Jim Beam
06-16-2000, 11:47 AM
This is a story from the Mpls Star Tribune of two guys that were fishing a T on Lake Mille Lacs. It reminds us what could happen to even experienced fishermen. This lake will eat you alive if you're not careful when it gets rough. It's a natural lake of 180,000 + acres. Enjoy and Ranger riders what do you think?
Scott Enfield and Dan Welty entered last week's WaveWacker walleye tournament on Mille Lacs hoping to take home the $100,000 top prize. In the end, they were happy just to get home. Enfield and Welty were well down in the competitive pack going into the contest's second day. During the initial day of fishing, they had been unlucky: Of 14 walleyes they caught, they could legally weigh only two. The remaining dozen fell within Mille Lacs' protective walleye slot.
Enter Day Two.
Enfield and Welty were among the last boats sent out. When their number was called, they angled into a following sea, directing Enfield's 681 Ranger in a northwesterly direction at about 18 miles per hour.
"We were running with the waves, and not at an excessive speed," Welty said.
What happened next transpired in perhaps only 10 seconds, Enfield and Welty said. With Enfield at the wheel in the single-console boat and Welty sitting to his left, the boat lifted onto a wave . . . and came down, bow first, into the back of the next wave.
As that occurred, the Ranger "submarined," with the bow disappearing briefly, then rising. As it did, it took on about a foot of water. "I nearly got knocked out of the boat as the water rushed to the back," Welty said.
Enfield said he can't recall whether at that moment he stood or perhaps moved in a way that disconnected the engine cut-off switch attached to his life jacket.
Or perhaps the engine died on its own. In any event, with the boat now riding lower than normal, and in seas that ran 3 to 6 feet, two large waves came over the rudderless Ranger from the stern, one after another. Wind speed at the time: 10 to 25 miles per hour.
"When the second wave hit us, that was it. We were completely under water," Enfield said. Enfield, 39, and Welty, 43, both of Maple Grove, have experienced their share of unusual occurrences during the years they have fished together.
But nothing like this. Fortunately, both wore life jackets. Both also found comfort in their newfound knowledge that Rangers don't sink.
Yet Enfield and Welty can attest that submerged Rangers with 115-horsepower outboards hung on their sterns do tend to float more vertically than horizontally.
Which is why in their dilemma Welty, who had begun the day only wanting to catch walleyes, now was perched on the bow of the boat -- the only part exposed above the waves -- while Enfield, knee-deep in water, stood as best he could on the forward deck. Water temperature: 60 degrees.
Now anyone who fishes Mille Lacs will attest you can't find a moment's peace on the big lake if you're catching walleyes.
Or so it seems.
But sink a boat on Mille Lacs, Enfield and Welty say, and you're suddenly the loneliest person on the water.
"We had a half-dozen boats run within 100 or 200 yards of us that didn't see us," Enfield said. "We were hard to see. We only had about 2 feet of our boat sticking out of the water." The two anglers weren't worried for their safety.
Not at first. But as five minutes turned into 10, then 20 and 30, dark thoughts occasionally arose.
"With the adrenaline rush that accompanied everything that had happened, we weren't that cold at first," Enfield said. Had the pair made it closer to their destination -- a popular Mille Lacs mud flat -- they might have been spotted shortly after they swamped.
Instead, they were reduced to waving and shouting at boats that passed . . . just out of reach.
Then, 40 minutes or so after they went down, the boat flipped. Why it did, Enfield and Welty are unsure. Perhaps, they speculate, the head of the outboard, being heavier than the lower unit, naturally sought the deeper water.
In any event, the pair's predicament suddenly had grown more difficult. And expensive personal and fishing gear that heretofore had not exited the craft now floated away, creating a sort of oil slick of recreational debris.
That, as it turned out, was their ticket home. "As it happened, another competitor found himself floating in the middle of our fishing gear and he figured something had gone wrong," Enfield said. "He started looking for us."
He found two men who were wet, cold and worried. But not particularly endangered. "We used his cell phone to call for a launch to pull our boat back to shore," Enfield said.
Enfield's boat and motor, valued at between $17,000 and $19,000, were under water for about five hours.
Insurance adjusters are among those weighing in on the mishap.
