FISHERMAN RESCUED FROM MUD ON DES PLAINES RIVER

[Lipripper]

WARRENVILLE, Ill. -- A man had to be rescued when he became stuck in the mud on Saturday while fishing on the Des Plaines River in west suburban Warrenville.

Tony Krizek was out fishing with a friend and walking along the bank of the river near Batavia and Warrenville roads when his leg sunk into the mud nearly above his knee, he told reporters after being rescued about 3 p.m. When he tried to get free, he found his foot was suctioned down in the muck.

"There was no budging," Krizek said. "I couldn't get out at all."

Lt. Eric Ermer of the Warrenville Fire Protection District said Krizek was stuck for about 2 1/2 hours before he called authorities and crews were dispatched to help him out of the sticky situation.

Firefighters threw Krizek a rope and built a platform so he could be pulled out of the mud, Ermer said.

"They were wonderful," Krizek said of his rescuers. "I'm very, very grateful for these guys."

[FloridaFishinFool]

Lip this happens on the St. Johns river all the time!

But it is not the mud's fault!!! 

Last summer some guy and his gal were in one of those big dollar flats boats- one that cost well over $50k. He was hauling butt South on the St. Johns river and made the mistake of going South of the hiway 46 bridge at full speed too!

Almost as soon as he cleared the bridge on the South side he ramped up onto a sandbar and got stuck in the middle of it.

He waved us locals down to help him push it off the sandbar. So we stopped and got out into the middle of the river. It was only about 12 inches deep where his boat was stuck. We walked all around that boat for 30 and 40 feet out from it in every direction looking for deeper water to float him out in and it was still 12 inches deep everywhere!

His forward inertia really put him deep into the middle of the sandbar. So us 3 men (yeah she did not even try to help) tried pushing that boat off the sandbar and we could not even move it 6 inches. It was just too heavy. So we climbed back into our flat bottomed aluminum john boat and waved bye and told him good luck and we went on down river for some bass fishing. He was lucky to be in cell phone range of calling for help.

Another idiot was learning a hard lesson on that river! (And I don't say idiot to be offensive) But when someone does not know the waters don't do stupid things like going full speed.

Over the decades I have fished the river in our area I have watched many an outsider try bringing their big money deep drafting boats into our part of the river and pay the price big time!

A few years ago I was sitting in a boat anchored up on the backside of the sandbar at the mouth of Lake Harney. Everyone who fishes this area KNOWS there is a big sandbar at the mouth of the lake on the South end. Just watch the birds. You can see birds standing on top of the sandbar out in what appears to be the middle of the lake. When the water is low only a couple of inches of water are on top of the sandbar and the birds love sitting up there waiting on the bass to bust up on baitfish and chase those baitfish right to the waiting birds.

We sit on the backside of the sandbar where the current is pushing around and up and over the sandbar and the bass school up on the lake side of the sandbar and go into a feeding frenzy. So you can cast over the sandbar with just anything that moves that even resembles a baitfish and get instant hookups one after another at certain times of the year and day.

So there were just fishing away and some idiot in one of those big heavy fiberglass boats costing tens of thousands of dollars comes flying up river at full speed with his entire family in the boat. He thinks he can just keep on going straight up river and straight into the lake! WRONG! Everyone knows you slow down and make a 90 degree right turn and follow the channel markers which are nothing more than PVC pipes use locals have hammered into river bottom to show the way around the sandbar. So they are not official government type of channel markers, just some homemade channel markers us locals use. And apparently the idiot had no clue!

So as he is flying up river, my buddy and I stand up in our john boat and try and frantically wave the idiot down to slow down. All he did was keep the throttle wide open and wave back to us as he blindly kept right on going right straight into the sandbar.

He should consider himself lucky honestly that he did not hurt or kill anyone in his family.

I can still see it in my head like it is in slow motion. The sand bar is soft sand and a nice shallow sloping ramp he hit so the boat at first lurched straight up into the air and shot him and his family straight up into the air too! All 5 of them. Straight up! And then the boat came to a quick halt but the now airborne family continued going straight forward all of them landing in the water in front of the boat.

No one hit anything but water. Extremely lucky for them. So we pulled up anchor and trolled over to them as they were picking themselves up and standing up in the shallow water. None of them were hurt at all.

We asked the father driving that boat why he did not slow down when he saw both of standing and waving him down. He said he just thought we were being friendly and waving to them.

So the point of this comment, is that the biggest problem with boaters today is being stupid and doing stupid things! No two ways around it. People unfamiliar with the waters they are trying to navigate is what causes the most mishaps in my opinion. And a lot of them could be avoided if only people would get better informed about the waters they are about to try and get on, and when out there slow it down some and pay attention, especially to locals who are willing to try and help out. Get information from them at the boat ramps.

While on the other hand, I think that mud had it in for the boater! That mud followed that boater and like the blob movie that mud just reached out and grabbed him!     

[FloridaFishinFool]

I forgot to mention...

another thing some of those idiots do out there on the St. Johns river when they get stuck is to try and gun the motor.

Seriously??? That is probably one of the dumbest things they could ever do!

Let's see... most them are in boats costing tens of thousands of dollars. Big expensive outboards also costing tens of thousands of dollars.

So they bottom out in the sandy bottom and their impeller intake is now embedded in the sand! So what do they do? They gun their motors with their props chopping up the sandy bottom kicking up the sand and they are sucking all that sand right into the impeller intake! Not to mention chewing up the edge of their props. And if there are rocks down there even worse.

Nothing like a ton of sand grinding through the impeller and cooling chamber.

Brilliant! 

It is never a good thing to run the impeller intake into gritty sand or mud. But whenever I do it I instantly shut the motor down and then raise it up out of the water. Sometimes it is just the motor that bottoms out and if so, raising it allows us to float away with the current or using the trolling motor.

Very rarely do we have to get out of the boat and push the boat off. Most of the time we can shift weight in the boat or use a paddle to push us off. Once in deeper clear water I restart and let it idle for a little while to hopefully clear out the impeller intake.

All I can do is minimize the sand intake. It is never perfect, but a little is far better than a ton.