It's a good rule...

Guardian angel was on your shoulder for sure. Glad the only loss was a phone.

Clint, HA HA! Yeah, you're right about the kill switch. The boat and motor are both a 1980 model and it never had a kill switch on it and to be honest I never even thought about putting one on. If I keep the boat I may but it's developed some leaks in the live well under the front bench seat. Gonna be a real headache to repair. My son and I talked about it and we've about decided to just try to get a safer boat that you can actually sit down in.

And it really doesn't feel unsafe going wide open. The wide bottom gives it real good stability as long as the lake is smooth. (Unless you lose control of the tiller of course.)

My 16' jon with a 25HP was scarey at 25 MPH. It was an electric start so it was easy to wire in a kill-switch in the ignition circuit. I got the switch off Amazon. It had both a "make" circuit to short out a magneto and a "break" circuit for an ignition. If you are going to use the boat I strongly suggest you add a kill-switch. Cheap insurance.

I am glad that the good Lord blessed you with your life. Yes you did several things wrong.

1) Hook your life jacket to your boat kill switch
2) Never leave home without a float plan and telling someone where you will be
3) Never change where or what area you are fishing in without telling someone
4) You were probably going too fast in the boat with your young son on board. He was not impressed but fearful. You want his experience to be enjoyable
5) You need to tell your wife before your son or she figures it out when he does not want to go fishing again with you and she starts asking him why not
6) Loose lips sink ships.

Wow that sounds pretty scary,glad to hear nobody was hurt or even worse.We all can learn something from close call stories
like yours.

Lesson learned. Glad ya'll are safe to go again.

Your story will help someone else. Thanks

GRACE!!!

Speechless, just plain speechless :angel:

Great ending to a scary story, god bless you and your family