Home Forums Birds & Dogs Waterfowl Just a reminder

A duck hunter from Minnesota drowned in a regional lake Saturday when the boat swamped. Two were saved by other hunters. First report was they think the boat was overloaded

The kicker is life jackets were in the boat. Lotta good that did.

KSFY

That's terrible.

Lost an acquaintance to an overloaded boat. It was 26 years ago today in fact. His hunting partner nearly died too, the partner swam to shore but grew tired of swimming and gave up. He hit bottom right away and realized the water was only knee deep. He crawled out and still nearly died of hypothermia as the air temp was 61 degrees which was barely enough to counter the colder water. It is thought if it would have been cloudy he would have died.

That really had an affect on me. Not only am I more careful of loading a boat, I cut my hunting over water by 3/4 at least. Pretty hard to drown in a crop field around here; at least it was before this year.

My buddy and I are getting a boat. He thinks flat bottom. Not with my money. I've capsized before, I'm thinking 1800 Alaskan.

Whichever, the point is don't just throw life jackets in the boat to be legal, wear them. I use the pull to inflate suspenders, they are no bother. Early ice fishing too but I'm a chicken and wait, usually until you can land aircraft on the ice. (You'll want a V hull for the wind)