What has hurt your BOAT the most?

I have destroyed several lower units, trolling motor shafts, trolling motor brackets, tried to rip the transom off, about had an electrical fire one day...

But the worst one yet..
I took my wife duck hunting on grassy one morning, we were the first to launch, first to the big water so I was able to set up on which ever hole I wanted! Nothing could be better !
Then I realized..... There was not a single shotgun in the boat!
So off we went like a bat out of hell back to the truck. Thought I could squeeze between these 2 cypress trees at 30 mph... WRONG!
Bowed the sides in like an hour glass!
Rivets shooting out like a machine gun "POP POP POP POP POP"
Spend an hour in the freezing water trying to get out!

Here some duck hunting battle scars. I try to run it in close quarters. Attachment 117317
Attachment 117318Attachment 117319
[ATTACH]117320[/ATTACH

That sounds like some of my duck huntin trips. I hit a log in the Halowell ditch some years ago and the motor popped up and stuck boat did a 180 and hit the bank and i can still hear that 25 running wide open as i went out backwards in the water right beside it. I knew things were bad when it went silent and sunk.

I tore up a lower unit and my trolling motor trying to find a path to Caney creek from the main lake on Conway.
I found out water can move the boulders on the upper White. It cost me a prop and skag.
DP

Remind me to never ride in ya'lls boats!:help

In 2005 I had a 185 Tracker jet and I hit a boulder on the White River. Damaged the hull and caused a small leak, could have been worst.
I can only assume JigPole that you did not get any ducks. Sorry for your damaged

The rain. I left my boat at buddies pond with the intent of fishing the next day, it was a week when i finally got back and with some good rains I found nothing but about a foot of the bow sticking out of the water.

Joe, did you get any ducks?

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Originally Posted by Buckrub

Joe, did you get any ducks?

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Not that day... Got unstuck and went to the house!
Did loose an iPhone tho!

Oh, well that was a plus, at least!!! Hope you replaced it with an Android! :Rofl

Nimrod I like get you in my boat at 4am running 30 mph throw the timber. :biggrin We have fun cut the trees back.

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Originally Posted by DRPEPPER

I tore up a lower unit and my trolling motor trying to find a path to Caney creek from the main lake on Conway.
I found out water can move the boulders on the upper White. It cost me a prop and skag.
DP

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there is a path, it just requires a mud motor.

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Originally Posted by Gindog

Nimrod I like get you in my boat at 4am running 30 mph throw the timber. :biggrin We have fun cut the trees back.

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I used to run a Johnson v-4 90 hp on my 16' x 48'' Aluma-weld boat. It would run over 50 mph and I used to cut through the woods and buck brush every time water was high. I used to fish Bass Tourneys and some guys were shocked in their big bass boats when they pulled to the back of creeks only to see me already there fishing. The trip was about 1/2 the distance through the woods and fields. You shoulda seen guys face when I told them put rods in the bottom of the boat and head down, then crash through a wall of head high buck brush.:Rofl I slowed just enough to raise the bow to plow through the brush.

When my first daughter was born 11 weeks early and she spent 26 days in NICU at Baptist Hospital hurt my boat the worst. Finacially strapped and selling the boat to pay Dr bills was the only option. I am just about to get my first boat in 7 years as soon as Obama sends back some of the money he borrowed.Slackline

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Originally Posted by slackline

When my first daughter was born 11 weeks early and she spent 26 days in NICU at Baptist Hospital hurt my boat the worst. Finacially strapped and selling the boat to pay Dr bills was the only option. I am just about to get my first boat in 7 years as soon as Obama sends back some of the money he borrowed.Slackline

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Hope that happens, but expect him to just ask for more soon.:bash

Under water obstructions like stumps, logs and big rocks...hurt my boat the most i have hit them all at one time or another and have costed me 100's in repairs.

On Lake Fork in Texas , stopped at the marina to eat lunch . My overflow hose from my livewell somehow came disconnected and while was eating it pumped my boat full of water !! when i got back tackle boxes were floating !! dipped water for 45 mins just so i could get back in it !

