Randleman 6-20-15: Not My Day!

I got out on Randleman last Saturday afternoon and found decent fishing but had a terrible outing. Let me explain. I was having a nice but HOT day catching fish, nothing large (couple 2 lbs) but was getting bit. I had lots of fun on one point with schoolers. Anytime they would break where I could cast to them I got bit or caught a fish. I spent several hours trolling all over the area chasing them.

Anyway, about 3:00 storms started building. The first sprinkled on me. The second I saw coming and ran to a bridge and it poured for 7 minutes but blew over quickly. The last one however, was bigger and badder. I was all the way up near 62 fishing the community hole (which surprisingly got me 0 bites) and I could hear lots of thunder. I saw lightning and motored back to the nearest bridge but instead of staying put I decided to run back to the boat ramp. At the time I thought the main part of the storm was going to slide over where I was and I thought I could avoid the worst of it. Well, big mistake on my part. I made it to the ramp as the downpour hit. It was raining so hard I tied up the boat and ran and hid behind a metal sign to block the rain because it was painful. Probably blowing 50 mph. The rain slacks up a bit and I look behind the sign to see 3+ foot waves breaking over the back of my boat. I ran and turned on the bilge but it was too late. The storm passed in 10 minutes but the waves stayed for probably 15 more minutes. My filled with water up to the level of the front deck. The motor was the only thing keeping it off the bottom and the port for the bilge was under water. Fortunately for me there were some good samaratins at the ramp. It took 4 of us but we were able to lift up the back of the boat enough to get the bilge port out of the water and somebody grabbed a cooler and bailed water. Others took my gear off the dock. Once we got most of the water out they helped me put it on the trailer. I don't know what I would have done without them, if any of you kind folks read this thank you again.

When it was all said and done, I destroyed my phone (I had put it in a compartment to keep the rain off and it filled with water), lost a pair of Rx sunglasses, ruined my wallet, had about 5 lbs of mud in the bottom of my boat, and somewhere in the chaos I put a huge bruise on the bottom of my foot and have been limping around since that evening. So, unless I see a tornado coming I will never tie up my boat in a storm, I'll ride it out under a bridge. On a positive note, my boat appears to be fine and if karma pays back with good things, I'm due a 9 lb bass in the near future!