COLUMN: Outdoor Type: Boats I’ve known, Part II; The Near Sinking at Dogwood Lake

In my previous column I related how my dad at a fairly advanced age could recall every car or truck he had ever owned. That got me thinking about boats I’ve owned. In my youth my bass fishing nut father climbed the watercraft ladder first with a ten-foot aluminum boat, then a 14-foot v-hull we carried on top of our car. Eventually in the seventies dad made a trip to Tyler Boats near Rockport and returned with a real bass boat, a 16-foot fiberglass model. It was a convenient fishing machine for us, solid, heavy, very comfortable and fairly sleek, that is until disaster struck.

We were out on Glendale (Dogwood Lake) in the very early spring, way before cell phones. Mid-March provided a pleasant day, and we caught a couple of small bass near the ramp.  Then we headed out for the shallow east end of the lake, where from past experience we knew the territory inside and out. In order to get to the far side, a boater must navigate a short but treacherous obstacle course of small stumps that lay just below the water line. We had traveled this route many times before and had usually come through unscathed. If the boat got hung on a stump, we would rock the boat and even both sit at one end. That usually dislodged us and we could proceed.

On this day we were motoring smoothly through the maze when we hit a stump and stuck. We did our usual thing. Soon we slid off and proceeded on our way, until we hung on a second stump. All our efforts could not remove us from that aggravating hunk of wood. We tipped this way and that, moved to one end, rocked back and forth, went in circles, all to no avail. Around 15-20 minutes of trying everything we knew resulted in nothing. What the heck? Then we noticed it. Water was slowly filling up the bottom of the boat. The stump had punctured the bottom. That’s why we were unable to move. Our boat had been stabbed, shish kabobed. Now what?

We looked around to see if another boater might help us. Nope. Nothing in sight. Too early in the season. The boat continued to slowly but gradually fill, and we were in a jam. I thought about diving in, swimming to the bank, and heading to the reservoir office to see if they could assist us. Would they even be around? In March the water is cold. I wasn’t sure if I could make the 50-yard or so swim to the bank, then the half mile walk to the office.

  Just about then, we heard the lovely sound of a motorboat headed our way. We hailed the owner, who came over for a look. Our boat continued to fill. The fisherman headed off to get help. Soon the property manager appeared in his boat with a pulley and set of chains. Maybe this had happened before here? We transferred ourselves and our equipment to his boat, and then he hooked up a rope system anchored to a tree that effectively snatched our sinking craft off the stump. That done, now there was a race against time to tow the sinking vessel back to the ramp before the boat would completely fill. Water rushed in as soon as the hole was cleared. 

Thankfully we got back in time to load the boat onto our trailer and head home. I’m forever thankful to that manager for saving our behinds and our boat. Unfortunately, Tyler personnel looked at the damage and convinced us that a new aluminum 17-foot Tracker might be a good idea. That new boat was our companion for several years, but it had an outboard that was delicate. If it hadn’t been run for a while, it just didn’t want to operate smoothly. I took my wife out a couple of times in it and both times we had issues. She lost faith and I did too. After dad passed, I took it to Outdoor World in Washington, where they sold it for me. They told me the new owner put a new engine on and was happy with his purchase. 

In 2015 I was in the market for my own bass boat. I liked one I saw on a website and headed down to Kentucky to check it out. It was a 16-foot Tracker that appeared to be in good shape. The tires weren’t great, but other than that it was what I was looking for. The owner gave me a bit of a sob story about his financial situation, and my soft heart resulted in my paying a few hundred more than I should have. But I proudly towed it home and it still sits in my garage. I’ve tweaked it several times, with anchors, decent graphs, and new trailer tires, among other things. What I’ve most appreciated about the four-stroke 40-horse Mercury on the back is the ease of starting and the smoke-free, trouble-free running. That is until I hit a sandbar at Turtle Creek Lake a couple of years ago. Sediment got into the water intake and fouled up the works, causing the engine to overheat. This issue has resulted in painful, expensive, frequent trips back to Port of Jasper to keep flushing out the debris. It seems that any time my lower unit brushes against the lake bottom, more junk is sucked up, causing the overheating alarm to go off. Believe me, that is not a pleasant sound when one is trying to enjoy a day on the lake. Lately the issue seems to have been resolved.

BOAT: Bring Out Another Thousand. Yes, maintaining a watercraft is pricey. Industry figures say the average annual maintenance on boats runs the gamut from $1,000 to $10,000 and more. Is it worth it? Most boat owners would say that it is. I would agree.