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Thinking of going to the whirlpool? I suggest you use the stairs !!!!


Bondar

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Saturday my Dad and myself were fishing the lower river for Bass in a tourny that was going on ! sometime around noon we decided to take a run up river to Devils hole. So we started to make our run up the river and i look behind the boat and see a small Zodiak coming up right behind us , maybe had a 25 hp honda 4 stroke on it ! So we get to the spot were most normal people stop when you get up past the power dams , and this little Dingy keeps going Full bore up the rapids and from what we saw no life jackets on , they continue up river until we couldnt see them anymore ! not thinking much of it thinking maybe they had done that before , so we cracked a couple jokes and started fishing

, about 20 min later we see the little boat coming back down river Prop side up followed closely by a jet boat ! so seeing the jet boat there we figured that they had pulled the people on the Big boat and were just keeping an eye on the dingy, but as it got closer we could see 2 people floating in the water now with life jackets on , so we figure either they put them on at one point before they got any further or jet boat somehow got the jackets to them both, they were floating on their backs not doing much paddling , by then another Empty jet boat had shown up and picked up the first person , we motored over to the second person and pulled her to our boat and then took her over to the jet boat ! after that the Jet boat guys recovered the Dingy and dragged it to the US marina .

Both people seemed shookin up but doing well ! i still cant figure out what was going through these peoples heads to where they both thought it was a good Idea, both people were near 40 years old i would say and in quite a bit of Shock

 

Lesson of the day ; When going to the whirlpool USE THE STAIRS!

 

 

 

 

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these next 4 photos are courtesy of the Niagara Jet Boat Tours

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Edited by Bondar
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I saw a guy in a 18' lund with a 200hp in the WP about 5-6 years ago he was only there mabye 25 mins before giving up and heading down stream. The currents were just tossing him around. Glad these 2 survived could have been a lot worse.

 

WOW crazy !

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A few years ago (read many for you young guys) I allways took my boat over to the south side to fish the bar from april to june (had a slip in port untill june and than subleased to a sail boat guy and came back to T.O. to fish the drop off untill fall)one day I had a party that wanted to go up the river at lunch time , cook up some trout we had caught enjoying the sights in the gourge and than fish the late shift on the way back. I had years of fishing off the mouth and knew the waters between Grimsby to the bar like the back of my hand , but the river was unknown waters.So upon entering the river (I than had a 38 foot sport fish not a small boat,twin 4 fortys the whole nine yards)I stayed in the middle going slow and watching the graph afraid to hit a sand bar or run agroud 90 feet of water under me most times and never went shallower than 25 feet so all was well . Had a 20 + footer 500 or so yards ahead of me and I followed in his wake hopeing he knew what he was doing . We went around a bend and he headed in close to shore , damn what to do now do I follow in close or stay in middle well all of a sudden the boat (as I said this was not a dinggy) spun around and we were headed back the way we came (poor guy in the head came up with wet spots all over his pants , yelling what the hell happened) the power of the current in the whirl pool has to be felt to be belived spun the boat around like a top . After that day I studied the river and learned where and when to turn and NEVER again ventured into the whirl pool . Crazy ,these people were lucky to get home alive .

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