We (myself and two friends) had a terribly close call on Rangely Lake in ME a few years ago. We do an annual early spring troll just after ice-out. Decades of it under our belts, and it’s always windy as [bleep], nature of the beast up there. ‘Salmon Chop’ is what you want anyway, not glass. 16 ft Lund tiller. Typically plenty of boat for a smallish lake such as that. Not so. We knew big winds were coming, but figured we could could deal and fish around them to whatever extent. At least get an honest AM fish in before the winds went to 40 gusts In the afternoon. Well, they went to 40 plus gusts around 9:30 or 10 that morning, well ahead of schedule, and we were dead-[bleep] in a cove facing the teeth of it to run run home. Awful. I’ve been in a 35 foot Grady coming out of Nantucket in some seriously stacked waves that [bleep] us up and made me a little nervous, but i’ve Never been afraid for my life as at anytime on that day at rangely.tje waves were 4 ft I would say. We just didn’t have enough boat. It was a blessing we made it back dry.
