Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 3 separate drownings in 36 hours- WTF?

Lake Michigan is raging right now. Not November gales, but a strong SW wind at 25 knots creating 4-6' waves. That means rip currents and strong undertow. It also means the red - do not go in the friggin water - flag is flying. These incidents happened about 12 hours apart and have been all over the news. Weather gets warm, city folk come to the beach, and they don't respect the Big Water. The rip is so strong, the guy that ended up bottom feeding last night was found 8 miles north this am.

No one, not anybody, can stand up in those hydraulics. It's not like the ocean. Tip to trough, the waves are steeper and come in more rapid succession. The only way to get out of the rip is to swim parallel to the beach - and that only works if you're a strong swimmer. Even when we do a human chain with arms interlocked fairly close to shore to find these guys it's almost impossible. Coast Guard helos can only stay on station for so long. Rigid hull inflatables are the only ones that can get in close but they bump bottom in the trough.

The last guy that went down a few hours ago signaled for help and then he didn't last 10 minutes. Not enough time for any boat or helo to help. Idiots think they're safe on the piers too as record lake levels wash over them. They'll get washed off into 25' of water with no way to get out easily. The Corp and the State are powerless to close the beach or the pier.

Listen to the weather guys, the radio, the park rangers, look at the flag and heed the warning. The weekend isn't over. The number is sure to go up.

Rant off.

Holy schitt!

On a slightly different but equally as amazingly dumb, how many boats have landed on the piers along Lake Michigan ports this year?

People piss me off to CFT, They don't pay attention and then die or endanger the ones that would try and rescue them.

There are signs and there are warnings, sometimes I can't help but think it's just Darwin at work.

That's actually a fairly common occurrence with go-fast boats running 60-80 mph parallel to the shore at night, drunk. Unless the pier is lit, they park it on the rocks. Half mile of cement sticking out in the lake is kinda hard to miss, but they do it.

This year is the worst year I can recall. For every drowning there have probably been 6 near drownings that required rescue crews. The Coasties are earning it this year!

I was fishing the Canadian shore of Lake Erie a couple of weeks ago. The boat launch we used was flooded into the parking lot; in other words Lake Erie has risen to over the parking lot.

November could be really rough this year.

405wcf

How many idiots have their waypoint set inside the wall...

I've always had a minimum of two. One about a mile offshore and one at the gap. Line up the two coming in and it's a straight line into the harbor.

The problem is they try to fight it, get exhausted and drown. If they can't swim straight out parallel, then float, or tread water, let it carry you out then do it, then at an angle. Even an average swimmer should be able to if they know what to do. These people are panicking and not knowing what to do, fight it and lose.

I wouldn't get too worked up over it. Just Darwin's law of gene pool cleansing being exercised.

Darwin pointed out clearly that stupid cures itself more often than not.

There are a lot of folks that don't know a darn thing about rip tides.

A lot of them endanger others because of their stupidity.

There will be more.

i can't remember ever seeing it this bad either, but haven't lived over there in a while. I'm sure the high water level has some role in it, nothing new about the wind blowing. There is nothing odd about some undertow, either, fairly easy to deal with even in heavy surf, but rip tides are a different ball game.

we've had several drownings here this summer due to the same.

Sounds like The Clinton Mafia is hard at work.

Fella drowned out here on Thursday. Close friend of a hunting buddy.
Co-worker bought it last year on the Columbia over by the Tri Cities.

As a kid I never worried about it. Now older, with a couple young ones of my own, I pay a lot more attention to being safe on the water.

had another here yesterday out on the island.

Exactly why I didn't fly medivac when I retired. Risk my life and the lives of the crew because some idiot did something stupid...

You can’t fix stupid!!

I just told my grandson, in our pool, he’s just learning to swim, and our pool pump in strong. I told him you either have to go with it or swim across it , but don’t fight it. The same go out in the big lake!!!

Not just swimming. Hunting season is about to ramp up here in Alaska and there are more than a few Darwin candidates around, but it doesn't even take that. I was thinking about this yesterday.

I read some time back something that, from experience, is pretty much on the money: "Things are going fine until they aren't and suddenly you find out your last three (almost never one) decisions were not good ones."


BTDT. Be careful out there.

A case in point: A friend is up visiting from Colorado, and one of his neighbors, a 65 year old retired astronaut with 3 space missions is in the hospital. This is not a stupid guy. An avid outdoorsman he spends a lot of time, usuually solo, in the outdoors. He had just finished summiting the 3rd highest CO peak when he checked in with his girlfriend via cell about 9:30 am.. OK so far, then ....here come the "Oh, Crap".

He decided to glissade (if I have the term right) - or try - down a snow chute but didn't have his ice ax along. Use a sharp rock instead - OK? Fnding one, he walked to the edge for a look, decided it was too dangerous, turned to retreat and tthe edge fell away with him. Digging the rock in, it came apart in his hands. He hit the rocks below feet first doing about 40, having lost his pack, watch, cell, compound broken arm, both legs broken, one crushed pretty badly. And he was in a ravine. He spen tabout 4 hours piling rocks up to get out, then moving 100 feet to a small ledge where he could maybe be seen, be before another steep drop off. He did still have his flashlight.

When he didn't check in with his girlfriend a short time later, she called S&R - neither the ground parties nor the chopper could find him all day long. With a full moon, the chopper pilot (balls the size of King Kong's) thought he might be able to find him using night vision. Combined with the red lens flashing SOS from the victim's flashlight, the pilot located him and dropped a paramedic mountain rescue guy on the ridge above. The victim, knowing he was now located, left his flashlight on for a beacon. The paramedic was able to descend, find, and stabalize the victim, who would not have made it through the night, and was already resigned to it before the chopper found him, and he had used every survival skill he had available just to make it that far.

i've been caught up in a under tow and ripe currant, surf fishing the island. both are scary but as long as you don't fight them and swim parallel to the shore you will be alright.. i'm safe now i don't go out past my waist without a life jacket on.

edited to add, anytime you're in the salt past your knees you become part of the food chain.

You are right.

I’m not to familiar with the Great Lakes..... did some fishing at Great Lakes after boot camp...

Have plenty of hours in the ocean.

I got pulled out swimming. Twice.

rip tides are knarrly.

Swim perpendicular to the shore. Float on your back if you need to. It saved my ass.