Sunday, August 2, 2009

Mississippi River - 8/2/2009

Matthew and I headed out on Sunday morning about 7:30. It was a beautiful morning. Crisp air and so much fog coming off the water that you could only see about 50 yards or so. The plan was to fish a few new spots Matt picked out by looking at Google Earth. With all the fog and limited visibility we decided to try the back side of a dike that he had marked. It was close to home so we wouldn't have to fight the fog too long. We came up on ths spot and it looked great. Some nice slow backwater and a great current break around the tip of the dike. We started at the current break throwing spinners, but nothing. So we worked the dike slowly back to the shorline and then down the shorline around some laydowns. We pulled one short off the dike and nothing off the laydowns. We fished the area for a little over an hour and around 9:00 decided to run North up towards Winfield. As the dam was coming into view and we were nearing our second fishing spot something was happening with the motor. As I slowed down it started violently vibrating. We killed the engine and raised the motor to have a look. Matt says "Well that's the problem. You're missing the tip of a blade on the prop. How in the hell does this happen. We were running along, 20+ feet of water, no 'thump' no 'shutter' nothing. Just a little vibration, and then a lot of vibration. So we decided we could take our time and limp home on the trolling motor, and fish at the same time. As we are making our way out of the main channel to the Missouri shorline, the trolling motor decided to stop working. Yeah, we are now having one of those days that happens to every boat owner, it's just a matter of time. We ended up tying up to a dock in Winfield and called Bryan to up and pick one of us up. He took me back to Riverside to put the Wellcraft in and go get the fishing boat. Of course I didn't have the key for the hitch so we had to run back to my house to get the key to unlock the Skeeter trailer so we could hook up the Wellcraft and put it in. We finally did and 2 hours later we had both boats back on the trailer and were headed to the house. We were home by 2:30. Wow, what a day. Now the question is, how much will be under warranty. I'm hoping they realize there was something wrong with the prop for this to happen.

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