Fess Up! 2013 Bloopers and Blunders

[Hooked4Life]

Had the opportunity to re-cap the season with my brother on Christmas. Although we had a lot of great times & great fish, it came with price. List your year’s blunders!
*disclaimer: Bought first boat this year so cut me some slack ;)

First time out: dead battery on elec. only lake.
Snif snif….smoking wires on trolling motor --time for some on-water surgery.
One broken rod --- ok two, but the second was my brother’s fault.
Water in gas tank through tank vent when water came over the back when beached (bad idea in a mod-V) led to stall on GL and a tow back to ramp. Foot went thru hatch when grabbing for tow-rope and stepped on screw leading to tetanus shot. What a day!

That’s all --for now--on a better note, discovered the shed and learned enough to yield some great fish. Can’t wait for 2014.

Ok—you’re up!

[iceehot6766]

Me and Dan defy any and all superstitions!!......No bloopers or blunders this year..at least on my end......Here's proof we don't care what they say!!

Happy New Years to all!!!

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[FASTEDDIE29]

I was on Lake Hopatcong last spring by myself. Had a great night fishing for Eyes and Hybrids. Got back to the ramp to load up the boat, I don't drive my boat up to the trailer. I walk on the tongue of the trailer and pull the boat in by hand than crank it up. I lost my footing this brisk spring night, 40 degrees, and went for a swim. Soaked to the bone laughing at myself, I fell straight back doing a reverse belly flop into the still cold water. That was alot of fun!!!! LOL, I couldn't stop laughing and cursing at myself the entire ride home. GOOD STUFF!!!:D

[The Birdman]

Haha nice thread

I bought a new boat this year with roller trailer and discovered that the boat DOES roll off the trailer quite easily LOL-- I dumped the boat while backing up to shove off on land on the boat ramp sand & rocks of clinton reservoir in Aug !
That was the end of my transducer!

[kcritch]

Had my boat serviced this year. First trip after getting it back the wife and I hit LH for her first time there. As we are putting the boat in she asks "Did you put the drain plug in?" So I say sure did....About an hour and a half later I come down off the front deck and step in a puddle all around the console area. So I'm like ...I must not have put that plug in. As I'm cursing myself out I come to find that the plug is in but the the guys that serviced the boat had broken the inbound hose connection off of my live well pump! There had to be 200 gallons of water in the bottom of my boat. (16 ft Tracker Deep V) The water was up to the top of my batteries and filled the bottom of the boat. To which my wife said I thought the boat felt "funny" when we launched!

Thank God the bilge pump worked like a charm. But that was the end to our day as had no tools onboard to do a repair. At least I know my boat is hard to sink!

[NorthJerzyG]

Ha ha, the good times, lol. Was out once with my brother this year in the midst of a 90 something degree mid summer day. Motoring a shallow section of river I bumped the trolling motor on a rock.........

No biggie right? Kept goin for a while, then out of nowhere, the motor stops working. Ended up snapping the center pin that spins the prop. Worked fine long enough for us to add another 30 mins onto our row back to the launch, lol. Ended up being a cheap easy fix, but that row back, against the current, really SUCKED............

[Mikeps326]

I have many this year one was I forgot to put the boat plug and found out early but didnt have a pump to pump it out so I had to use a water bottle for two hrs then this one hurt but was beyond funny afterwards my cousin went to pick up a bass by the mouth in monksville and I seem it coming but the hook pops out and goes into his hand and had to bite a rag and rip it out with pliers. Haha

[AndyS]

A lake trout at Merrill Creek did 20 loops around my anchor rope, I pulled so hard the rod snapped in half. Thought the line would break first, guess I was wrong.

[saxmatt]

I was fishing for pike and muskie bait on a river about a month ago and one of my carp fishing buddies came and put out a few rods out for carp. He hooked into a carp and I grabbed the net to help him land it. The bank where we were fishing was a 3' high undercut mud bank and I was about 1 foot from the edge about to net his fish when the bank gave way and I went head first into 40 degree water. I decided to keep fishing even though I was freezing because I had some dry clothes in the car. When I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and saw I had 5 missed calls I remembered we had ordered Chinese food to the park and I gave them my number. The poor guy had been driving around for 15 minutes looking for us. Eventually I ended up with dry clothes, hot soup and egg rolls, and the delivery guy got a good tip.

