Do You Know Where Your Jacket Is?

That turned out to be the $64,000 question for a new co-angler to the California B.A.S.S. Federation circuit. This U.S. Marine, as it turned out, was paired with a partner fishing a tournament on Lake San Vicente near San Diego.

The weather that morning was chilly when they started but had warmed throughout the day, forcing both anglers to remove layers of clothing. The boater had stored his pants and jacket under the console. Meanwhile, the Marine had tucked his jacket under his Shimano tackle bag. The fishing was decent, with both catching limits.

All was well until 3 p.m. came, and the Marine disembarked the boat to go get the boater's truck and pull him out. The Marine was grabbing all his gear to load into his car when he suddenly realized his jacket was missing. "OMG! No! Tell me it's not so!" he screamed.

The boater could only watch the color drain from the Marine's face. He told him he hadn't seen the jacket since they had taken off in the morning. They both checked every compartment, but the jacket simply was nowhere to be found...which meant his wallet and car keys were gone, too, since they had been in one of the jacket's pockets.

As luck would have it, the Marine had tucked the keys to his partner's truck in his pants pocket after the morning launch.

The duo talked over the events of the day, trying to figure out when the jacket seemingly had disappeared. The Marine remembered it was about 1 p.m. when he last had seen the jacket. They asked a sheriff's boat on the scene if they would go make a check of the area where they had been at 1 o'clock, but that search turned up nothing, as did a follow-on search by the Marine, who had borrowed another man's boat that was still in the water.

So, here was the Marine, with no jacket, no car keys, and no wallet, with the lake set to close in two hours. The Marine was 100 miles away from home, and his wife was in Hawaii...the perfect recipe for a nightmare. Luckily, he did have a cellphone.

The awards ceremony came and went, and everyone had left. The Marine told his boater he was going to stay with his car and call a locksmith to get into it. The boater asked if he was sure that's what he really wanted to do, and he said yes. Knowing the Marine didn't have any cash, the boater handed him all the cash he had...exactly $100, along with a business card to call him when he got situated.

The lesson to be learned here is to take time each fishing trip to put your keys, wallet and any other valuables in a safe place at the start, so you won't have any surprises at the end of a long, tiring day on the water.