Hydrilla
Well-known member
A friend of mine with a Skeeter ZX225 invited me to fish with his bass club yesterday, they fish for crappie at Lake Jordan, NC as their January event. I brought a good friend of mine, new member here Engineer_Jim. We had fun crappie fishing, and since it was a nice day and Jim had never ridden in a bass boat other than a jon boat, I asked my friend to take us on a quick gofast ride, make a turn or two, etc.
We rode a mile or so down the lake, got up to maybe 60, and I felt the boat being trimmed down for a turn. To my surprise he made a hard RIGHT turn, much harder than I would have done with 3 people in the boat. Not to mention that I would never make a hard RIGHT turn with a passenger in the boat period- as you guys probably know, it is always better to make left turns with a passenger if you are doing a performance demo. We got part of the way around and the prop blew out and we did a quick, hard and fast 180. Jim was in the middle and was ok. I was on the outside, and I was literally half way out of the boat, feet up in the air and head and face in the water, bracing myself with my left arm on the handle to keep from going out.
When we set down, I flopped back into my seat, just in time for the back half of the boat to submerge, soaking all 3 of us from the back, from the shoulders on down. At first I thought my left arm was broken from holding on trying to keep from being ejected, but it's not. Once we realized everyone was ok, there was nervous laughter and an apology of course, and then some more laughter on the way back to the ramp. The boater guy obviously felt bad. It's a pretty new boat to him, and that combined with 3 people in the boat, he agrees that it wasn't a good idea.
So Jim at least has a great "first bass boat ride" story He said he didn't know anything was wrong until he saw me on my way over the side, he thought the turn was intentional. At the time, he was thinking, "DANG, these bass fishermen are CRAZY!!!!!" :mrgreen: Now that it's over, I can even laugh about it, but in almost 20 years of riding in bass boats, with the majority of that experience as a boater myself, including boats this size, that is the closest I've ever come to being ejected from a bass boat.
I feel like I've been in a little bit of a car accident, sore all over but nothing serious.
We rode a mile or so down the lake, got up to maybe 60, and I felt the boat being trimmed down for a turn. To my surprise he made a hard RIGHT turn, much harder than I would have done with 3 people in the boat. Not to mention that I would never make a hard RIGHT turn with a passenger in the boat period- as you guys probably know, it is always better to make left turns with a passenger if you are doing a performance demo. We got part of the way around and the prop blew out and we did a quick, hard and fast 180. Jim was in the middle and was ok. I was on the outside, and I was literally half way out of the boat, feet up in the air and head and face in the water, bracing myself with my left arm on the handle to keep from going out.
When we set down, I flopped back into my seat, just in time for the back half of the boat to submerge, soaking all 3 of us from the back, from the shoulders on down. At first I thought my left arm was broken from holding on trying to keep from being ejected, but it's not. Once we realized everyone was ok, there was nervous laughter and an apology of course, and then some more laughter on the way back to the ramp. The boater guy obviously felt bad. It's a pretty new boat to him, and that combined with 3 people in the boat, he agrees that it wasn't a good idea.
So Jim at least has a great "first bass boat ride" story He said he didn't know anything was wrong until he saw me on my way over the side, he thought the turn was intentional. At the time, he was thinking, "DANG, these bass fishermen are CRAZY!!!!!" :mrgreen: Now that it's over, I can even laugh about it, but in almost 20 years of riding in bass boats, with the majority of that experience as a boater myself, including boats this size, that is the closest I've ever come to being ejected from a bass boat.
I feel like I've been in a little bit of a car accident, sore all over but nothing serious.