Quote:
Originally Posted by agelesssone
Thrillseeker, you have my condolences. Losing a friend or family is always difficult, seeing them in the condition after death is awful.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by browntrout
Prayers to you Thrillseeker.
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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.
