"I Bobbed When I Should've Weaved"

Sounds like something a boxer, like Mike Tyson or Joe Frazier, might have said back in their day, huh? After all, they were masters at this basic defensive maneuver, which effectively helps a boxer get on the inside of taller opponents.

In this case, however, a bass angler made this statement. Seems he was fishing a tournament on the upper Mississippi River at the time. With about 45 minutes left in the competition, this angler was headed to weigh-in when he found himself stuck on a sandbar, with no way to move.

A couple of fellow tournament anglers tried pulling him off, to no avail. He ended up sitting there for two hours waiting for help to arrive in the form of a fella with an airboat.

Said the stranded angler after his rescue, "I bobbed when I should've weaved. I'd been in this general area several times before but never this particular spot. I was trying to zig-zag my way through it, saw mud on both sides of me, with ripples in the middle, so I just pinned it and kept going...and got stuck."

This kind of incident is nothing new for the nation's mightiest waterway, which has seen water levels plummet to historic lows as a result of drought. Aerial images and meteorological data help illustrate the dire situation that exists today. Sandbars line a narrowing river channel, the result of little precipitation and parched soils across the Missouri River Valley to the west and the Ohio River Basin to the east.

Historically, the winding river was marked by a wide flood plain that would swell during wetter years, while drier years would leave pools and deeper spots throughout the waterway. The river, however, has been altered by dams, levees and other structures, and engineered to maintain a central channel that carries barge traffic that is key to commerce along the Mississippi. As a result, the Mississippi has become so dry that the central channel is about all that flows in some places these days.

The river is so low that many boat ramps don't stretch far enough to even reach the water. Docks that usually float with ease sit tilted and grounded on riverbanks. Stretches of the river have transformed into a marvel of drought, attracting onlookers from near and far.

In the summer 1949 edition of the Milwaukee Journal, Mel Ellis wrote, "If you haven't fished Ol' Man Mississip, forget about any preconceived notions you may have as far as rivers are concerned. Because Ol' Man River isn't really a river at all. In fact, he's a hundred rivers and a thousand lakes and more sloughs than you could explore in a lifetime. He is creeks, bayous, ditches, puddles, and thousands and thousands of impenetrable lotus beds that break big yellow flowers out above green pads."

That may have been true back then, but what you find along the Mighty Mississip today lies in stark contrast to that picture of bygone days. And anglers who fish that river now best think twice before trying to run there at wide-open throttle.