Mishaps while Float Tube Fishing

Most of use have had these things happen.  Let's hear your story of float tube fishing mishaps.

You know how they have these long skinny team row-boats that carry anywhere from 1 to 10 people.
  One day this rowing team cut the inside corner real fast at LAB like they owned the place (inside of being outside the buoy line), well … I had just cast my line away and deep from the docks and then they came-in so fast and so close to me … that they almost touched (hit) me with their oar-tips, one of their oars had actually caught and tangled my line while they raced by… they must’ve been going 15 to 20 miles an hour!! DANG!! 🤬

 Needless to say, my 60lb braided line slid along the top of their oar and my hook snagged the oar and was peeling braid line off of my reel!
 I tighten-down my drag, they started to troll me along a couple of feet with them … I must’ve been like a break in the water to them … I hollered at the oars’ person to stop!! … and they did!
 We were able to get ourselves unhooked, I got my HUB back and they were back on their way and I was back to fishing again!!

 Just one of the things we need to watch out for … while float tube fishing LAB!!
 I’ve got more stories!

SP Dan <“))><

SP Dan wrote:You know how they have these long skinny team row-boats that carry anywhere from 1 to 10 people.
  One day this rowing team cut the inside corner real fast at LAB like they owned the place (inside the buoy line), well … I had already cast my line away from the docks and they came-in on so fast and so close … that day almost touched me with their oar-tips, one of their ores had actually caught tangled my line while they must’ve been going 15 to 20 miles an hour!! DANG!! 🤬

 Needless to say, my 60lb braided line slid along top of their oar and my hook snagged one of their oars and was peeling braid line off of my reel!
 I tighten-down my drag, they started to troll me along with them … I must’ve been like a break in the water to them … I hollered at the oars’ person to stop!! … and they did!
 We were able to get ourselves unhooked and they were back on their way and I was back to fishing again!!

 Just one of the things we need to watch out for … while float tube fishing.
 I’ve got more stories!

SP Dan <“))><

Ya you do have more and I never heard this one that is crazy thanks for sharing.

I wanted to share some of the mishaps that happened to others.  These are responses that I got on Facebook.
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Tom LaGrow
Years ago and friend and I went out before work. We had been out for a few hours and my back started to bother me so I pushed down on the tube. To take the pressure off and when I sat back down apparently I pinched a nerve and it caused me to pass out and I rolled forward. Which put my face under water. When my friend found me and got me upright I was blue and he had to do artificial respiration to get me breathing again. I spent a day and a half in the hospital. So yes he saved my life that day and I am totally grateful. I have never gone out in the tube again alone.
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Reese DeHart
I watched a family of otters catching fish on a small lake. They fed their way out of my sight so I started kicking toward where they were catching fish, my back toward the shore while I was trolling a fly on a sink line. All at once something hits my tube and tilted me backwards then there was a big splash. I turned around and saw a young otter swimming away from me. It had jumped up on my tube and got startled and jumped back off. I encounter otters a lot while float tubing. That has been the only one that made contact.
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Pete Sanpedro Blacksmithbaits Tigersharktattoo
I've had my float tube pop on me alone a few times I put them on FB live...I've also had a seal bite me behind my calf and rattled my tube and night(that time I had someone with me)another time we launched out in the middle of the night when 3 yachts came zipping through and all in unison did seperate circles and the water rose and dropped and made gigantic wakes....the scary part is they didn't even look or notice us in those giant yaghts...one scary to some vision is in Huntington harbor on a full moon after the tide is high dropping you can literally see the water lowering on a heavy swing.....I also almost got clipped there by a dinghy with 2 drunk guys sipping from one side to the other....there's also the occasional Duffy close encounters sometimes you have to physically help them stop bumping you on accident...lmao then there's the scary things you see out there in the bays....people throwing scooters from the bridge.....or in summer gangbangers banging on you otw to the water...wouldn't trade it for the world right now.your never ready enough but be as ready as you can and it will be all laughs anyway in the end.best time was when everytime you cast it's a catch try and get out then...even with a sinking ship...the tug is the drug
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Christopher Culp
Fishing in the middle of the night in a cove at a lake surrounded by houses. A huge flock of geese come in to land just as they see me and start to panic a homeowner start shooting bottle rockets to scare off the geese. Panic ensues geese hitting me in the head the homeowner starts freaking out because I scared him by yelling all in all a huge shitshow

I really don't have mishaps as much as funny events.

One of them is that in Dana Harbor people tend to paddle board a lot and there's a lot of younger kids that paddle board alone... So I kind of worry about kids paddling alone at night.

I usually try to not be on my float tube at night but one time at the end of my run, it was dark and I had my headlamp on. There is a young woman on a paddle board heading in my direction, and I think she thought I was a buoy, with a white light, and it looked like she was going to skim the edge of the buoy that she saw (me), so when she got about one paddle board length away, I said quietly "hello" and the way she jumped, I was surprised she stayed on her board.

I believe baby Beach was right behind me, and I didn't see her when I got out. But I wondered if she peed a little bit.

