This was my Hunting/fishing partner for about 20 years, their still looking...

RIP Buddy...

http://wivb.com/2015/05/15/authorities-search-for-missing-fisherman-at-chautauqua-lake/

I saw that last night and thought of you......not surprised you new the fellow. Sorry to hear he was a friend.

RIP Fellow Fisherman.

I guess ya never know when it's the final five minutes of your life.
We had a ton of laughs though.
We use to fish every Crappiethon at Chautauqua all the way back to the early '90's, and we chased a lot of whitetails in WNY.
He was a retired guard at Attica..

This ones kinda tough to swallow...

Damn sorry to hear of this,hoping for a miracle

50 years on the water, and it still ceases to amaze me how many folks don't wear life jackets. Vest style jackets aren't that uncomfortable to wear. Yeah, they can be a little hot, but the other option isn't very appealing. We fish on some pretty big water, and the chances of reaching shore if a boat went over are pretty slim without a life jacket on. Maybe this thread will make one of our guys think about this a bit and start wearing that life jacket. Think about your family at home waiting on you, and maybe it won't seem so cumbersome after all.

The suspender types are not hard to ignore completely. I fish smaller lakes mostly on nice days. When drifting in the middle of the lake on those nice days the boat drifts away from things that fall overboard faster than I can swim and it's a long haul to shore even when the water is warm. Never mind the increased risk when underway. So I got used to pull-to-inflate suspender types particularly when fishing alone and I don't really notice them anymore.

Went with manual inflate, don't need the help if I get dunked where I can stand on the bottom or dog paddle there. Which is more likely.

Also adds a level of comfort on early ice and they're camo for waterfowling.

Sorry to hear that.
My rule is, you don't go on my boat without one.
I always wear one and I don't go solo if the water is too cold to swim in.

Sad news. I fish a lot of the winter from my boat wearin deer hunting clothes & boots. A flotation device would come in handy if you went in the water.

+1 on the manual type. I wear mine regularly, and while fishing in rain mine when off twice. At $20 to re-arm, i converted my vest to manual.

Sorry for anyone's loss on the water. Most of those deaths are preventable, but we are too (stubborn, cool, lazy or ? ) to wear the device that will protect us. Yet we are within 3 feet of being in the water. .

Wow, that's terrible.

I have to admit that I don't usually wear a pfd, but when things start looking spicy I'm not above it. Yesterday was a good example.

I live near a lake and have been working the bugs out a used boat/motor combination. I put a different prop on it yesterday and wanted to test it, so I launched on the South end of the lake with a pretty good SW wind going. Things were fine until I left the shelter of the Lee of the South shore. The middle of the lake was choppy with 3+ footers that were capping. I decided to turn my 14 footer around and head in when things got bouncy enough that I attached the dead man's lanyard and put on a vest.

I was soaked pretty good by the time I got back near the South shore.

Don't ever be too proud or arrogant to wear a pfd. They're a heck of a lot more comfortable than lying stiff in a box.

That's tough, prayers for his friends and family.

A little irony to go along with the sadness....

While he was in the water for the 8 days before they found him, his wife was quite understandably upset, and just wanted them to get him out of the cold water.

They found his body on Thursday the 21st, and had the memorial on Sunday (yesterday).

This week his wife is putting the ashes back in the lake.
I'm sure Dave would want it that way, just ironic I guess...

I am always sorry to having a teaching/learning moment by someones loss of life.

A coworker lamented about her husband giving her a hard time about wearing hers same to his daughter.

She said the boat felt like it was was airborne as he jumped wakes from barges on the Tennessee River.

I told her my advice was to wear one when felt like and let him laugh.

I sent her this thread to reinforce her feeling that wearing one was a mandatory activity.

Got an email from her this week, they were on the river and she was wearing her vest.

I was out today at 4:30 a.m. and fished until about 11 a.m. I probably crossed paths with about 20 boats. Not a single person was wearing a life jacket. Truly disgusting. I'm wondering how many of these folks are the same ones who refuse to wear a seat belt?

I'm wondering how many by lottery tickets - odds of needing a life jacket quite a lot better than hitting big numbers.

My condolences and prayers for you and your friend's family