My brother Jan came down for his annual winter fishing vacation. His nick name is "Captain Chaos". This adventure proved that I may not want to ever fish with him again unless he burns his hat. Our time together started out with dense fog and strong north winds for several days. Our first attempt at fishing turned out to be a disaster. We left in very dense fog with absolutely no water available. The water was almost 3 feet lower than normal. This particular day I should have stayed home. I had no desire to run the river with boat traffic and dense fog just for a "FUN" trip. I decided to slip into Yellow Cotton bay for some close fishing. Running through the wheel I commented to my brother at how I love to run this in low conditions so I can see where the shallows are and make a mental note as to where these exist.

Once in the bay we were faced with stirred up dirty water. I checked out a few places close by with nothing happening. I was running both radar and GPS on a split screen and GPS with depth on my other system. I talked to another captain who was across the bay and figured we would do better going there to get out of the rough water and be on the side where the water is not as stirred up. I kind of headed back to my old tracks where I always cross the bay and even have tracks where I ran my offshore boat when I was running for BP. Just before I got to my old tracks, in the middle of the bay, I struck something steel. I was on plane running at 35 mph. The boat jumped out of the water and came to an instant stop when it landed. My brother was holding on to the radar arch and the seat rail. He tightened his grip and braced for the landing. He was fine. I grabbed the wheel tight and was pushed against the center consul. I only bruised my thigh. The boat had a chunk taken out of the hull in the stern but it was more cosmetic. No water was coming in. Although the lower unit was badly damaged it still ran. The prop did not even have a mark on it the boat jumped that fast. The jolt locked up my radar. Half of the screen was black and the other half was full of yellow lines. The map side of that electronics unit froze up also. I could not shut the unit down but it was froze in place. Not working at all. My other unit went down and something inside broke. We can no longer power it up. To say we were lucky was an understatement.

My neighbor Dan came over and did the glass work on my boat. We got my radar unit to run again and that electronics package was good to go. Maybe then ride back home on the wonderful Louisiana roads shook things back into place. The other unit was shot. I hated that because a lot of my old marks were on it.

After a day of repairs, replacement, and insurance company calls my brother (Captain Chaos) and I were off on another adventure. We left the marina around 7:30. Conditions were still foggy and shallow but at least a foot more water this day. This day I went straight across the bay on my tried and true marks. This side had a bit cleaner water and looked favorable. Once across the bay we settled down to a good day of fishing. The fish gods were in our favor today.


The bite was slow to start but we did find a few nice ones. As the day went on we did find a lot of good action. Not the bulls he likes to fight because of conditions but we had action and plenty of it.



I found one place that seemed to have fish and bait running around it so we settled in for some very hot action. All our fish were keepers. This was something dreams are made of. Glad it was my brother and not a first time customer. If a customer they would expect this all the time. We were landing doubles on a regular basis.



The action was so hot we just put them on the deck until we limited out which did not take long. I wish I could make more of a story of this but it was just cast to the edge of the canes and reel in another keeper. If wen both hit the water at the same time we both brought in fish at the same time.



We had a our limit of 10 redfish at 9:00.



From then on we were playing catch and release for the rest of the day. I started moving around a bit and although not as much action it was still steady enough to make for a fantastic fishing trip.





My brother was casting a gold weedless spoon landing and releasing keeper redfish. As he was reeling another good fish he says trout. I thought nothing of it and was still bringing in my redfish. He said trout again. I look up and see a trout coming across the water. I toss my rod in a rod holder and jump for the net. To my surprise he had on a very beautiful 18 inch speckled trout. This was a very nice color change to our box of redfish.



By this time we had already moved well into another area. We decided we had a good day and decided to head back for lunch at Venice marina. As I was powering up I hit an upright steel pipe, 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter, just under the water. I could tell this from the rusted chunk taken out of the prop on one blade. This bent the shaft bad and we were done for the day. Long story short after 2 days with "Captain Chaos" on board I now have a patched up hull, new electronics, and a new lower unit. Seeing I am going broke I also have decided to replace my 10 foot Blade power pole that is worn out from all the use I have given it. The newer models are much stronger designed and other bugs worked out. I have one of the original Blades they made. time to upgrade.

Burn that hat brother!

Life is Good!

Your on a roll larry

I was about to say, two Hoops are better than one, but maybe not during this visit!

Glad you're OK. Great that you have kept yourself in great shape to be able to handle everything that life ... and boats ... throw at you.

Sorry about the damage, but glad you were still able to keep on fishing.

Capt. Hoop can't be stopped!