Fishing High's and Low's

Stockman

Stockman

Joined
May 23, 2004
Messages
1,175
Just got back from my annual fishing trip from a place called Steep Point, the Western most tip of Australia. Caught some great fish, 3 Spaniards, 15 Pink Snapper, a couple of smallish sharks and a bunch of other pelagics and reef fish. Fished well, ate well and drank well for 6 days, my ideal holiday.

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Unfortunately, not everything went to plan. Had a slight hitch on the way out that made the 12 hour drive home a little less enjoyable. A can of gas ignited in the back of the boat as we were 4WDriving over a notorious hill 1 hour into the journey home. Tried to get it under control but lost the battle, as well as the boat and over 10 grands worth of fishing gear and camping supplies stored in the boat.

I was lucky not to loose the Landcruiser or get anyone injured.

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Happy Fishing !!!
 
An expensive end to a great week. No one was hurt,you saved the camera & took great pictures. Hopefully,insurance will help recover your losses.
Evidently this happened in a remote area. Did you have a 2-way in case you had lost your vehicle & have a route & time plan with friends back home ?
At my age ,there is always worry over being stranded in the wilderness with no hope of searchers.

All's well that ended with good memories & great pictures. I'd say you were blessed.

Uncle Alan
 
Ohhhhhhhh Man !
That sucks !\
Static electricity I'd guess ?
Glad you are OK...

We lost an airboat, the same way, about 22 years ago....
 
glad that you are not hurt.


at least it happened AFTER the trip rather than before....
 
Truly you can't get much higher or lower. I'm glad nobody was hurt.
 
Yep, it was an experience, a first of this nature for me.

As for the insurance, well we will have to see how good the policies are, the boat and trailer are covered, the camping and fishing gear might be a little iffy. Will have to read the fineprint. Unfortunately a lot of the gear is irreplaceable ( some quality USA made Penn reels that are now made in China and are not a patch on the originals ) , but as many of you have stated, no one was injured, and this, at the end of the day is all that really counts. When the 70 ltr fuel tank at the front of the boat exploded, large lumps of burning aluminium were sent flying in all directions.

STS - The 340T was in a shirt pocket in my clothes bag, which luckily was in the car, so it was a survivor. I did loose a couple of my favorite Fillet knives, a few spydies and a SR Camp Tramp.

shaldag - AFTER the trip, that was my exact thought as the boat was turning into an inferno.

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Guyon, there was a near empty plastic 20 ltr Fuel container at the back, next to a full 20 ltr reserve tank. As we got to the top of the hill, we heard a load bang, my initial thoughts were that we had blown a tyre. On jumping out, noticed the fire. It appears that the empty container blew, rupturing the reserve tank and releasing the fuel. As we had pulled up on a slight downward incline, the remaining fuel flowed underneath the boats seats, sending the fire to the front of the boat were the 70 ltr main aluminium fuel tank was located. This was when the battle was lost and it was a mad dash in boggy sand to unhitch the boat and trailer from the vehicle.

My guess would be that a tent post or some other metal object had worked its way to the back of the boat and arced on the battery terminals, causing a spark that set of the fuel container.
 
Stockman said:
Caught some great fish......15 Pink Snapper
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:eek: I'm not going to comment....:foot:




Stockman said:
STS - The 340T was in a shirt pocket in my clothes bag, which luckily was in the car, so it was a survivor. I did loose a couple of my favorite Fillet knives, a few spydies and a SR Camp Tramp.
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Do you still have the knives? I've read stories of people sending back knives from fires and explosions as jokes and recieving new stuff. Might be worth a try.
 
underaged! said:
Do you still have the knives? I've read stories of people sending back knives from fires and explosions as jokes and receiving new stuff. Might be worth a try.
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No mate, it was quite an intense furnace, everything on board was well an truly buggered, melted and twisted and formed a big mass of melted bits and pieces all joined together.

Will just wait and see how good the insurance is and see what I can replace.

Great learning experience, its amazing how inept one becomes when handling a panic situation for the first time - could have done a lot of things much better and possibly saved some gear without risking safety. Hopefully it wont happen again, but if it does, I will do things differently.
 
Stockman said:
Great learning experience, its amazing how inept one becomes when handling a panic situation for the first time
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Yep, we sink to the level of our training allright - not that anyone could be expected to train for a 'fuel explosion while towing aluminium boat along sandy track' scenario.

But doing some fire/escape training has certainly changed by behaviour. Most firefighters reckon that if every family practiced a basic fire evacuation drill in their houses in the dark once a year, then many lives would be saved.

Whenever I check into a new hotel I do a couple of walk throughs to the exits and memorise the way from my bed to the exit in the dark.
 
That really sucks.

Like everyone has said, at least no one got hurt.

I'm also into fishing, mostly salmon in the salt water. I also build custom fishing rods. We load a lot of gear in the boat too when we go camping. I'm going watch what we load and how we load stuff in the boat from now on.
 
What a crazy thing to happen....glad everyone made it out OK. You realize, of course, that the Swamp Rat warranty's got you covered? ;) :D :D
 
at least no one was hurt, if it makes you feel any better my son and i had our boat motor scatter the other day while running gas out of the carb. those dang 40 horse motors are expensive. later, ahgar
at least the truck didn't burn up.
 
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