[Stryker]

Friday I took a half of a day off work to get some work done at home. One thing I needed to do was switch out the anchors on my boat. After getting the anchor ready to attach to the anchor line I went to the boat to retrieve the end of the line (keep in mind the hot weather we have hade the last week or so). When I opened the anchor locker…I was hit by the unmistakable smell of dead fish.

Four weeks ago I went Shad fishing and got fifty-seven Shad…. make that fifty-eight!
One of the Shad somehow got tossed in the anchor locker.

Well the rest is “as bad as it gets”. I didn’t know what to do; I was stunned. After putting a mask sprayed with aftershave on my face, I went to cleaning out the anchor locker. I used a shopvac to get the maggots and other unknown things from the locker. Then I decided the only way to get the anchor line clean was to wash it in my washing machine. It did clean the rope, but created a four hundred foot knot. It took my wife and I about an hour to untangle the rope after removing it from the washer.

One good thing came from this experience…I fed all the birds in the neighborhood well with all the maggots that washed into the gutter. I wonder what the neighbors thought when the smell worked its way through the neighborhood !?!?

 

[outdoor.spec.ops]

Should have saved the maggots for a bluegill trip or something :cheers:

 

[AtWorkALot]

Man, your story made me gag. I hope that rope didn't leave too much 'funk' in your washer.

 

[Sore Back]

I just hate those stinkers. It pays to check the boat top to bottom when you get home looking for stow-a-ways or stinkers as I call them. :blush:

 

[ampersat]

i'm surprised she let you run it through the washing machine. my wife would've made me toss the old rope and buy new before i could get near the washing machine with something like that.

 

[Hogmaster]

Hmmmm.... And just who were you fishing with that day?

Conspiracy theories abound!

:shocked: :shocked: :shocked:

Leave the anchor locker closed or your neighbors will really get uptight with you.

Unless you live in Gus's neighborhood. There they are used to it!

:grin:

:cheers:

 

[CATCH AND EAT]

Man this reaks of a hogmaster story! YUK!!!

 

[Gus Orviston]

hey now, I have only hidden shad in one person's boat...and funny thing is though BOE hasn't sniffed it out yet :whazzup: I guess the surrounding smells cover it up


You also need to watch fishing too close to BOE, he does a Sabonis no look pass into other boats with a pogy that would impress an NBA player. With exacting placement into lunch boxes, gunnels, and engine compartments.

fungus just grows on you :grin:

 

[KillerDave]

Next time you want/need to clean your rope, toss it in a cooler filled with water and some simple green.

Works as good as the washing machine without the knots.

 

[Stoyjun Princess]

When he told me about this at work today, AT LUNCH time, I about fell off my chair laughing :laugh: The way he tells the story is great. I could not have cleaned up that mess. His wife did take it well with the rope in her washing machine.
Don't know if she did a load in the machine yet!!

 

[skrimmy]

Was HOGMASTER out on that Shad fishing adventure? This sounds like one of his types of pranks! You gotta keep your eyes on that guy all the time, you never know what you might find in your boat!
:grin: :laugh: :laugh: :grin:

 

[rainrshine]

Oh man that was a great story :laugh: . Sorry to hear of your find. I can relate with the neighbor thing and the stink, I presently have a carved up chinook in my garbage can that you can practically smell from the end of the street. Next time I'm digging a hole in the back yard for the guts

Thank god the garbage man comes in the morning

 

[Thumper]

It could have been all 58!

Reminds me of a fine summer day at Harlequin Lodge in Yakutat, Alaska. The lodge owner asked me if I would help him haul the gut can (55 gal) to the dump as it was nearly full. Without thinking, I said "sure". Big mistake. After sloshing me with the contents a couple of times, he apologized that he hadn't emptied the can in about a month. Did you know that fish guts turn into a very pretty, consistently liquid, red liquid in a month?

[ 06-30-2003, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: Thumper ]

 

[Miss B Haven]

Uggghhhh, reminds me of the dumpster right at the head of the walkway in Warrenton. Haven't smelled that in almost a year. I could probably go longer! They started dumping lime in it last year, but I think all it does is eat the skin off the hands of the local trash divers. Doesn't seem to help the smell a bit. :depressed:

 

[Stryker]

NOW, The rest of the story….

How did a shad get in the anchor locker??????

Well I think I know. That day we were anchored on the Columbia and had the locker hatch opened, as we didn’t need all the line out. Just didn’t think leaving it open would be a problem. Someone on my crew that day decided the open locker was a fish well.

As for checking out the boat top to bottom next time? The anchor locker is so deep I cannot see to the back of it without sticking my head inside it. But I will find a way to inspect it.

New riles on my boat.
1) Never leave the anchor locker open.
2) No fish is put in the fish well without my being present.
Anyone that doesn’t follow the new rules ever goes fishing with me again!

 

[nitrobass]

A couple years back I had a power outage in my garage and didnt notice it for about a week. By that time my chest freezer had completely unthawed. There was a lot of elk and deer meat in there, also some other stuff. In the bottom of the freezer about 4 inches of blood had accumulated and had turned a greenish color with an unbelievable rank smell. I conned a buddy into helping me empty the thing which I'm still grateful for. I put on a baseball cap backwards and tied off a couple of vanilla air fresheners so they hung right over my face and even then I could only work for a minute or so at a time then I started gagging. Talk about gross!!!

 

[Hogmaster]

skrimmy -

I am offended!

I have never left anything in your boat!!!

:grin: :grin: :grin:

Shad-o'-maggot? - Could have been the hot bait! You might have thrown out a gold mine!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

:cheers:

 

[Keta]

:shocked: Next time use your dishwasher it doesn't knot your rope up at all.

 

[skrimmy]

Hog, only because you haven't quite had the chance! :shocked: I'm sure that will change, come Fall and Winter! Not too many places to hide things in a drift boat but I'm sure where there's a will.....

 

[fishchaser]

You think that was bad?

We went on vacation and a week later we came home to a house that had spoiled Shad and Shad blood all over in the house (We didn't have a bait freezer yet)

The cats had jumped off the freezer and had inadvertenly opened the freezer. We didn't know because we were out of town. We found out real fast when we got home from the trip. You could smell it out at the street.

Of course we were gone for the hottest day of the year here at home, so you have an idea of how bad it was.

Now I have a normal freezer and the old freezer is the bait freezer, because we never could get the smell out of that freezer.