Don’t you just love it when…

Don’t you just love it when you do that stupid thing you know carries risk, but convince yourself it’s somehow below you?

I went to a small WI lake with my dad yesterday and when the walleyes hit, they were peeling line off the spools. They were on fire! Well, I had two spinning rods in the boat, one set up with a blade and baitholder, the other with a crank. At the time, I was using the crankbait rod and simply laid my spinner rig rod along the interior/gunnel edge. There’s about 4″ to work with and of course, “I’ve done it for years—no problem.”

When the crankbait got hit, it pulled the rod in my hand, and the line slipped under the handle of the spinner rig rod, and when I set the hook, it hoisted that rod, and it proceeded to fall overboard into a submerged weed bed. Nothing like watching, a first generation St. Croix Legend Elite 7′ MLF paired with a discontinued Shimano 1500 MGF Stradic spinning reel plummet to the bottom. I marked the spot on the graph and drug a heavy spoon for a half hour or so, to no avail.

I would love to get it back, if it’s at all possible, but in those weeds… I just don’t know.

Any tips for a humbled fella???

Get wet. How deep are we talking?

Time to put your swim goggles on!

It’s not that deep but we’re talking about 3′ weeds in 6.5′ of water, so visibility is going to remain a challenge. I’ve got a buddy that’s a certified scuba instructor, I just messaged him to get a recommendation on a quality snorkeling mask. I’m not even sure how much that will help… the water is already thickening to less than a foot of visibility from the algae.

Know anyone with a metal detector?

Metal in the reel? Start magnet fishing.

Sounds like a good application for magnet fishing.

Once upon a time a buddy lost a 9.9 in a lake. He asked me to find it with my scuba gear. The bottom had several feet of silt layers. I cruised along just above the silt and finally found a disruption in the top layer of the silt and that’s exactly where the motor was. I’d say look for a subtle disturbance of the top of the weeds. It may be standing straight up with the reel at the bottom.

Hire a coupla kids.

I put a rope ladder on my boat this spring just in case.

Know anyone with an underwater camera??

Visibility is going to be an issue, but I might have to locate a magnet and see if it sticks to one of my other Stradic reels. I’m thinking, if a magnet is a solution, combining that with snorkeling gear might be a viable effort. I might have to stoop to “mowing” some weeds too.

Come on… as a kid, I could find rings with my bare feet on the bottom. good luck

Sounds like a nice combo. Whereabouts was that. You gotta clear picture of your graph we could see from when it happened?