[Rottilover]

Newbies to launching a boat we decided to hit the Passaic for some Fall Pike. We hit our launch destination at around 10 am and the fun began. My buddy backed the van down to the water a little fast and yours truly dropped the rope attached to the boat . Now the 14 footer was floating out in the beautiful Passaic a few hundred yards from a waterfall. I never felt so helpless for about 10 seconds, what a feeling. So I had to put all those YMCA lessons back in the day to the test. Swam out to the boat in slightly cold water and brought it back. I still haven't gotten the stink off my clothes . Well lesson learned anyway. . Won't happen again. Needless to say , no Pike that day!!

[GetANet]

Been fishing a long time and probably have done them all at least once if not a few times. This year was thankfully uneventful for me other than launching my boat once with the tie down strap on and giving my daughter a hell of a laugh! I had half of my truck in the water and was like WTF? And was on my buddy's john boat and anchored up to fish an area that looked good so about ten minutes in i realized i'm no where near where i dropped it and looked down behind me and the anchor was gone knot must have slipped and lost it all, line and anchor but hopefully i'll find it in the spring when the waters clear and the weeds are still low.
We all do some dumb stuff especially when we're in a hurry!!!
Good Thread!!!

[Bicey]

I was pretty good this yr. Broke my favorite rod by slamming it down after losing a fish. Almost got a speeding ticket at spruce run while in the park.......doing 35 in a 25 mph heading to the launch. Ranger let me off with a seat belt ticket.
I saw alot of other people having some bad luck at spruce run.....from tipping sail boats at the launch to canoes tipping as well....sorry but it made me laugh every time I saw it.

[ScowardNJ]

After the Lil Swartswood M&G I still had some good daylight to burn so I decided to check out a section of the Pompton River I've been scoping out for a long time. The section of the river i wanted to fish requires a paddle across a man made wetland mitigation pond. The pond is impounded by a manmade dyke and dam that runs parallel to the river. I paddled across the pond and pulled my yak up to the top of the dyke looking down at the river. The slope was about a 10' drop to flat 25' landing to the river. So I'm holding the back handle of the yak(which is loaded with rods and gear) on top of this dyke looking down at the river bank. I slowly start sliding yak down the river side of the dyke and think that if i just let the yak go, it will slide right down to this large flat landing area. I let the yak go and it took off like Clark Griswold during the sled scene in Christmas Vacation, it shot right out into the center of the Pompton and the current immediately started taking down stream. I emptied my pockets, took of my shirt and I do this sorry ass belly flop into the Pompton, commence a free style sprint swim across the river to my yak. Then I had to swim and wade the yak back to where all my shit was. I got out of the river laughing my ass off only wishing someone was there to see this whole thing.

[Eskimo]

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I don't recall any major blunders this year. The only one that stands out in my mind is after reading about this technique where people strapped their kayak cart to the back of their car to push their kayak up onto their roof. I gave it a try and almost got the kayak on top of my car when the cart slipped slideways dumping the kayak off the side of the car. The cart soon followed, swung on the straps, and put a bunch of dents and scratches in my car. :mad:

Now, I just lift the damn kayak up and put it on my roof rack.


I don't know who this guy is, but the 2013 NJ Fishing Blooper of the Year Award goes to the guy who accidently launched his van into Round Valley Reservoir.

I'm not sure what he was trying to do. Maybe he had a roof rack and didn't want to lift his kayak. :)



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[Jigman13]

One blooper this year. It started off scary but luckily wound up garnering a few chuckles once I realized I didnt impale my jugular or carotid in my neck.

