Maintain your watercraft!
 

And at the end of the trip, we rescued a stranded family from an island after their pontoon boat quit running.
Mommy, Dad, 6 year old Grace, and a tiny little dog. And it had been raining hard since they had gotten stranded.
They were lucky my customers spotted the man waving us down as we're cruising, looking for fish. I was concentrating on piloting and watching the graphs when one of them said, "Hey, I think that guy is waving TO us, not at us.
So we cruised over and found out the dilemma.
Glad we found them as there were no other boats on the lake in the rain at the time.

Yeah you may miss you few fishing trips doing maintenance but the safety and piece of mind is priceless

No excuse in any boat to not at least have a $99 trolling motor and extra battery stowed on any trip.... even well maintained motors break down...

I once towed an old fiberglass trihull over a mile back to the ramp on the French Broad. They would have been in a world of trouble if they started generating.


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a buddy and I once got stranded by the reef (10 miles out)in Key West Fla when our battery died, was so unprepared, no flare gun or radio , 30 hours later coast guard found us, we were so lucky our anchor didn't give or we may have drifted to who knows where , a storm hit us in the middle of the night and we were bucket bailing water for hours, was pretty certain we were going to die

Alwayss be prepared , can't stress that enough lol

Thx for doing the right thing Merv

I don't have room for either in my boat.

Breakdowns like this is why I pay $78.00 a year for tow insurance.
And it's also why I switched to Verizon phone service.
I would generally NOT have phone service when on the river, none on Tims Ford and spotty on Priest.
Since I fish all year round, I don't want to get stranded anywhere on the water when it's 20 degrees.
I have taken to carrying a battery pack (jump starter) on my boat instead of jumper cables. That eliminates the need for someone with a battery to happen by.
I've used it to jump two boats and one truck at ramps so far.
So, maintain your equipment as best as you can, try to plan ahead to cope with emergencies and hope that a Good Samaritan happens by if you don't have the tow insurance.
$78.00 a year is a lot better than a $240 tow bill, plus if you are trailering you boat, it is covered then too.

What tow service do you use? Do they support old hickory?


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Boat US.....615-663-3599
AND yes, they do.

Nice job Merv. Always blows my mind how many people will not help someone who needs it. Once helped a guy load his boat in white caps. He hung around the boat ramp - thought he was going to help with mine. Nope, drove off and left me to struggle by myself. Not even a thank you.

You don't have a trolling motor on the boat ? I'm not saying you need a 3rd motor... but you should at least have 2, even if you're only pleasure boating... Going out on a lake with only 1 motor is asking for trouble eventually.

I've run out of gas when the marina we planned to buy from was closed when we got there... had to limp to the next one on the trolly only...

My boat has a full size second battery for emergencies, but I used to carry a small motorcycle battery as the fail safe on a smaller boat... fit in a side pouch easily.

I misunderstood your comment. Yes I have a trolling motor. For some reason I read it as you saying everyone needed a spare trolling motor in the boat

Only if you're fishing the Bassmaster Elite series!!!


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I've caught the crap outta grey snappers, yellowtail, and grouper on that reef!
Normally that reef is packed with fisherman.