A mixed story (good and bad) given its the off-season up here. A few years ago, a group of us went fishing at Ft Peck Reservoir in NE MT. In the course of 8 days fishing, we had at least 3 Near Death Experiences (NDEs) that I will tell you about, although there could have been others, its still hard to tell.<br /><br />NDE #1) Left town early on a foggy morning. At the RR tracks between towns a coal train was pulling its cars across the track. The fog obscured the lights and made the gray cars difficult to see until nearly too late. Partners ahead, pulling a 5th wheel with bass boat behind, nearly plowed into a van stopped for the train, stopping in passing lane with about 8 feet from hood to train. Van guys had left their flashers on and were (wisely) standing on the cut slope off to the side. Me and partner, pulling a boat, nearly plowed into the whole mess. We all left flashers on and moved briskly to join the van guys off to the side. Others nearly plowed into us even though we were attempting to warn them. Cars coming on the opposite side of the tracks were also skidding, stopping and leaving their rigs. After train exited, we all passed around a bottle of Jack Daniels (around 0600)with shaking knees. Partner with tandem rig said if he hadn't had the brakes on his boat trailer and 5th wheel worked on recently, he would have hit the train. <br /><br />NDE #2) After running up-reservoir 28-30 miles and hitting hot fishing, we stayed too late and it got dark. We then discovered that the bass boat only had a stern light. The fishing boat we were in had nothing. This led to a totally dark, high-speed run across a huge reservoir (1600 miles of shoreline) in the pitch blackness. None of us were really familiar with the reservoir. In fact, we weren't really familiar with boating in general (as if I needed to say that at this point). To make a short story long, we ran up the wrong bay in the reservoir. We kept looking for a light that was by our camp and kept on going up the bay. Eventually we hit a mud flat and had enough momentum to really get ourselves stuck. Took us hours (up to the waist in mud and the shoulders in water pushing) to unstick the boats. Eventually got them unstuck, but 1 was dead and had to be towed by the other. Didn't make it back to camp until 0darkthirty. If we had hit a hard/rocky bottom, we would have likely been injured or killed.<br /><br />NDE #3) Next night, same scenario. Ran up-reservoir a hellacious distance (bigger walleyes are up there, everyone knows that). Got into hot fishing and stayed too late. Another high-speed run across a huge reservoir in the pitch blackness. In the fishing boat, we could keep up with the bass boat only if we stayed behind it in its clear wake area. Waves caused the bass boat to nearly lose its huge fishing net from a rod holder. They abruptly shut down, and we very nearly ran over the top of them. The wind and waves enabled us (in the following boat) to barely see over the windshield. When our partners stopped, it was actually their orange instrument panel that caused me to holler "look out". The driver pulled hard right, and we missed them by less then a foot. I cringe to think what would have happened if we would have run over the top of them in the middle of a huge reservoir in the darkness.<br /><br />Although the fishing was good, we figured we better call it good after that. We pulled out the next day. Since then, I have made sure to have all kinds of lights and to camp on shore if the fishing is that good too far from camp.
<br /><br />You cats only have 6 left.!