Truman takes a bite out of our weekend

So we had a long weekend on the lakes planned with the kids before they start school again next wednesday.

Made the 4.5hr drive out to Truman Friday night, settled in, and got a full night's sleep... hit the water at 7am Saturday. Aaahhhh...life is good.

Launched the Skeeter out of Bucksaw, picked up some minners, and headed east to a point/cove we thought may be good. A few turns of the lake later, we were scooting down the channel through deep and familiar water and bounced over something submerged, (probably a treetop, because I hadn't been seeing any floating debris). Didn't even rock the boat much at all, but I lost the signal on one of my dashboard fishfinders. Darn, I probably hit a stick and ripped off a transducer. Thats the second one this year - I hit a small stick on Twain a couple of months ago (when it was super-high and full of debris) and broke the prior one.

Oh well, kept cruising to our cove, fished for about 20 minutes with only one nibble, so decided to switch spots. Strapped everything down, started the motor, and (as I've made a habit of for years and years) I flipped on the bilge briefly. Got some water discharge, which shouldn't have happened unless we got a bunch of cooler water spilled or overflowed the livewells somehow. Let it run for a few minutes while I putted out of the cove. Bilge just kept pumping and pumping for several minutes. Hmmmmm. Not good.

So finally the bilge discharge slows to a trickle, and I tell everybody we're headed back to the ramp to pull out the boat and check the hull.

Hauled butt back to the ramp and as soon as I got the boat out I walked to the stern and about $*!% myself. There was a chunk about as large as both of my fists held together knocked out of the stern at the bottom edge, just to the left of center (right where that transducer had been mounted).

When I crawled underneath, it got worse. Running straight toward the bow from the missing chunk in the stern was a crack about 24" long. No surprise there, when we're running full out, thats about all of the boat that touches the water. Looks like we're done for the weekend. Took a few pics - I'll try to post 'em later.

So we head to Clinton, hit the walmart to pick up a few supplies, then get to playing body shop for the day. I cut out the broken glass, used the drill in my toolkit to sand down the entire area with a sanding wheel. Stop-drilled the crack. Then started rebuilding the missing chunk area at the stern and fixing the crack. Took me ALL day to do several layers... I like to do fiberglass in multiple thin layers, and let them dry between. So at the end of a full day of shade-tree body work (and part of the next day), we're in good shape. Gonna need some more sanding, finish fill, and painting, but its functional and back to its' original profile. Just hauled it to LOZ and launched it... looks like we're in business

The moral of the story: We've been talking about getting rid of my duck boat (jon-boat) and the Skeeter both, and getting a much bigger aluminum duck boat that we can crappie fish out of. Something on the order of a 22' Sea Ark. Wish'd I'd have done it before today!

Oh well, lost a day of fishing to do body work on the boat in 100-degree heat while the kids swam, BUT we're back in business today at Lake of the Ozarks

Be safe out there!