Several years ago, before we moved here, I'd lived in the same little place for over thirty years. Its greatest attraction was it was on the water, an 800 acre lake, connected to the Wisconsin River.

One of the nice things about living on the water is you can go fishing on an impulse. Just grab your fishing opole, jump in the boat and away you go. Thats just what I did this particular day.

There's a large island seperating the lake from the river, the river flowing around both the east and west side of the island on its way south to the paper mill dam about 1/2 mile downstream. On the near side of the island were several deep sloughs, populated with bass, bluegills and lotsa stumps. Thats where I went that day.

It was just a basic simple aluminum boat with a 5 HP Johnson outboard, early 50's vintage. Well, I got to the slough, made several casts, had a coupla strikes, then decided to move the boat. I started the motor and went about 30' when CLUNK! I hit something. It stalled the motor. I restarted the motor but was going nowhere. I lifted the prop out of the water and discovered there was no prop. When I hit the submerged stump I sheared the pin and the prop fell off.

Generally, under normal circumstances this would be inconvenient but not a huge big deal. You just have to row---about a mile. But these weren't normal circumstances.

Not only did I not have a prop I didn't have any oars---not even a paddle, and it was nearing sundown. I was 40' or 50' from shore so I hand paddled to shore and found a long pole in the woods and poled my way along the shore line of the island but then the real challenge presented itself. I had to cross the channel which was way deeper than my pole was long. Feeling kinda screwed I pondered this a while and struck upon an idea.

I stood at the bow of the boat and flung the anchor as far as I could, then pulled the boat up to the anchor and repeated the process several times. (Ya think thats what they mean when they say anchors away?) I gotta tell ya I was feeling more than a little ridiculous but laughing at the whole scene myself. I got to the other shore actually feeling kinda proud of myself having figured out how to get across the channel but now I was faced with another "challenge".

While the fling-the-anchor method worked in a pinch there was no way you could do it either quietly or gracefully, both desireable traits for the last leg of the journey. Even an anchor flinger has his pride!

Now I was on the populated shore with several houses, but worst of all I would soon be approaching the "point" where one of the ritziest restaurants in the county was situated, over looking the lake. It was the kinda place where the upper crust and upper crust wannabes would congragate.

Well, I figured I'd buy a little time and made some more casts while I was near shore. As it started to get darkish I began poling again, stealthily I like to think. As I neared the point I hugged the shore real close. The bank was steep and brushy. I could look up into the restaurant window and I'm happy to report there was no crowd watching me.

Thats what its really like to be up the creek without a paddle!

Any other misadventures out there folks?

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2002

Answers

No, John; no misadventures of that scope to report!! But I did enjoy reading yours! And now I'll know what to do the next time I find myself up that proverbial creek sans paddle!

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2002

Thanks John; reminds me of something that happened to me when I was 16 at the Lake of the Woods with my family, when our motor died and we were very very close to crashing into 20 foot high rock walls. It was the first time I ever heard my dad swear....I wrote about it for a creative writing class once;maybe I can dig it up.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2002