Duck hunting is obviously hard on a boat. I got stuck one time trying to get my boat out of a bean field. Ended up having to drop my trailer and leave the boat. The next morning I came back to get it out, and it was frozen about 6 foot from the trailer. So I thought I could hook the winch to it and pull it up on the trailer. Well, it kindda worked. The eye that I hooked to, and a piece about 4" x 8" came up on the trailer. The rest of it stayed in the ice.

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Originally Posted by slackline

When my first daughter was born 11 weeks early and she spent 26 days in NICU at Baptist Hospital hurt my boat the worst. Finacially strapped and selling the boat to pay Dr bills was the only option. I am just about to get my first boat in 7 years as soon as Obama sends back some of the money he borrowed.Slackline

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I pray your daughter is doing well. That must have been rough.
But, I hope you are not expecting Oblammy to give you some money he takes from me!! I have never heard of him nor any of the Gubmint actually returning money.
DP

3 things here:

#1 I was running the ditch behind Hollowell at 30 mph in the dark and it was about 25 degrees, I hit "something" and the tiller handle ripped from my hand, and the next thing I know, I was in the buckbrush, and then going 0 mph with the nose burried in the resivoir levee about 8-10". This all took about 0.04 seconds. I just knew that I was alive, and so was my buddy in the front of the boat, and noone had injuries. BUT my buddy did have to finish off the drive the rest of the way to the hole that morning.

#2 I was testing out a motor that my wife's grandad was wanting to sell. I thought he motor was too long shafted for his boat, so I put it on mine for the test run. I went out, ran up and down the lake with the wife and kid for 20 minutes or so. They were tired of boat ridding, so i dropped them off at the dock. It was at this point I loosened up the tie down bolts and moved the motor a little to the left to center it up. The wife then said some stuff, and got me thinking of something else, so I did what she told me to. Then I jumped back inthe boat and tore out from the dock like I was running holes at Bayou Meto. Then as I made my wide turn to go down the lake, I felt the motor shift, looked back and it was cock-eyed, I let off the throttle (BIG MISTAKE). The motor, and gas decided to go for a swim. I was in the middle of the lake, cursing like nobody had ever seen before. Wife was onthe dock trying to figure out what had happened and then didn't beleive me when I told her the motor fell off. A buddy with scuba gear came out and helped me find the motor, we got it running within an hour after removing it from water, and then the next week, i sold it to a guy from Stuttgart for WAY too much :twocents

#3 Once again, running the ditch behind Hollowell, I was laughing as i flew past all the guys cleaning grass off thier props. I couldn't beleive mine was cutting thru and thier's were not. Well, about 1/2 way down the ditch, my motor just cut off... died like I shut it off in gear. I was not too worried until I looked back, and there was so much steam comming off the motor. Then I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay for a new motor. After about 20 minutes, I figuredd, i had nothing to loose, tried to start it up, and it fired, sounded fine, and we went hunting. One of the worst hunts I have been on in years. TOkk it to the shop later that day, and all checked out just fine. Still running today.

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Originally Posted by LMBarnett

3 things here:

#1 I was running the ditch behind Hollowell at 30 mph in the dark and it was about 25 degrees, I hit "something" and the tiller handle ripped from my hand, and the next thing I know, I was in the buckbrush, and then going 0 mph with the nose burried in the resivoir levee about 8-10". This all took about 0.04 seconds. I just knew that I was alive, and so was my buddy in the front of the boat, and noone had injuries. BUT my buddy did have to finish off the drive the rest of the way to the hole that morning.

#2 I was testing out a motor that my wife's grandad was wanting to sell. I thought he motor was too long shafted for his boat, so I put it on mine for the test run. I went out, ran up and down the lake with the wife and kid for 20 minutes or so. They were tired of boat ridding, so i dropped them off at the dock. It was at this point I loosened up the tie down bolts and moved the motor a little to the left to center it up. The wife then said some stuff, and got me thinking of something else, so I did what she told me to. Then I jumped back inthe boat and tore out from the dock like I was running holes at Bayou Meto. Then as I made my wide turn to go down the lake, I felt the motor shift, looked back and it was cock-eyed, I let off the throttle (BIG MISTAKE). The motor, and gas decided to go for a swim. I was in the middle of the lake, cursing like nobody had ever seen before. Wife was onthe dock trying to figure out what had happened and then didn't beleive me when I told her the motor fell off. A buddy with scuba gear came out and helped me find the motor, we got it running within an hour after removing it from water, and then the next week, i sold it to a guy from Stuttgart for WAY too much :twocents

