For example, there was this fella who said he was fishing brushpiles in about 10 feet of water with a monster worm, when it suddenly got snagged. While maneuvering the boat to free the bait, the wind swung the boat around, and the rod slipped out of his hand. He watched as a $300 combo subsequently sank to the bottom of the lake.
To his credit, however, this fella happened to have a small folding anchor (pictured above) in the boat and threw it into the vicinity of the snag. On the first try, he hooked the brushpile, which turned out to be a submerged Christmas tree, and his rod was laying on top.
"Hardest part of the evolution," said this fella, "was getting the anchor out of the brushpile after I had retrieved the rod."
There also was a guy who lost his rod and reel in about 6 feet of yucky-looking water and went back a couple of times trying to snag it, with no luck. As is often the case, though, the third time was a charm.
On the third try, he went back with a mask and snorkel. After stationing a spotter on the bank, just in case, he donned a PFD and floated face down on the surface looking for the combo. He prodded the bottom with a 6-foot pole, so he didn't have to dive down much.
"Had the combo back in 10 minutes," he noted.
Another incident involved an angler who lost a rod and reel overboard at night, way off shore, in about 20 feet of water. He immediately dropped a buoy, then tied on a treble hook with a Carolina-rig weight on top of it.
"I hooked the combo in less than a minute," said the proud owner, who went on to explain that he's "been very lucky in retrieving several rods that have gone overboard."
In yet another case, a fella dropped the cover to his outboard from his dock in about 4 feet of water. Knowing that the bottom had about 3 feet of silt buildup, he decided to wait 'til the next morning to look for it. It was a relatively simple job because he got out his underwater camera, located the cover, and raised it with a big treble hook.
And finally, there was this incident in which a fella took a friend fishing in his boat. The latter had a spincasting rig, which would have been OK but for the fact the line was old, and he was having nothing but trouble trying to use it. The fella subsequently handed his friend a spinning outfit from the rod locker, and don't you know the friend ended up kicking this substitute overboard.
The boat owner tossed a buoy marker where the rod had gone into the water and rigged up a heavy structure spoon (with a strip of lead attached) to probe the 35 feet of water they were in. About 30 minutes later, without having any luck, he started pulling in the buoy marker. As luck would have it, the strip of lead, which was spinning, happened to snag the fishing line on the spinning rod, and they got it back after all.
As these examples show, some folks are lucky enough to retrieve their property. Others, however, have no choice but to suck up their loss and do their very best to ensure lightning doesn't strike ever again. Take the case of a guy who was running the rim canal on Okeechobee at 50 mph when he hit some wake from another boat. He could only watch as two rods launched over his head and went to the bottom in 20 feet of dark, murky water.
Lesson Learned: Never run anywhere...even if it's less than a mile, as in this case...without your gear tied down. This lack of attention to detail cost him hundreds of dollars.
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