A tale of losing the lower end of my motor in West Bay Nipissing!

[Regan Thompson]

We have some guests here all the way from Germany for three weeks, so I took them out for a complimentary day of Musky Fishing.

 

The fishing sucked and on the way back from West Bay my GPS kept going crazy. It was showing my little chevron in different spots all the time, shifting side to side by 100 or more yards.

 

By the time it corrected itself I could see that I was in the dark blue on the GPS (i.e. <3 ft of water)! All I could do is watch my depth go from 50 to 20 to 10 to (---) all within 2 seconds.

 

I knew that if I slowed down it would be worse so I rode it out until the inevitable sound..... WAM!

 

Several 4 letter words were screeched and the Germans were confused as hell.

 

I tilted up the motor and it looked like only skeg damage (I could live with that!).

 

Got her home for a closer look and apparently when the skeg came off it tore right into my exhaust port! OUCH! That means a new lower end. took it to my mechanic and $1,900 parts and labour for a refurb from merc on my 150 Opti.

 

By far the most expensive complementary guide trip of the year!

 

I have new respect for West Bay!

 

Don't be the next victim!

Edited September 25, 2014 by Regan Thompson

[Shloim]

Know how it feels, only on Balsam, and I should have known....

[Old Ironmaker]

Are you telling me to leave my rig at home Sunday Regan?

[Rich Clemens]

Oh yeah .... That do hurt. We fish the West Bay quite often and if we go off our normal routes and locations, we putter along and keep a close watch - even if the map shows plenty of water underneath. Several years back, when the water levels were 4 or so feet down, we found several rocks in south muskrat that we never knew were there. They be marked now on my GPS.

[OhioFisherman]

After years of trips to Point Au Baril and seeing motors in the shop there lined up for work on lower units? Canadian waters never struck me as a place to rush around.

[John]

We find "new" rocks every year in West Bay. As Rich says when the water levels were way down one year we saw rocks that we had run over at 20+MPH previous years. Its an area that deserves lots of respect and when outside of known channels extreme caution is the key...even then the odd encounter is inevitable.

Sorry about the lower end.

[Old Ironmaker]

What's this sound? RRRRRRRRRRRR BOOM, ddddd dd d d.

 

That's the sound of a Yank booting along full out on Lake Colange on the Ottawa in his Ranger with a 250 on it going full out until he hits a rock. We used to sit on the porch of the cabin and bet which boat would loose a bottom end. And that's after we advised them.

 

It's really a sad thing to see and hear, I never would wish it on anyone, it hurts for sure. He who laughs last laughs best so I never laugh at ones peril.

[AKRISONER]

After years of trips to Point Au Baril and seeing motors in the shop there lined up for work on lower units? Canadian waters never struck me as a place to rush around.

 

Having a cottage here i can second this one. The crazy part is that with the extremely low water levels in GB, weve hit stuff following dead on the navigation line. Thats when you know its really bad.

 

Ive seen massive boulders pop up clear out of the lake that youd have never known existed until recently.

 

Polorized glasses are a must and we never hit new territory without another person to sit right at the front of the boat and keep lookout.

Edited September 25, 2014 by AKRISONER

[OhioFisherman]

 

Having a cottage here i can second this one. The crazy part is that with the extremely low water levels in GB, weve hit stuff following dead on the navigation line. Thats when you know its really bad.

 

Ive seen massive boulders pop up clear out of the lake that youd have never known existed until recently.

 

Polorized glasses are a must and we never hit new territory without another person to sit right at the front of the boat and keep lookout.

 

I haven't been there since 1989, I can only imagine what it looks like now? In 25 years or so I only made it out as far a Table Rock a few times, and that was with another boat along in case of problems. There were plenty of fish closer! also plenty of rocks!

 

Never had much of a problem with them, going slow doesn't bother me.

[muskymatt]

I was on Stoney lake in the Kawarthas and came to this 3 way navigation intersection and there was this big rock littered with prop bits and pieces of lower ends. We stopped and took an under water photo of it , then the rest of our trip we were overly cautious.

Never hit one, never want to.

[AKRISONER]

 

I haven't been there since 1989, I can only imagine what it looks like now? In 25 years or so I only made it out as far a Table Rock a few times, and that was with another boat along in case of problems. There were plenty of fish closer! also plenty of rocks!

 

Never had much of a problem with them, going slow doesn't bother me.

 

If you were in pointe au baril in the 80's in 2012 your jaw would have dropped seeing it. It got so bad in november of 2012 that I clean walked on dry land around our boat house, which in the 80's was 20 yards out into the lake and parked a boat

 

see this picture from May 2013...

 

 

the water had actually recovered a couple fee by this point. If you can imagine, the water is now up to my chest at the corner of the boathouse and the water is only at its all time average. In the 80's it was an additional 2-3 feet higher.

[Old Ironmaker]

I don't get these lake levels this year. We don't have a beach this year. Usually after Labour Day we have 20 feet of beach. Lake Erie is the highest levels in 20 years. I don't know what is more perilous, low levels or high levels. Shoals and boulders that are normally sticking up 3 feet at times are 6" below the surface just waiting for someone to happen along. At least with lower levels one might see the hazard.

[aplumma]

I feel your Pain Regan Joe and I found a rock when we were up this August and on inspection I will have to drop the lower unit and weld up the hole that we put in the bullet at low speed. Some thing to consider if you want to slow down in shallow water like that is to start trimming up the motor while on plane and as it starts to rev chop the motor while still raising it. You risk a low speed hit on the hull but the motor is safe. Then putt putt back into deep water. Hope this helps and sorry to hear about the strike your good nature of taking people fishing deserves a better reward than this.

 

 

Art

[OhioFisherman]

Think of how many lower units electric bow mounts have saved!

[Raf]

water levels come and go

 

the old adage 'if you don't know, go slow' doesn't. it's worked for me thus far (knocking on wood), even on the minefields of west bay and georgian bay.

[AKRISONER]

the nice thing about going slow is that even when you do clip something, usually it scratches your unit or maybe even knocks a bit off of the leg or prop, but never fully breaks the motor off or punches a hole in the bottom of your fibreglass

[doubleheader]

Whenever I'm not sure on the Nip I drop my bow mount down all the way and run the kicker. The bow mount runs deeper than the kicker so if it clears I know the kicker will. The bow mount unit is a plastic shaft with a guarantee. I've hit reefs with it but never broke it.

[lunkerbasshunter]

ouch that is to bad about your lower end. West end can be brutal.

 

Cheers!

[Wagoneer]

Ouch! Sorry to hear. Getting the quote is always the worst part. Luckily only things we've ever broken have been props.

 

As much as I dislike Lake Erie most of the time, it is nice knowing the worst that can happen is running up on a sandbar.

[OhioFisherman]

Ouch! Sorry to hear. Getting the quote is always the worst part. Luckily only things we've ever broken have been props.

 

As much as I dislike Lake Erie most of the time, it is nice knowing the worst that can happen is running up on a sandbar.

 

Ohio has it's advantages, if you hit something in the water here it's usually mud or wood. LOL

[irishfield]

Reminds me of a dark night on Muskrat Bay with Daplumma, Aplumma and BCanuck....