Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
As we slip into this new fishing season a lot of anglers are right now looking forward to what they hope will be some good, if not a "great" fishing over the next few months. Of course, just as much as folks want this to be a successful season, they're also hoping that it will be as trouble-free as possible, and to that end many fishermen will spend countless hours maintaining their boats, rigging tackle and preparing their equipment. In fact, in order to avoid trouble along the way, many will take more time getting ready to fish than they will actually spend fishing.
But in the course of a fishing day a lot can occur that might throw a wrench into what we left the dock hoping would be a perfect outing, because despite all our preparation, things are not always going to go along as planned - tackle will fail, boats will malfunction and the fish we pursue won't always be so obliged to respond to our efforts to catch them. Unfortunate circumstances can often be blamed on an act of nature or something mechanical that gives out at the wrong time, but sometimes we have nothing or no one to blame but ourselves. We make a poor decision by "zigging" when we should "zag" and there we are wrapped up in "another fine mess we've gotten ourselves into"!
Boaters who ply the waters of our coastal bays know very well how things can quickly go awry when, by a simple miscalculation of steering a little too far to the left or the right, end up grinding to a sudden halt in shallow water. Running aground is probably the most common goof-up boaters make in our inshore waters. In fact, anyone who claims to having never run aground is either not telling the truth or they have spent very little time navigating throughout our back bays. Whether they run or drift up into it, sooner or later everyone will find themselves in water too shallow for the draft of their boat, and just like the prep work on equipment and tackle done in the early season, planning ahead for the inevitable grounding can be the difference between being just a little inconvenienced or having a costly experience that ruins the rest of their season.
So let's just say that you're cruising down the bay and everything is going along just fine until all of a sudden "clunk-clunk-clunk", your motor starts thumping on the bottom and you're being thrown into the steering wheel from a rapidly decelerating boat. Without panicking you need to react quickly! In most cases the first reaction should be to immediately pull the throttle back and get your engine in neutral so that the prop is not damaged and you will not be driven farther up into the shallows. Once the boat is stopped you can assess where you need to be and how you're going to get there. It could be that just moving over a few feet to the left or right will get you back in the channel. If you can't tell where the deeper water is just keep in mind that the water behind your boat was deep enough to get you there in the first place, so if you can pull a u-turn and go back the way you came you should be okay.
In many cases returning to deep water is as simple as trimming the motor up and slowly motoring out of the shallows. "Grinding" a boat out of shallow water is a sure way to damage the motor, so if the water is so shallow that the lower unit needs to be trimmed up so high that the prop is blowing water, sand or mud up into the air, it's time to shut the motor off and manually push the boat clear.
Which brings me to the point that, everyone who navigates in the back bays should be prepared to push their boat out of shallow water if necessary. When the water is warm, being prepared for such a task might require nothing more than a willingness to step out of the boat, get your feet wet and push. Then again, boaters should also consider what they are wearing on their feet. Flip-flops or bare feet might be fine on a boat until someone needs to get out and push off a shoal that's covered with a layer of muck and sharp shells. Keeping a pair of water-shoes on the boat can be a "foot-saver" for just such occasions. In the winter and early spring, boaters will need be able to stay dry in the process, so tall boots, waders or some sort of paddle or push pole to shove with can be lifesavers.
When someone runs aground the last thing they need is for the wind or current to push their boat further up into the shallows. So upon grounding it's important for a skipper to make a quick assessment of which way Mother Nature is trying to move the boat. If the boat wants to drift into the shallows with the engine off, the lower unit can be trimmed down until it hits bottom and helps to hold the boat in position until action can be taken to move it out to deeper water. An anchor can also be used to hold a boat in position by walking it out towards the deeper water and setting it by hand. If the wind and/or current wants to move the boat "away" from the shallow water it might be as simple as trimming the motor up and letting her drift. With small boats it might also be necessary to get one or more people out of the boat to lighten the load and allow it to float higher in shallower water.
When someone is hard aground one of the worst things they can do for their motor is to leave it running because the water-pump intake is likely going to suck up a bunch of sand or muck into the engine, possibly wiping out the impeller and clogging up passages for the cooling water. Getting stuck is one thing - frying an engine is a whole lot more hassle and expense!
Of course the best thing to do is not to run aground in the first place and knowing how to "read" the water and using some common sense by operating extra cautiously when in unfamiliar territory can go a long way to make that happen. But as I previously mentioned, finding the bottom is just a part of inshore boating. It happens to the best of us, so a little prior planning for the inevitable can go a long way in getting us safely and even "gracefully" back to deep water and on our way.
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
