Video of the incident (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEcX6_Z965A) was captured by Young's GoPro camera, which was mounted to the rear-seat pedestal. The video shows the pair a few minutes into what was going to be a 30-mile run to Spring Creek.
With Bland driving, he decelerated and maneuvered the boat to the right as he prepared to overtake the boat they were following. When he did, the boat veered hard right toward the bank, tossing both occupants out of the boat, which did a complete 360-degree turn. Bland estimated their speed at 55 to 57 miles per hour at the time the spin occurred.
"It was scary," he said, "...flying through the air like that, and hitting the boat on the way out was pretty traumatizing. I also remember hitting the water and seeing the wrap of the boat and being stuck under the boat and getting out from under there."
Young, who was wearing a PFD that inflated upon water entry, had to manually trigger Bland's PFD.
"I remember coming over those waves," he said. "I'd looked back for a second to see if anybody was passing us. Then the boat cut at a 90-degree angle. I don't remember being ejected or hitting the water but do remember being in it for what felt like a long time. I've flat-spun in a boat before but never been ejected...that's another game."
Young, in his first year on the Florida fishing team, typically ran his own boat at qualifying tournaments, but he and Bland had decided to use the latter's Triton since they had practiced in it the week leading up to the Saturday tournament. Bland had not encountered any maintenance issues during his checks.
As boat no. 4 in the 140-boat field, the two already had passed boats No. 2 and 3 and were readying to pass the lead boat when the incident occurred.
Once able to climb back into the Triton, other competitors stopped to check on them, even after they had called FLW officials to request assistance.
"The coolest thing was, where we spun out, there was a cabin right there, and the guy who was staying there must have seen us and ran down, jumped in his boat, and ran across to us," said Young. "He sat with us until the FLW boat came to get us."
Bland and Young were taken back to the launch ramp to dry off and gather their wits. The father of another Florida angler had brought his boat, and the two were able to use that boat to fish from toward the end of the day.
"I don't know if there was a day that I wanted to catch a fish more," said Young. "We wanted to walk across that stage with a fish so bad."
They stayed close to the ramp and only idled and used the trolling motor. They were able to fish for the final 90 minutes of the day. While hoping to get on one of those ledges and find a school of 2-pounders, the duo unfortunately didn't catch anything.
Regardless, they were thankful for being able to get back out on the water after such a traumatic experience.
Both competitors were surprised at how much attention the video of their accident received. Within three hours of it being posted, 3,000 people had viewed it. Five days later, the viewing total was approaching 500,000, with thousands of shares across social-media platforms.
The problem in this incident appeared to have been a nylon nut securing the hydraulic steering rod had come off, leaving Bland with no control whatsoever of his boat.
Meanwhile, Another Dude Was Asking for Trouble, But So Far As We Know, Avoided It...While there was no evidence of any hot-doggin' in the preceding event, I came across an incident in which a fella and his friend were headed to a fishin' hole, cruising at 65 miles per hour when a johnboat came s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g past them. The fishin' boat increased their speed to 72 (WOT) and still couldn't catch the johnboat.
Later in the day, the anglers saw the dude with the 15-foot deep-sided johnboat getting ready to load his craft on the trailer and decided to stop and check it out. The dude told 'em his boat had a 70SS Johnson ported to the hilt, with a racing flywheel, velocity stacks, and 210 pounds of compression and was running racing fuel. He also had a chopper-style prop. Said it was very slow out of the hole but ran good on top end.
He offered to take one of the anglers for a ride, but the latter politely said, "No way in h-e-double hockey sticks would I set foot in that thing."
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