Be careful fishing those spillways-please

[Mean Morone]

Yes that was hard to watch. My buddy and I had engine trouble below Meldahl dam a few years ago and got caught in a reverse current. I thought for sure we were goners as we were drifting pretty fast toward the white water coming out of one of the gates. The trolling motor was on high but had no impact on our drift. The water was getting very rough the closer we got. I didn't even bother with a life vest because I knew it wouldn't make a difference. So I just sat down and waited for the white water to swamp us. My buddy gets the idea to turn the trolling motor toward the dam. He thinks that we can gain speed and then turn sideways at the last minute to pull us out to some calmer water between the gates. I looked at him and said, "are you crazy! we are going to die and you want to make it happen quicker"! Well he turned the trolling motor toward the dam and we started picking up speed. Just as we were getting close to the white death, he turned the trolling motor toward the middle of the river. Sure enough, we slowly started pulling out of it and eventually made it to the calm water between the gates. We were able to turn the trolling motor down stream and we slowly made progress until we hit swifter water and were able to drift on down river. Very scary.

[olgreenboat]

mean morone
I hope that taught you to never give up ..
Folks here is a few things we can do to help us be a little safer and it may save your life ..

When ever I fish such water I take or make a anchor that will hang up real easy and weighs about 20 pounds with a 100 foot of cheep but heavy rope that will hold . We would tie off the rope to the front of the boat before we got close .
Mean your friend had a good idea never go against the current go side ways of it just like getting hung in a rip current and you should have the both of you in the same end of the boat as the motor the reason is maybe you can get the trolling motor down to the good current and it will help but as for me im tossing out the anchor first just make sure you have more feet of line then there is feet of water ..
But in the end folks its just not worth our life any way and i look back on some of the stuff we done and Im glad Im still hear.
Tight lines and be safe..