[Sticky] Man overboard

I almost went saturday by myself also, since I cannot find a crew. I used to fish alone a lot until a few years ago when someone who fell out of the boat was not found. That's when I stopped. I had a funny feeling saturday morning at 5 am sitting in my driveway when I decided not to go. Weird feeling to hear about that guy and glad it turned out for him and his wife.

I'll will certainy do as Capt Dave says and hope everyone else does too.

I'm going sat, with the wife.

I saw this thread and thought I would take this opportunity to give a sincere and heartfelt thank you to all of the "good Samaritan" boaters that participated in the search for me on Saturday. I am very appreciative of your time and effort. I wish I could personally thank each and every one of you.

I went overboard about 10:30 a.m., one half mile due south of WR4. I was recovered about 5:20 p.m. by a recreational boater, William Murdock and crew on the "Reel Obsession". Also thanks to Capt. Bob Barrentine and crew on the "Reel Drag" for boarding my unmanned boat and contacting the USCG.

Based on the name of the two boats involved in my search and rescue, someone has suggested I should change the name of my boat to "Reel Lucky", which I certainly feel that I am.

Steve Bright

CitationX,
Thank You for stopping by. I am glad you are here to read this thread. You are a very lucky man. Want to know how lucky....

http://captgregmickey.org/

We could be naming a Reef after you too....

We have some folks on here that fish alone from time to time. Would you Please take a moment and educate them about what went wrong in your case and what you would do different now if you did it again?

Maybe we can use what happened to you to stop something like this from happening to anyone else that might read this.

Dave

CitationX, yes you were lucky but you obviously kept your wits about you and didn't panic and make a bad situation worse. Thank goodness for yourself and your family that there was a happy ending to this story, seems that its not usually the case when we hear a MOB story. Thanks for posting, hope we get to hear from you for a long long time.

Ray

My serious side says glad you're alive and well and yeah any lessons learned would be great.

My smart ass side really wants to know if you landed the fish.

When we boarded the boat, 2 lines were in the water, 1 on the downrigger, pulled it up empty, the center line was spooled out, and had something on it, we reeled it in (hoping it was not a person) saw it was a small shark, cut him loose. I would think he would have had more then 2 lines out? So we figured he maybe fell over with 1? I looked for the gaff and did not see one, after calling for help we began the search and I found 1 gaff stowed away but figured he may have had 2? We hoped the whole time while searching that he had just fallen overboard and tried very hard to keep all the "bad thoughts" away (heat attack, stroke, etc.) 1 thing we found very odd was that his live bait wells were full, ice in the hatch, everything seemed to be in order EXCEPT... there were no drinks! There was 1 HOT water bottle almost full sitting on the seat. Why would someone travel 25 miles off shore, set up to fish for a while it seemed, and not bring anything to drink? Seemed a little odd! We kept yelling for him... Dude, where are you? Dude hang in there! We kept thinking about him floating around out there, sure that his whole life was re playing in his mind over and over, what he has done, what he hasn’t done yet, did he tell his wife and kids he loved them before he left, all the family and friends that would be crushed to hear the news, how many lives would change that day? When it started to rain we became more anxious to find him, thinking what he must be going through and now this? Water was getting choppy, rain, and thunder... We just kept yelling HANG IN THERE! WERE COMING! DON”T GIVE UP! We were very upset when the coast guard told us that we had to return to our boat (that was being towed in) because it was getting late and they did not want us out there getting lost too but we knew that the coast guard would not give up, they assured us they would continue to search and use his boats navigational equipment to continue to trace back his coarse as we had been doing. We all hoped and prayed. The long (slow) tow back home gave us all time to think. We asked ourselves many questions along the way and as soon as we heard the news over the radio... "They found him".... we asked our last question ... is he alive? The answer came back loud and clear!!!! YES, YES HE IS! WOW!

Wow that is quite a story. I'm glad it had a good ending.

I fished in the same area a month ago by myself, so this story hits home big time. I like the upper-thigh high freeboard my Kencraft has even more.

Captain Dave,

I will be glad to provide a description of what went wrong. I am responding in hopes this information may help someone else; I am not soliciting for advice. I have been a saltwater fisherman for over 30 years. I stopped fishing alone about 15 years ago. Since then, I always fish with a crew of 1-3. I consider myself safety conscious; I typically use a checklist prior to departure. I have every safety device one could wish for on my boat. When I run my boat in the open ocean, I am one of the few people I know that actually use the kill switch lanyard. How could this happen to me?

I had not been fishing in 6 or 7 weeks and was anxious to go. When the weather looked like it may be good, I made a last minute decision on Friday afternoon to fish on Saturday. With such short notice, none of my fishing buddies were able to go. No problem, weather will be good, I will make a short trip Saturday morning and be back at the dock before 2:00 pm. I gave my wife locations of where I would be fishing and my arrival time back at the dock. I knew there would be other boats fishing close by, so I would not really be alone.

Caught bait, went to the dredge wreck, started fishing about 8:30 a.m. Not much action, moved out to WR4 about 10:15 a.m. Started fishing about one half mile from WR4, put the boat on autopilot, slow trolling. Two other boats were about two hundred yards away. Within a few minutes of putting out the lines I had a big fish on. Rod on the port side was in the way, so I was going to put it on the T top, something I have done a thousand times. I must have slipped. I am not really sure exactly what happened. In the blink of an eye, I went over the gunwale, head first in the water. I dropped my rods and when I surfaced, I was facing away from the boat. Turned, located the boat, kicked off my shoes and tried to swim to the boat. Missed it by inches, and I could not catch it. There I was, 25 miles off shore with only a pair of shorts and a watch.

I know there are inflatable life vests, remote kill switches, tether lines, etc. If I normally fished alone, I may have used some of those safety devices, but I didn't. All of the safety equipment I have on my boat did not do me much good, as I saw my boat disappear over the horizon. I am not sure I qualify to give advice to anyone, but this is what I have learned:

I always thought these incidents happened to someone else, but I was wrong, it can happen to you. Accidents can happen so fast, you have no time to react. Fishing alone allows zero tolerance for error; one mistake can be fatal, there is no one to help you. It's a big ocean and you are very small. Over the course of about seven hours in the water I saw two boats within one hundred yards and maybe 4-5 boats within two hundred yards, but they could not see me, no matter what I did. I was lucky that I did not panic; I remained calm, focused on what I had to do to survive and managed to save my energy and keep my head above water until I was rescued. I hope none of you ever has to be in that situation.

Steve Bright

I thank God it turned out well for you and hope we all can take something we each can use from this episode of life!

CitationX,
Thank You VERY much for having the balls to make that post. Most folks would be hiding in the corner somewhere scared to admit to making a mistake. My hats off to you sir for standing up and shouting what happened to you in an effort to keep it from happing to someone else. You may very well save someones elses life.

I will only 1 piece of advice to you in the future and then I will lock this thread and make it a sticky in this forum. I hope a lot of folks take the time to read it and learn this important lesson.

My 1 piece of advice is this....

If you can not find someone to go fishing with....even on short notice. Come to this site and make a post that you are looking for someone to go. There are over 3000 people a day that read here....most of them fisherman. I see it all the time on here....people getting hooked up to go....so in the future...Post Up!

Thank you again!

Dave