Stuck aground, boat pole foot

[Home Cookin']

Re: Stuck aground, boat pole foot

every time I go out I am thankful for mud/sand bottoms. I don't think I could survive in rocks. And anyone who has paint on his skeg hasn't been boating.

I know you know the tide issues; didn't recall how long you had been boating in these environs. I never get out of the boat to get it unstuck; I will to lighten it enough to walk it. But other's advice or worse, criticism, coming from different environs, warrants the detailed response, mostly for the benefit of others reading these. Safe and skilled marsh boating is nothing like running a sofa boat on Saturdays on a man made lake, any more than off-road four wheeling is like driving on the interstate.

Glad to hear you run the smaller boat in the creeks; I don't even take my 21' deep V to the seaside, although I do enough mud churning here around Norfolk in it.

As for the same areas, we have a lot more hard sand on the seaside than you do in the bay. Sometimes the bottoms of a gut are rock hard but the side are thigh deep blue glue mud.

Home Cookin',

Thanks for your posts. I think we must boat in the same sort of areas.

"Don't be afraid to churn some mud" Haa! You must have seen me. I think I finally found a name for the bigger boat, "Mud Churner".

These creeks are really odd. The depth finder reads 14 FEET in the center, then round a turn, and you hit 18 INCHES.
At least there are zero rocks to ding your prop against anywhere near here. Just muck.

 

[95regalskip]

Re: Stuck aground, boat pole foot

I agree that the pols may not be strong enough.
As for a pushing type end, go to a hunting supply store, bass pro I think will have them.
The end is made to fir a pole about the diameter of a pool pole. It has two folding feet that when you push they are spread open and when you pull back they come together.

I use mine when I duck hunt. Here is a link.

http://www.basspro.com/Hunters-Specialties-Push-Pole,-Push-Foot,-or-Push-Paddle/product/65856/54451

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Stuck aground, boat pole foot

Wasn't this a question about push-poles ?

Well yeah, but you know not to whom you are speaking and there are alternatives to a conceived solution to a problem.

 

[Texasmark]

Re: Stuck aground, boat pole foot

This is getting lengthy and no idea as to where it's headed.

We have a similar situation on the Texas Coast. Shallow flats, tide dependent, fish come in on the incoming and provide minimal action on the way out. Additionally, we have the same "get stuck" type of problems on the way out. Gotta watch the tide if you are in shallow water.

We have "flats boats/tunnel hulls" for those situations. The best action is usually visual....a school of Red's (Spotted tail Drum) force a school of bait fish or grass shrimp up onto the beach. You can see them from 200 yards out; dorsal fins significantly out of the water. Do your thing, but when finished you have to get your boat out.

So we have these tunnel hulls, flat bottom boats with a 30 degree angled up bow for getting back home through open water whereby the high hp engine with SS prop is on a jack plate and with like half the prop in the water, ala jack plate, you get her up and then drop the plate and engine so that it can suck up some cooling water and your are gone.

If you find yourself running onto water so shallow that you start kicking up sand, you stay on plane and do a quick 180 and get the heck out of there.

HTH,

Mark

 

[jdlough]

Re: Stuck aground, boat pole foot

Yep, this is getting long for a 'push pole foot' thread...

I still don't know if anybody knows of a foot you can screw onto the standard painter's pole threads.

Mark,

Yeah, I've been there too. Running on plane 'cuz it's too shallow is scary as heck. Not 'life and limb' scary, more like 'wallet and cash' scary.

During an exceptionally low Spring tide, I get stuck 50' away from my own boat lift. If there's not much current, I back off and come around at the lift again while on plane, then cut the motor back and ride my stern wave right onto the lift. I don't think anyone understands how proud I feel to pull this maneuver off. The boat settles in right on the bunks, which I couldn't do even if the tide were few inches higher and I was idling in.

With so much shallow around me, I thought I wanted a low-draught boat like a deckboat. I couldn't find one so I settled for a deeper V. I am so glad I did, cuz the Tangier Sound and lower Nanticoke River have such choppy water. A deep V is so much better for this area, AS LONG AS I COULD FIGURE OUT A NICE PUSH POLE TO GET UNSTUCK. Which was the original purpose of this thread.