No fish to report on, but here's a video to watch to get prepped for crab season. Don't do this.



    The morals of this story are many, but here's a few:

     Like the man said, wear a lifejacket. Have it on before things happen. Inflatable vests are reasonably priced and comfortable to wear. Float coats are warm and extend your survival time in cold water. Wear your flotation because your boat may not have enough.

     Manufacturers put the required amount of flotation in their boats but they aren't tested. "Required" and "enough" are often completely different things. Unless you are in one of the three boats guaranteed not to sink, assume that your boat will sink faster than your traps. If you are in an "unsinkable" boat, know that they aren't "unrollable". Any boat full of water loses its stability. Clinging to the bottom of your Whaler is better having no boat and will hopefully get you found and rescued quicker, but it still sucks a lot.

     If you have water coming over the transom, stop whatever you are doing, turn the motor straight ahead and put it in forward easy. Do not maintain a condition that allows water to enter your boat. Your bilge pump isn't big enough. Do not throttle up quickly, as, again, boats full of water are unstable and want to roll over. Slowly turn the boat to point the bow into any waves. Get on the radio and let other boats know where you are and what's going on, just in case.

     If you have a boat with a four-stroke outboard and the boat was designed before the year 2000, know that the designer didn't plan to have that much weight on the stern. Do your part to keep your gear forward to minimize stern weight. BTW, if your boat was designed after 2000 it may still not be designed correctly. Assume the worst.

     Your bilge pump won't handle much water. I don't care how big or how new it is, that's a fact. Most boats come with a 500 to 800 gallon per hour pump. That rating is at a 0' lift, which is less than you need to empty your boat. Any higher and the flow drops quickly. Any bends in your hose slow it down, too. According to BoatUS, "a two-inch hole that is one foot below the waterline results in 78 gallons/minute entering the boat. With every minute the hole isn't plugged, you are adding around 500 pounds of weight to the boat. That ratio increases as the boat sinks lower in the water." That hole would require about a 6000 gallon per hour pump to lift it a couple feet and keep the boat from sinking. How many gallons were coming in over the stern in the video? My bilge pump rule? Get the two largest ones you can afford and have them on separate electrical circuits. I have a 1500 GPH, 2000 GPH and 3700 GPH, each with it's own wiring circuit and switch. I sank a boat once. Like Roberto Duran said, "no mas."