Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Anchorage boater missing

Wow - tangled up in crab pot lines.

That happened to a guy in a skiff a few years back here in SE - right in Lena Cove, about 1/2 mile from my place.

RIP Karl . . .

53 year old guy, 16' skiff, early spring, big water, high winds.

Well worth the $50K price tag to taxpayers for the SAR.

No kidding. He should have had the courtesy to do it in one of the many more remote places so the locals could have risked their lives at their own expense instead.

Training for those more deserving...

At least he had the decency to "tangle himself" in the pot lines...

Might be he knew what was up and deliberately tied himself to a bouy or two...

Much, much higher.

bad deal, but imo there's worse fates than dying doing something you love. Ocean and weather deserve lots of respect, they can slap a mighty man down pdq.

"(Spike Walker's stories do give one at least a glimmer of hope however.)"

Reading Spike Walker's books make me cold even when I'm sitting next to the wood stove.

Sounds like a bad decision was made that day that affected a lot of folks, too bad all the way around.

I think most - or many of us anyway- realize that we've done things that could have put us in his place. Ain't nobody that hasn't done something dumb (risky), at least not in the outdoors up this way.

A helluva way to go.

A guy took me, North Carolina hillbilly and all, out of Whittier on an overnight shrimping trip some years ago. My first trip to AK, if you can believe that luck. Too many unforgettables to name. Among them that we only seemed to move the boat 50 yards further off shore and were in a thousand feet of water.

Anybody can pull pots there by hand is tough, and I hope they guy loved every minute to the last.

If winch-pulled shrimp are not as good, I would sure like to have some hand-pulled ones.

Klik, couldn't agree more, AK doesn't have the corner of the market for folks making bad choices. There's absolutely no reason I should be sitting here typing tonight, through my own bad decisions and poor choices over the years. There may be a bright side to getting older, I think I'm getting too tired, (or lazy), to want to try as many dumb things as I used to. Made enough that I don't throw stones at anyone else's mishaps.

The above is absolutely true. And I have been guilty of said bad choices more than a few times.
What is also very true, is that the consequence of those poor decisions in this environment can be severe.
And it can happen fast...

seems to me the vast majority of the time when things go sideways or to hades in a handbasket, they do so FAST !!!

Yup, enough to make you wonder where it even came from...

And they do not have to come from poor decision making...

This case started with a bad decision.

Yeah, we should throw stones and stupid should hurt. I expect more out of a 53 year old male than I do an 18 year old.

There is zero reason for this, money spent and other lives risked. This only occurred because a 53 year old man that damn well should have none better, still went out, or it was suicide by crab pot.

Since I"m 53, I wont' say I don't still do dumb things.

But that amount of wind and water in that small of a boat was not a sound decision.

Regardless that, condolences to friends and family.

Its always a shame when rescue has to be involved. I know that personally.

And its bad when a negative outcome is the end.

I've heard of it a few times too. The anchor always has me worried when I toss it over.

This^^^, and when he was evidently having motor problems.

Yeah, when i was 16.