NulodPBall wrote:I really don't have mishaps as much as funny events.

One of them is that in Dana Harbor people tend to paddle board a lot and there's a lot of younger kids that paddle board alone... So I kind of worry about kids paddling alone at night.

I usually try to not be on my float tube at night but one time at the end of my run, it was dark and I had my headlamp on. There is a young woman on a paddle board heading in my direction, and I think she thought I was a buoy, with a white light, and it looked like she was going to skim the edge of the buoy that she saw (me), so when she got about one paddle board length away, I said quietly "hello" and the way she jumped, I was surprised she stayed on her board.

I believe baby Beach was right behind me, and I didn't see her when I got out. But I wondered if she peed a little bit.

That must have scared the crap out of her

jeffcpr wrote: ...

That must have scared the crap out of her

Her legs looked pretty white when she bumped past me :p

OK I will share my mishap which was not my fault. Some of you have heard this before. A few years back I headed out to Huntington Harbor for a night session alone. I was in the water when my wife called asking did you feel that. I said feel what I did not feel anything. She said it was an earthquake, but a small one and not to worry she would let me know if there were anymore.

So I happily kicked on as if everything would be ok. maybe an hour and a half later I started to bounce up and down in the water. This was very confusing and I was not sure what was going on. I then heard the bell on a boat mast ringing and noticed all the boats were rising and falling and it clicked (Damn and Earthquake). I kicked into the open slip in front of me and held on to the dock (what else could I do). You could feel it was pretty much over and I started kicking like made back to my launch spot.

Next thing I saw was Hundred's of birds filing away from the coast over my head. That freaked me out and my kicking increased to quite mock one (I could have won any float tube race in this moment). My wife called obviously worried as she was at the movies with the kids when this happened and it was center in La Habra were we live. I assured her I was moving as fast as I could and would be home as soon as possible. She called me back again to tell me our house was a mess, nearly everything fell out of our cupboards and off our walls and the water heater was spraying water everywhere. I was still kicking trying to get out. Once out I rushed to the truck through everything in and almost ran my rods over. The drive home was tough and as I got closer to home things looked worse.

Overall things were not to bad just a lot of clean up. Man what a odd night fishing, I can say this it was not big deal being in the water during the earthquake. Of course I don't have to go through that again.

I guess I’m lucky so far not to have anything too tragic happen yet . I’ve had some interactions with other crafts but nothing serious. Just a few “ HeyWatchOuts”””.  I did get stuck in the wind at Huntington one day.  Put in at Humboldt Park and was heading down towards the main channel and the wind kept getting worse and worse. Santa Ana offshore conditions.  Tried to go back up the next small canal to the west but couldn’t kick against it.  My choices were make it to Seabridge and walk back to my truck or wait to see if wind or tide laid down so I could get back. Just then my brother called to see how fishing was and I told him my situation and he offered to come get me and drive me back to my truck . So I let the wind continue to push me to OEX on PCH and he picked me up there and took me back to my truck and we got to go to lunch together.  (Yes I bought him lunch). So interesting but not too scary and had an easy outcome.

The only other issue we’ve had was at Alamitos.  We kicked off super early from mothers beach and went east towards PCH and the restaurants and on our way back they had a crew race in Marine Stadium.   We saw the signs that Marine Stadium was going to be closed but nothing on the beach that said the starting line was near the 2nd street bridge .   Race officials would not let us cross the course and we had to kick against the current almost to the bridge to cross and then back up the beach to where we were parked.  Guys were A-Holes about the whole thing too which made it way worse.

BigMaxFloats wrote:I guess I’m lucky so far not to have anything too tragic happen yet . I’ve had some interactions with other crafts but nothing serious. Just a few “ HeyWatchOuts”””.  I did get stuck in the wind at Huntington one day.  Put in at Humboldt Park and was heading down towards the main channel and the wind kept getting worse and worse. Santa Ana offshore conditions.  Tried to go back up the next small canal to the west but couldn’t kick against it.  My choices were make it to Seabridge and walk back to my truck or wait to see if wind or tide laid down so I could get back. Just then my brother called to see how fishing was and I told him my situation and he offered to come get me and drive me back to my truck . So I let the wind continue to push me to OEX on PCH and he picked me up there and took me back to my truck and we got to go to lunch together.  ...

I feel for you.

But if you want a repeat wind episode stay too late at Crowley Lake near Bishop off the 395.

It can be 18F and dead calm, so calm that after you pass through the trailer barrier/car bomb like barrier (to prevent boat trailers from accessing the lake), you can see columns of mist/fog spiraling up, off the ice melt water on the lake surface because the sun is just warming the surface water... so you think "cool, it's going to be a windless day"...

... and you have a pretty good day fishing for fat trout that like to run directly at you, and go under your legs ... and fat Sacramento Perch that initially feel just like the trout, until you feel the quicker beat of tail (kinda like the purple striped cousin to Yellow Fin Tuna) and you keep fishing long past Noon, when all the smart people are out of the water...

