Originally Posted by
slabbandit
One cool spring morning, my buddy Jim & I, slid our 12' flatbottom boat into the cypress filled water of our favorite crappie hole. After loading the battery, all of our gear, and mounting the trolling motor onto the side of the boat, we started our morning's fishing. We had probably fished our way a good 100 yards or so out into the cypress trees when I suddenly started getting that uneasy grumbling deep in the tummy. At this point, I thought, I'd better make good time getting to the wooded shore. I grabbed my toilet paper, turned the old trolling motor on high and plotted the shortest course to the biggest tree I could see on the bank. As we were fast approaching the bank, I noticed that the very shallow shore came a pretty good ways out. I thought, no problem, I'll just kill the trolling motor at the last second, lift the motor and let the boat coast as close to the bank as possible. Just as planned, I hit the quick on/off button on the end of my handle, lifted the motor all the way up, then layed it over across the front of the boat. The boat hit bottom about 5' to 6' feet from the bank. In a panic, I stuffed my toilet paper into my bib overalls, rolled up my britches legs and proceed to jump as close as possible to the bank. As I gave it my all to make this jump my last leg to leave the boat inadvertently hung the rolled up britches leg on one of the T-Bolts on the trolling motor bracket. This caused one leg to stay in the boat as the other leg landed in the shallow water. It jerked the boat so hard that it caused the button on the end of the trolling motor handle to strike the floor of the boat. The trolling motor, still set on maximum speed, suddenly to my horror, came on with the metal blades facing straight up and me slowly doing the splits inches above this whirling meat grinder! As the one leg was sinking into the mud, the boat also started to push in the opposite direction. I started screaming for all I was worth, TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! So my buddy thought he would just stand up and walk to the front of this little 12' flatbottom and turn it off. Well guess what? Now this whirling maneater is jumping up at me like it has a mind of its own! I started screaming like a girl. NO! NO! NO! so my buddy thought quickly and jerked the clips off the battery. I quickly got unhooked from the T-Bolt, waded out of the water and scampered up the bank to the big tree as I listened to my buddy's roaring laughter echo across the lake.
Whoever said fishing is a safe sport?
CATCH A BIG-UN