I have seen and read many accounts about people who were fishing on a lake or creek having an accident which caused serious injury or even loss of life. When reading these, I have often wondered how these types of accidents can happen if the people involved are mostly folks who are not doing something stupid or acting in irresponsible manner. Well, as of a few days ago, I do not wonder about these types of accidents any longer because one happened to me.

It started when my best friend, Jackie Baggett and me had gone fishing to one of our favorite places on Holmes Creek. This place is located just below the Miller’s Ferry Bridge and about 3 miles west of New Hope in Washington County, Florida. We had launched my boat at the Strickland Landing early that morning and proceeded on our way to enjoy a day of fishing on one of the most beautiful creeks in the northwest Florida area.

After a good morning of fishing and catching a good mess of bream and shellcrackers, we decided we had caught enough and headed back up the creek toward the landing. As a point of information, it should be noted that this was the 3^rd time I had been fishing on this section of the creek within the last week. I knew this part of the creek run very well and had not a clue that within the next few minutes an event would happen which could have had tragic consequences for Jackie and me.

As we were heading up the creek, I was sitting in the front seat of my boat and cruising at a modest speed. The boat was equipped with stick steering as it’s means of navigation on the left side of the seat and the motor speed control, along with the tilt and trim operations on the right side of the boat. Therefore, my left hand was on the steering stick control and my right hand was on the throttle control.

I was very accustomed to the boat operations and always tried to be aware of any possible dangers or situations that might pose a problem in navigating the creek. We rounded a small curve in the creek and as was my normal routine, I drifted toward the outside edge of the creek to avoid any potential shallow water which can be present on the inside edges of curves where sand might accumulate.

Suddenly, I was thrown forward from my seat in a violent motion caused by the foot of my motor striking an unseen submerged log. This log was under the water about 2 feet and not visible from the boat seats. Upon striking the log, which was at an angle to the flow of the creek, the boat turned sharply to the right. This was because of the angle of the log and also because of my having involuntarily pushed the stick steering controls hard to the front, causing a right-hand turn, of the boat upon striking the log and being thrown forward from my seat. At the same time, my right hand had also thrust the throttle lever forward when my momentum caused me to go forward, thereby increasing the forward speed of the boat. All of this happened within a spilt second of the motor striking the lot.

As soon as I realized what was happening, I tried to regain control of the boat operations, but it was too late. The hard right turn and increased speed was sending us rapidly toward the creek bank and towards a large tree that had fallen into the creek. Coming closer to the tree, I remember distinctly seeing a limb on the tree coming directly at my chest. I turned loose of the throttle, grabbed the limb with my right hand and moved it away from my body to avoid being impaled by it.

Immediately after this, the next thing of which I was aware was being in and under the water and hearing the boat motor running loudly. I recall thinking how dangerous it can be for motors to be running on out-of-control boats and trying to kick away from sound of the motor. I also felt some ropes on my body while I was under water and trying to rid myself of them lest they become tangled in the motor around me and causing me to be trapped under water. All this time, I was thinking the boat was still upright in the creek and running wild and unmanned.

In just a few seconds, I came to the surface, still thinking I had simply been tossed overboard. But, when I came up, I looked and saw the boat completely upside down in the creek, the motor that was still running sticking straight up in the air at the back and my friend Jackie just coming up out of the water, standing about 2 or 3 feet from the motor. About that time, the motor quit running as the water intrusion into the fuel system and the lack of oxygen caused it to shut down.

This entire ordeal had taken place in a span of time of about 5 to maybe 10 seconds from the moment of striking the log until Jackie and I had come to the surface. The accident had happened in water about 4 ½ feet deep so we were able to stand up and get our bearings.

When we saw one another in the water, the first question out of both of our mouths was, “Are you okay?”  It was almost simultaneously said by each of us. We did a quick check of ourselves, declared our relief at no injuries and took a few moments to figure out what in the heck had happened. When we were able to get over the shock of the event, we began to talk about how to proceed forward to try and get us some help.

Even completely upside down, the boat was still floating. The same could not be said for all the fishing gear, poles, bait, cell phones, sunglasses, drinking cups, caps and other assorted stuff that was in the boat when it capsized. Lots of stuff was lost, not the least of which was a 9 mm loaded handgun that I had with me in the event we had seen a moccasin while we had been fishing. Of all the stuff lost, the pistol was my only real concern as I did not want it to fall into the wrong hands should someone happen to come by and see it when the creek was a little lower and clear like it would be later in the summer.

We then went to the up-creek side of the boat and crawled up on the bottom of it and just sat there for a few minutes. We talked about what to do next. After some discussion, we decided one of us would go and seek some assistance as opposed to just waiting for someone to come by and see our predicament. Being the youngest and most able to swim some distance, I was chosen to be the one to go. I reached under the boat and grabbed a life preserver, slipped in on, and started swimming down the creek towards a house a short distance away where we had seen someone was at home earlier in the morning when we were fishing in that area.

