Up Vian Prarie without a paddle
Today started out normal for a Sunday. Woke up to kids crawling into bed, got ready for church, enjoyed fellowship with friends and then on the way home the wife said "it's nice out why don't you go fishing". Well as most of you can assume when my wife mutters those words I can't get the boat loaded up fast enough. So what to do...I don't know the river or Vian Prarie well enough to land any crappie so I dust off the old jugs, grab some shad, and go. I thought about going down river road and launching from the free boat ramp but halfway down river road I decided it was too questionable to continue so after backing up 100 yards and turning around I made my way to Vian Prarie. I launched the boat and snaked my way to the main channel coming off the Arkansas river. I have had success jugging that stretch of water a time or two. Well, as soon as I got all 12 jugs into the water with bait on all three set of hooks each, trouble happened. I pushed the throttle forward and the engine revved but the prop wasn't spinning....back to neutral than to reverse...again nothing. After doing this a few times back and forth finally the prop tured only problem is all I had was reverse. I backed up to the shore tied off and began looking over my boat for an obvious defect...nothing stood out to me... I drove around backward and decided to grab my jugs...no fish just in case you were wondering...of course they only soaked for about 30 minutes. So after grabbing all my jugs I decided I would just drive to the dock backwards. About that time I swear the wind blew roughly 20 mph directly in my face which was now facing backwards in my boat. After zigzagging only 100 yards in 10 minutes over foot high waves that were crashing against the flat of the back of my boat I decided this was not going to work. I drifted up agaisnt the bank and frantically began searching internet forums on my phone for a cause to my problem. After looking and seeing a post about making sure the shaft was aligned properly and the fact that I had recently dropped my lower unit...I decided I would re-drop my lower unit and see if anything looked amiss. I started loosening two bolts on the lower unit and fortunately saw my problem. The transmission linkage was disconnected. I grabbed a wrench and tightened the linkage back up...snugged down the lower unit bolts and started my boat. I pushed the throttle forward and the sound of that prop turning was music to my ears. I seem to be the type of person who learns things the hard-way. Now, If I ever push the throttle forward and hear the engine rev and no prop spinning I'll know where to look. I hope someone reads this and one day knows where to look and what to do because of me. More likely your smart enough to look there in the first place but unfortunately I am new to boating and the hard way is the only path I'll have to travel until I gain more knowledge of this favorite pastime.
