, I can't imagine wearing one on the bank.


http://mountainlake.org/downloads/13...0cfac64855a53e

OR:

http://www.rescuedirect.com/Merchant...1/I650_red.jpg