"I've played this thing over and over in my mind, 100 times or more," Enfield said. "I can't figure out why it happened. I do know the most important thing is to have a life jacket on, which we did."
Scott Enfield and Dan Welty entered last week's WaveWacker walleye tournament on Mille Lacs hoping to take home the $100,000 top prize. In the end, they were happy just to get home. Enfield and Welty were well down in the competitive pack going into the contest's second day. During the initial day of fishing, they had been unlucky: Of 14 walleyes they caught, they could legally weigh only two. The remaining dozen fell within Mille Lacs' protective walleye slot.
Enter Day Two.
Enfield and Welty were among the last boats sent out. When their number was called, they angled into a following sea, directing Enfield's 681 Ranger in a northwesterly direction at about 18 miles per hour.
"We were running with the waves, and not at an excessive speed," Welty said.
What happened next transpired in perhaps only 10 seconds, Enfield and Welty said. With Enfield at the wheel in the single-console boat and Welty sitting to his left, the boat lifted onto a wave . . . and came down, bow first, into the back of the next wave.
As that occurred, the Ranger "submarined," with the bow disappearing briefly, then rising. As it did, it took on about a foot of water. "I nearly got knocked out of the boat as the water rushed to the back," Welty said.
Enfield said he can't recall whether at that moment he stood or perhaps moved in a way that disconnected the engine cut-off switch attached to his life jacket.
Or perhaps the engine died on its own. In any event, with the boat now riding lower than normal, and in seas that ran 3 to 6 feet, two large waves came over the rudderless Ranger from the stern, one after another. Wind speed at the time: 10 to 25 miles per hour.
"When the second wave hit us, that was it. We were completely under water," Enfield said. Enfield, 39, and Welty, 43, both of Maple Grove, have experienced their share of unusual occurrences during the years they have fished together.
But nothing like this. Fortunately, both wore life jackets. Both also found comfort in their newfound knowledge that Rangers don't sink.
Yet Enfield and Welty can attest that submerged Rangers with 115-horsepower outboards hung on their sterns do tend to float more vertically than horizontally.
Which is why in their dilemma Welty, who had begun the day only wanting to catch walleyes, now was perched on the bow of the boat -- the only part exposed above the waves -- while Enfield, knee-deep in water, stood as best he could on the forward deck. Water temperature: 60 degrees.
Now anyone who fishes Mille Lacs will attest you can't find a moment's peace on the big lake if you're catching walleyes.
Or so it seems.
But sink a boat on Mille Lacs, Enfield and Welty say, and you're suddenly the loneliest person on the water.
"We had a half-dozen boats run within 100 or 200 yards of us that didn't see us," Enfield said. "We were hard to see. We only had about 2 feet of our boat sticking out of the water." The two anglers weren't worried for their safety.
Not at first. But as five minutes turned into 10, then 20 and 30, dark thoughts occasionally arose.
"With the adrenaline rush that accompanied everything that had happened, we weren't that cold at first," Enfield said. Had the pair made it closer to their destination -- a popular Mille Lacs mud flat -- they might have been spotted shortly after they swamped.
Instead, they were reduced to waving and shouting at boats that passed . . . just out of reach.
Then, 40 minutes or so after they went down, the boat flipped. Why it did, Enfield and Welty are unsure. Perhaps, they speculate, the head of the outboard, being heavier than the lower unit, naturally sought the deeper water.
In any event, the pair's predicament suddenly had grown more difficult. And expensive personal and fishing gear that heretofore had not exited the craft now floated away, creating a sort of oil slick of recreational debris.
That, as it turned out, was their ticket home. "As it happened, another competitor found himself floating in the middle of our fishing gear and he figured something had gone wrong," Enfield said. "He started looking for us."
He found two men who were wet, cold and worried. But not particularly endangered. "We used his cell phone to call for a launch to pull our boat back to shore," Enfield said.
Enfield's boat and motor, valued at between $17,000 and $19,000, were under water for about five hours.
Insurance adjusters are among those weighing in on the mishap.
"I've played this thing over and over in my mind, 100 times or more," Enfield said. "I can't figure out why it happened. I do know the most important thing is to have a life jacket on, which we did."