I’ll try and set this up a bit. I recently met another user from the board at the BB/BS event. He and I are starting to become good friends(kind of scary how much we are alike). Anyway he wants me to hit 2 with him last night. I couldn’t make it, but he and a co-worker did. Here is the email I received from John:
“Hi guys,
You missed an eventful evening on the river.
My friend Greg and I got there and ran down to where John and I have been
starting about 1/4 mile or so south of the Hwy 5 bridge. On the way down we
noticed a couple on the east side of the river, we started trolling back up and
I noticed they were now on the west side of the river. They started swimming
back across and the guy was almost across and the woman wasn’t getting very far,
she was only 30-40 feet off shore so we just reeled up so as not to hook her.
She was topless(not a good thing, just to clarify that up front) and floating
face up just resting. She asked for a ride over to the other side and the guy
is yelling at her from the other shore now to leave us alone and she says she
will be all right and we figured she would since she was floating face up so we
start fishing again and they are yelling back and forth and she starts in that
she is getting tired and when he told her to just swim back to the other shore
40 feet away from and she said “I can’t make it” we reeled up and started back
because the guy was just sitting there obviously not going to do anything.
Well we were probably 50-60 feet away and I yelled that we would come get her
and give her a ride over, she is still floating face up at this point well I am
idling towards her and we are about 30-40 feet away and she starts to panic and
splash around and down she goes. I hit the gas a little to get there quicker
and she came up and was on her way down the second time and just about got a
hold of her arm, I was just about to go in when she started coming up but she
was a little further away so I hit reverse and swung the back around a couple
feet, at this point she wasn’t struggling much any more and just started going
down, I got a hold of her hand just as it was going under and pulled her back to
the surface.
I don’t know that Greg and I could have gotten her into the boat so I stuffed a
life jacket under her and she managed to get her head in an arm hole and I hung
on to her arm and the jacket as Greg backed us across the river to the shore
line where this guy was still just sitting on a log watching. She was
borderline unconscious but she was breathing and her eyes were just barely open.
We got to the shore and shallow enough water where she could stand and she
didn’t want to because she didn’t have a shirt. She just about fell backwards
luckily I still had her arm or she would have just Nestead right back on the the
rocks on shore. Finally we get her sitting up..this guy is still sitting down
the shore aroun the point a little. She freaked out and didn’t want us to leave
her and she didn’t want to get in the boat so I finally just said we are going
to get yoru shirt then give you a ride back up there. We went got her
sweatshirt and took it back to her, at this point she is up on shore so we threw
her the sweatshirt, and it took her a couple minutes to just get it on, we
pulled into shore got her into the boat and started back to where her stuff was,
finally the guy was coming down to see what was going on, then she freaked out
and started crying and didn’t want to go with him but I didn’t know what else to
do, I asked if she had a car or someplace where she wanted to be dropped off and
she said no so I took her back to where their stuff was and shs started calling
the guy honey and apologizing. Once we dropped her off we headed back to fish
and spotted a cabin cruiser and pulled up to them and had them call the
police….the cops showed up and I don’t know what happened from there because
we were up around the point.”
All I can say is this lady was damn lucky John and Greg were out fishing last night!! Great job on the quick thinking, I often wonder how I would react in a situation where time is so critical. Hopefully I never get tested.
Amazing job gentleman!!
) would try to swim across the Miss and need to be saved. People dont realize that swimming across 60-80 yards of river isnt like swimming in a pool. 
. With that in mind, I guess I feel pretty silly calling the police. I have seen some awfully strange things happen at that ramp late at night. I try to only use that ramp late in the fall or in the very early spring. The warmer the weather, the more people that tend to hang out down there.
second, I’ve never felt silly about calling the police in a questionable situation – you never know – maybe it is nothing but then again one never knows let them check it out and make sure. As far as I know the Lilydale ramp does not have a gate, but it does have posted hours, maybe if you can make a good account of your self (trailering a boat) the police won’ t make too much of it, but I would not take a chance of leaving my vehicile over night. finally, one mid summer night I was shore fishing by the MN river, it got dark and the bugs were bad so I started walking back along the trail to my car. It was maybe a couple hundred yards back to the lot and I was concentrating on where I was putting my feet and ummm probably thinking about stopping at White Castle before I went home. Next thing I know I hear this terrible screaming noise and it seems to be coming striaght at me down the trail. The humbeling part was the next thing I’m about ten feet back down the trail in a low crouch in some kind of defensive position, every nerve tingling. I can only guess my eyes were as big as saucers because that’s the way they felt since all my senses felt like they were cranked up to maxium power. whether adrelinine and anti coagulants were pumping into my blood stream I can only guess, and I’m still not sure if anything(s) retracted back up for protection but some where down deep my body got itself ready for whatever was coming. I’m pretty sure it was some bird(s) that had been starteled by my approach and I just went on home. Anyway we can walk upright and wear fancy clothes and pretend we’ve come so far but just below the surface… good fishing all, p2f 