#3 Once again, running the ditch behind Hollowell, I was laughing as i flew past all the guys cleaning grass off thier props. I couldn't beleive mine was cutting thru and thier's were not. Well, about 1/2 way down the ditch, my motor just cut off... died like I shut it off in gear. I was not too worried until I looked back, and there was so much steam comming off the motor. Then I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay for a new motor. After about 20 minutes, I figuredd, i had nothing to loose, tried to start it up, and it fired, sounded fine, and we went hunting. One of the worst hunts I have been on in years. TOkk it to the shop later that day, and all checked out just fine. Still running today.

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The grass prolly clogged the water inlet, very common...
Outboards can get hot many many times without damaging them.

What has hurt mine the most is a loose nut on the tiller handle. This seems to happen at least once each year at the most inopportune times, and has resulted in miscellaneous damage to my boat, equipment, and pride.

Wasn't my boat, but about 15 years ago a buddy and I were going duck hunting off black river. It was opening day around an hour before daylight, and my friend left something in the truck. We were headed up river when he hit a snag sticking up at an angle down river. I flipped the boat up nearly 90 degrees on its side. Both of us went in the water. Luckily i managed to grab the side of the boat on my way out, and pulled myself back in. He was lucky he was wearing a float coat, because i had to turn the boat around and go drag him back in. He ended up with a broken toe somehow. We made it back to his truck. He went home, and I went with the guy we were meeting. The snag punched a hole in the front of the boat about the size of a pringles can. At least it was above the water line, so it didn't sink.

Sounds like a lot of close calls!
Good reason to remember "BE CAREFUL"

I read a sign one day..
It had a picture of life jackets and children.
It said "If you don't wear these, who will take care of them"

3/4" piece of rebar drove into a stump and high water. Going down the river on plane on Millwood Lake. Got to the spot I wanted and started slowing down. I knew the backwash was coming so I throttled her a bit and felt a very small bump on something but the boat just stopped dead in its tracks. Knew it was bad when I saw the building pool of water coming up from the floor drains. It was winter and about 35 degrees. I tried for 3 hours to get the rig to move. Still didn't know it was rebar. I stripped down and tied the bow rope to me and told my buddy to save my ass if I didn't come back up. Jumped in and got under the boat, found the stump and felt the piece of rebar going into the middle of the keel. This was a 20' Stratos with a 250 Merc. I tried to lift it up but the water was too deep and I was turning blue. Ended up calling a buddy to come drag us off. Kept the bilge pump running and ran the 20 miles back to the landing. I had to take the center livewell out, the built in gas tank, and patch from the inside. It was not to bad a hole until we started pulling it off the rebar. Not a fun trip. I did find the rebar when the water went down and cut it off the stump.

About a month later, I had bought one of those automatic bow eye connectors that let you just run the boat up on the trailer and it would automatically connect......Well it didn't and I had those teflon strips on the trailer bunks. You guessed it. The wife started pulling up the hill at yarborough landing and the boat slid right off the trailer. The guy that helped me get it back on the trailer ended up buying the boat from me. The ramp did a lot of damage while the boat was dragging. It is hard for a wife to hear manly screams for life over a noisey diesel. Could have been worse though.....almost went to work that day. :)

Hey Lipripper,
It is beyond my thinking WHY people put rebar on a stump to mark it. I see a lot of rebar on Reelfoot Lake and yes durning high water folks are always scraping the bottom of their boat. I would rather use a peice of sharpen PVC or treated wooden stake. Or better yet DON'T DO NOTHING. Leave the stump alone.

One thing this thread has taught me..

I will NEVER buy a boat from a duck hunter.......

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Originally Posted by 20watt

One thing this thread has taught me..

I will NEVER buy a boat from a duck hunter.......

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That's right!!

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Originally Posted by 20watt

One thing this thread has taught me..

I will NEVER buy a boat from a duck hunter.......

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:hesaid