Father-Daughter Fishing Trip Not Without Bit of Drama

The victims today were in a Bass Tracker, likely
similar to the one pictured here.

While visiting West Neck Marina earlier today, I learned that a fella who stores his Tracker bass boat at the marina had gone out with his daughter for a little fishing. Everything was cool--as "cool," that is, as one can get in the current mid-90s-to-better-than-100-degree heat wave--until the unexpected happened. That "unexpected," in this case, was a short or something that fried the boat's trolling-motor wiring.

As I got the report, the casualty evidently had spread to the wiring for the outboard, rendering the trim and tilt useless, but not before causing the outboard to run to the full-up position. Therein lay the problem.

The boater and his daughter had navigated their way up beyond a low bridge--perhaps to reach a honey hole, or maybe just to get away from the crowd. After all, it is Saturday, and the weekends at West Neck Marina always are busy this time of year. In any event, with the outboard in the full-up position, there absolutely was no way the boat was going to come back through that bridge with the water as high as it is at the moment.

Once Dewey got a call for help from the victims and learned the extent of their problem, he dispatched a couple of guys in a johnboat to lend a hand. The helpers, in this case, were Bobby Moore and Dewey's son, Curtiss Wayne Mullins, who's more than a little familiar with rescue missions (he bailed my butt out of a real jam just last year).

I had to leave the marina before this situation was resolved but, during a phone call with Dewey a little later, learned that everyone involved had made it back to the marina OK. As I understand it, Bobby and Curtiss Wayne were able to jump the solenoid and get the outboard trimmed down far enough to tow the disabled Tracker and its occupants back through the bridge.

Without having talked to the victims, I can't know for sure what their thoughts are, but I have every reason to believe that, as a minimum, they both are thanking their lucky stars that they left the dock this morning with a cellphone. That, at least, was my first thought last year when I got stranded downriver with a boat taking on water and a broken bilge pump.

An old TV commercial used to include this phrase: "Never leave home without it," referring to an American Express Card. I, however, apply that phrase to my cellphone, and I feel fairly certain there are a lot of other people who agree with me--not the least, of which, are the victims in today's drama.