I began the swim and shortly arrived at the home we had seen. I went up on the porch and a lady came to the door at the sound of my knocking. I explained to her what had happened and quickly called the local sheriff’s office as well as the state of Florida Game and Fresh Water officials for assistance. She also called a person who lived nearby that had a boat to see if he could be of assistance to us.

It turns out that the person she called was raised in Bonifay, my hometown, and I knew him from when we are kids. In just a few minutes, he showed up at the lady’s home and I got into the boat with him, and we proceeded to travel back to the sight of the accident. Upon getting to the overturned boat, Jackie was still sitting on top of the boat, patiently waiting for someone to come and get him.

We decided we could tow the overturned boat down the creek to a nearby landing and then get it turned back over to load onto my trailer to head back home. We tied some ropes to my boat and secured them to the other man’s boat. Slowly, we got the boat out into the creek and began the trip down to the landing we would use.

Upon getting to the landing, the man got some straps from his truck and attached them to the truck and boat. We slowly pulled on the straps and got the boat up onto one side where the water would mostly drain out. Then, we finally got the boat turned fully upright and finished dipping the remaining water out of it. While this was going on, a game warden had taken Jackie back up the creek to where my truck was parked. He in turn brought my truck and boat trailer to the landing and we hand cranked the boat up onto the trailer for the trip home.

I must mention that the game warden did a short interview with Jackie and me about the accident. He explained that a report was required of accidents such as the one we had experienced so we explained to him what had happened. Included in this report was the fact that neither of us had our life vests on when the accident happened and also the fact that I did not have the kill switch on my boat connected as it should have been. Though we were technically legal to not have the vests on and legal to not have the kill switch operational at the time of the accident, we were negligent in a big way to not have taken these precautions. No, it was more than negligent, it was stupid.

Had either of us been knocked unconscious by the impact of the water or perhaps the tree limbs or trunk or had the boat struck either of us when it overturned and incapacitated us, the results would have been tragic. To have not had the needed safety equipment properly worn as warranted was stupid. Lesson learned is that I will never again be in a boat running faster than at idle without a life vest properly worn and a kill switch properly attached to the boat operator whether it is me or someone else in a boat in which I am riding.

Anyway, we got the boat loaded and headed home. I was sure this little experience was going to have a significant financial cost associated with getting the boat repaired as well as replacing the equipment and supplies lost. Heck, to replace the pistol alone would be several hundred dollars.

I called a boat repair shop on the way home to schedule a time to bring my boat to them for repairs thinking it would be $600 or $700 dollars at a minimum to get it fixed. I was told to bring it to them on Friday and they would get started. While on the phone, the man also said it was not the first time they had fixed or repaired a boat and motor that had been turned upside down in a creek, river, or lake.  Good, I thought. That means that I am not the only idiot in the world.

On Friday, I took the boat up to the repair shop as scheduled. I also made contact with a young man from Bonifay that was a scuba diver and friend with some of my friends and classmate of my daughters. I asked would he be willing to go to the site of the accident to see if he could recover some of the lost items.

In truth, the only thing I really wanted to recover was the pistol. Yes, I wanted to maybe get some of the other stuff back but nothing was as important as that weapon that I did not want to lose or have fall into the wrong hands.

We arranged to meet on Saturday morning to go back to the creek to see what we could find. When we got to the site of the accident, he donned his wet suit and gear to begin the search. After some exploratory searches in the general area of the overturned boat, he eventually zoned in on a more precise location. He was searching as I was in the boat observing his air bubbles coming to the surface. In a short time, he came up and announced, “I have hit the motherlode!” 

He swam over to the boat and started handing me some of the items he had found. The first thing he handed me was my pistol. Upon seeing this, I said to him, “Okay! We can go on home now.”  He just sort of laughed under his mask and said, ‘Nope, there is a good bit of stuff here and I will be glad to get it.”  He finished handing me the rest of his haul and headed back down underwater. At the end of his searching, he had located everything we had lost except a knife, a pair of pliers, Jackie’s fishing hat, and one rod and reel that I had just bought a few days before we had been fishing.  All in all, I was lucky to have recovered most of the items lost.

But, more lucky than the recovery of the items lost was the fact that Jackie and I had been blessed to have not been seriously injured or killed in the accident. It could have happened just as quickly as the accident had occurred with tragic consequences for us and our families.

As I said at the beginning of this essay, I used to wonder how these types of accidents can happen to mostly responsible, mature, and careful people.

I do not wonder about this anymore. It can happen to anyone in an instant.