A few years back before I got my own boat I went fishing with a buddy of mine and his step Dad. We met up early one morning and went to a new lake (new at the time) cedar creek. Well my buddies step dad likes to do some drinkin from time to time, which is no problem, but this time it was a big problem.

He slept the whole way to the lake which I never thought anything about but apparently he never went to sleep that night and had his last drink right before they left the house. Well we got the boat in the water and started fishing and I knew it was going to be a long day. 5 or 6 casts into it all his poles were backlashed and one was broken and he was stumbling all around his boat. My buddy and I were both starting to get pissed and ready to pack it in .

We pull into a little cut where they had caught some a couple weeks before and he fell in the lake really hard, and with no lifejacket. We both knew he could swim so we thought he would make his way back to the boat. Well about 10 or 15 seconds went by and he never came up . I immediately dove straight in to the area he fell in at. I swam down and down and down and was really panicking. Keep in mind we were in 25ft. deep water and it was pretty stained. I swim a little deeper and see a faint white color, thankfully his t-shirt. I grabbed it and with everything I had kicked and swam my way to the top of the water. As soon as we get up to the top of the water I could tell he wasn't breathing , so I started punching around his chest while we were in the water trying to get him to come back. Thank god he spit up that water and came too. My buddy had some floats waiting for us so I grabbed them and we made our way back into the boat. Needless to say after some harsh cuss words towards him we got outta there.

I learned a great lesson that day that I have been told before. Alcohol and boating don't mix. I still may have a few beers in the boat (shhhh) on a long fishing trip but I will limit them, and if you're in bad shape you're not getting in my boat.