I was out bass fishing on the Clark Reservoir in a damp rain with a fishing buddy from shore in mid May. I was tossing unweighted senkos on a worm hook. I make a flip along a shoreline under a bunch of tree branches and start working the worm back to me when I got hung up on a submerged log. The skin-hook must've given way b/c the worm hook was buried pretty good. I knew I wasn't getting the hook back so I tighten the drag and go to pop the line. Well, something certainly popped--unfortunately it wasn't the line. The hook actually broke right at the curve and the shaft shot back at me and speared me right under the jaw bone on the left side of my neck. I didnt feel a goddamn thing. All I noticed was the line coming from the tip of my rod back to me. It took a few seconds to realize where it ended as I softly and cautiously followed it up to my neck. All I felt was slightly elevated skin on my neck where the hook shaft went fully in, and the hook eye and knot on the outside. I turned and called for my buddy, and told him to get ready to go to the hospital. After a minute or so I told him I'm going to pull the hook shaft out of my neck. He started getting pale--not cool. So I pull it out and hope blood doesn't come streaming out. Luckily, it didnt--it just beaded up and slowly accumulated as it would with, say, a pin prick. It had to have just missed something vital in my neck. Fortunately for me I didnt have to find out. And I also learned that I tie exceptional knots! Here's a pic of the hook shaft that speared me and a blurry/bloody pic of my neck where it went in. Scary shit!

[Michael82929]

Lets see I had two big blunders this yr..

Spring trout season - teachin my 7 yr old how to trout fish, grabbed the wrong fishing vest / without my license and of course that day - game wardens decide to show up. Instead of embarassing myself infront of my seven yr old - decided to walk up to them instead and told them, hey - I dont have my license, came here with my 7 yr old to teach him how to fish and of course - dont want to set the wrong example - he told me he appreciated me coming up to him and just gave a warning..

Now Blunder of all time - woke up Sat AM at my lake to see the main battery in my lund dead and couldnt get it to hold a charge. Now what I should have done, was probably yank the boat out (only takes me 10m to do / and just go down to the boat store 30m away) and have them do it 1 - 2 - 3. Well thats the lesson I learned. Will do that next time.

INSTEAD I decide to do it myself, fried a bunch of F*cking wires and 1100 later - great lesson learned(those gel batteries alone cost 275$ god damn!). Now the fun part was - I fried the wire that brings up my engine and couldnt now tow it off my property becuase of a high spot / I would have just dug my lower unit into the dirt. After 2 hrs from a great friend - he was able to get the engine up.

[EJS]

I was fishing up in the 1000 islands in about 60' of water back of the boat. The current was swift, both anchors out holding bottom. I go to sidearm cast, bait hits the anchor line, sling shots the pole out of my hand into the water! Whoever said cork handles will float the rod.... Wrong! To the bottom it goes! So I get out the back up rod, hit the tackle box for 8oz of lead, 2/0 hooks, yes about 4 and start fishing for my pole at the bottom! After 30 minutes i am at the "just 1 more cast" stage. So give it the ole college try, and I feel something at the end of the line, and not just 8oz of lead. I managed to hook the bail on the reel and up from the bottom comes my fishing pole!

A little WD drenching and it's back in action!

[Hooked4Life]

Great posts--thanks for the laughs! Now let me get back to reorganizing my tackle box.

[dopderbeck]

Newbies to launching a boat we decided to hit the Passaic for some Fall Pike. We hit our launch destination at around 10 am and the fun began. My buddy backed the van down to the water a little fast and yours truly dropped the rope attached to the boat . Now the 14 footer was floating out in the beautiful Passaic a few hundred yards from a waterfall. I never felt so helpless for about 10 seconds, what a feeling. So I had to put all those YMCA lessons back in the day to the test. Swam out to the boat in slightly cold water and brought it back. I still haven't gotten the stink off my clothes . Well lesson learned anyway. . Won't happen again. Needless to say , no Pike that day!!

You SWAM in the PASSAIC??

[dopderbeck]

Allegedly dinged a truck as I backed my trailer into parking spot. Cop met me when I came back in around 2 am. Charged with leaving the scene of an accident, even though I hadn't seen any damage and didn't really "leave." Took two court visits to clear up potential 6-month license suspension.