So, of course you realize after 40 minutes of paddling back to your car that you haven't moved more than 10 feet, and you decide to ground your float tube where you can drive your Jeep to, and you wish that you had brought some boots or wading shoes that fit over your stocking foot waders because of the barb wire occasionally on the ground (for the cattle running loose) and the occasional cow pie...

and yes, you realize that it was worth it...

NulodPBall wrote:

BigMaxFloats wrote:I guess I’m lucky so far not to have anything too tragic happen yet . I’ve had some interactions with other crafts but nothing serious. Just a few “ HeyWatchOuts”””.  I did get stuck in the wind at Huntington one day.  Put in at Humboldt Park and was heading down towards the main channel and the wind kept getting worse and worse. Santa Ana offshore conditions.  Tried to go back up the next small canal to the west but couldn’t kick against it.  My choices were make it to Seabridge and walk back to my truck or wait to see if wind or tide laid down so I could get back. Just then my brother called to see how fishing was and I told him my situation and he offered to come get me and drive me back to my truck . So I let the wind continue to push me to OEX on PCH and he picked me up there and took me back to my truck and we got to go to lunch together.  ...

I feel for you.

But if you want a repeat wind episode stay too late at Crowley Lake near Bishop off the 395.

It can be 18F and dead calm, so calm that after you pass through the trailer barrier/car bomb like barrier (to prevent boat trailers from accessing the lake), you can see columns of mist/fog spiraling up, off the ice melt water on the lake surface because the sun is just warming the surface water... so you think "cool, it's going to be a windless day"...

... and you have a pretty good day fishing for fat trout that like to run directly at you, and go under your legs ... and fat Sacramento Perch that initially feel just like the trout, until you feel the quicker beat of tail (kinda like the purple striped cousin to Yellow Fin Tuna) and you keep fishing long past Noon, when all the smart people are out of the water...

So, of course you realize after 40 minutes of paddling back to your car that you haven't moved more than 10 feet, and you decide to ground your float tube where you can drive your Jeep to, and you wish that you had brought some boots or wading shoes that fit over your stocking foot waders because of the barb wire occasionally on the ground (for the cattle running loose) and the occasional cow pie...

and yes, you realize that it was worth it...

That sounds like an adventure!!! Never tubes there but know that area well . Love the Benton’s crossing road and the Owens River. up there . Been out there in no W at all then Gale force down the valley.

BigMaxFloats wrote:...



That sounds like an adventure!!! Never tubes there but know that area well .  Love the Benton’s crossing road and the Owens River.  up there . Been out there in no W at all then Gale force  down the valley.  

The last time I tried the Upper Owens was from the week I described above, I remember it was 18F because my friend said "it must be cold because I think my skin is sticking to the cattle gates" as he opened them, then I told him it was 18F.

I haven't fished the Upper, just seen pics in a paper album so I was eager to look around, but someone blocked access so I just backed out and went where we knew there was fish...that part of the day, I think we fished from the upper lake to the monument/road? I remember catching & seeing fish but nothing exciting other than the catching part, you could see them moving but they weren't always biting...and I don't normally deal with under-cuts but that was definitely a consideration (i.e. they could be right under your feet).

Several months ago I was bass fishing out a bit deep, which placed me maybe 150 yards from any shore.  Also much of the visible shoreline was pretty steep.   It was mid-morning when the urge to pee hit me.  

Now I am a 62 year old man with a bad back and even worse knees, and at my age the urge can elevate quite quickly to a necessity. So I started kicking pretty vigorously toward the nearest shore.  This of course only expedited my bladder's insistence on recognition.

By the time I made shore the matter was urgent, however just reaching a shoreline was not enough, as the banks were too steep to get out.  I therefore began to frantically search for a place that allowed my finned feet enough purchase to stand and drop my chest waders.

Long story short, I was able to find a place to finally relieve myself, for what seemed like an eternity, but not before a bit of uncomfortable leakage in my waders, and even more importantly, lost fishing time on a good bite.  

I never remember this being such a big issue 40 years ago. STUPID AGING!

So does this qualify as mishap, or a close call?

Dannicus wrote:Several months ago I was bass fishing out a bit deep, which placed me maybe 150 yards from any shore.  Also much of the visible shoreline was pretty steep.   It was mid-morning when the urge to pee hit me.  

Now I am a 62 year old man with a bad back and even worse knees, and at my age the urge can elevate quite quickly to a necessity.  So I started kicking pretty vigorously toward the nearest shore.  This of course only expedited my bladder's insistence on recognition.

By the time I made shore the matter was urgent, however just reaching a shoreline was not enough, as the banks were too steep to get out.  I therefore began to frantically search for a place that allowed my finned feet enough purchase to stand and drop my chest waders.

Long story short, I was able to find a place to finally relieve myself, for what seemed like an eternity, but not before a bit of uncomfortable leakage in my waders, and even more importantly, lost fishing time on a good bite.  

I never remember this being such a big issue 40 years ago.  STUPID AGING!

So does this qualify as mishap, or a close call?

I think it qualifies   I could feel the panic setting in.