A River Hunting Trip...Benny Hill Style

A River Hunting Trip…Benny Hill style

As the opening of hunting season gets ever closer, I am reminded of a trip on the Apalachicola River a few years back that would have been good material for Benny Hill or America’s Funniest Videos. My Dad, brothers and male members of our family for many years took a few days off to run up the Apalachicola River for the opening day of Squirrel Season (yes those little tree rats are fun to hunt and good to eat.. taste like chicken of course) and we also enjoyed a few days of good old fashion brim and catfish fishing. This one particular year I decided to bring my new 8MM camcorder. Of course it was only slightly smaller than the full size VHS system but hey I thought back then the fact it only weighed 10 pounds made it light and portable. Now my boat was only 15 ½ ft long and only had a 25 horse Mariner outboard motor but I thought it was a 200 ton barge and loaded it as so.

The first thing I just KNEW I had to have along was a 1200 watt Coleman generator. After all how was I going to run my TV, radio and lights without a generator? It fit nicely in the front where a passenger would have been comfortable. Next you can’t have a nice generator without a TV, so.. my 10 inch color TV came along for the ball games and Miami Vice (I told you it was a few years ago). Hmmm.. gotta put that TV on something.. oh yeah.. I now loaded up my portable picnic table and a couple comfy chairs. Gotta cook all those tasty fish… time for a Coleman propane stove, a couple of lanterns and a 5 gal propane tank. Now that should take care of the kitchen. It’s time for the tent. I of course needed plenty of room for my brothers, dad and gear so I loaded up my Coleman 8 man tent with a couple cots and sleeping bags. Man I am going to be comfortable when I camp. Next was a box of food that would feed 146th US Armor Division for two weeks, after all we might get hungry. Add four rod and reels, two brim busters, two tackle boxes, a few guns and cases of ammo and I am ready to go.

Jed Clampet would have been proud of that loaded down boat. Wait….now I have a problem, I have no place for a passenger OR me to sit. Had to do a little stacking and load tying but wa la.. a place for me (the passengers will have to catch the next boat). I slowly towed my barge down to White City to the Howards Creek Landing and positioned my ole 65 Keiser Jeep truck on the boat launch. People must have really been impressed because a crowd started gathering as I was getting ready to descend to the small creek leading to the great Apalachicola River. WAIT…forgot to take the strap off the boat and raise the motor foot…there.. ready to go.

It was at that time a rather rugged individual stepped up named Catfish who controlled his (by all appearances..contagious) laughter long enough to offer up a suggestion. “Son, you ain’t gonna launch that boat without unloading it first are ya? If you don’t you’ll sink her fer shore.” Hmm…yeah backing down it just might happen that way so I proceeded to unload a few hundred pounds of gear. People must have gotten bored because they began to disperse still snickering of course. I finally figured that should do it and I got back in my ole Jeep and down she went to natures’ beckoning arms. Successfully she bobbed in the cold waters of the little creek so I pulled her back close to the shore and started loading her up again.

Alright, I am ready for a fun filled week of fishing and hunting. Time to push off. Nope, believe it or not you just don’t push off 800 pounds of equipment from the shore line. Great… now my boots are soaked having to walk and two that load to deeper water but my barge is afloat. My brother and dad are in my dad’s boat (yeah they caught that nasty laughing bug that is going around too) and decided to run behind me to pick up survivors…I mean monitor my progress. It’s at this time that I realized I should have cranked that boat motor at home before going to the river after a summer of sitting under the carport. Another hour lost to cleaning and probing around the carburetor but she is now running and ready to scream up that river. We putt putt down the creek through the no wake zone to the opening of the great Apalachicola. Ahhh… nature calls me…I throw the throttle forward in anticipation of the cool river breeze in my face and suddenly a tsunami wave of water rips through the air straight into my face from the bow. I pull the throttle quickly back because I now realize my barge will not get on plane with my little 25 horse power motor and heavy load. I have now learned another valuable wet lesson. Oh well slow and easy I go and we take a 30 minute boat ride in only three and a half hours.

Unloading was not as much fun either since the river was low today and the bank was about four feet higher than the boat. We did manage to get it unloaded, set up and had a great week as anticipated.

Now you would think this would be a great place to end this story but it ain’t gonna happen. When we started heading back to the loading ramp I decided to take some nice video of the beautiful river surrounds in a somewhat documentary style. As my barge putted back down the river I video taped everything I could see. Now I was coming up on the boat ramp and putting the old girl to the bank so I could go get my trusty Keiser Jeep. I put the ole Keiser in four wheel drive because it would get the most traction that way…pulling up my fully loaded barge. Now my logic was this. Launching the boat would have sunk it because it went straight down the trailer into the water with so much weight but coming up the trailer I wouldn’t have that problem because I am now coming OUT of the water. Besides, I was tired and ready to go home. So I put my trailer in the water, got inside my boat, lined her up and drove her as far up the trailer as I could. Now I jumped out of the boat and went to the trailer to start to crank her the rest of the way up. By this time again a crowd of admirers were gathering no doubt to congratulate me on a plan well calculated. I had my load all but four inches to the crank when there was a sudden sound of SNAP and my beloved barge quickly launched back into the creek like the USS Drum. Yes I said USS Drum and for those familiar with the vessel, yes the USS Drum is a submarine… as was my beloved boat that day. I unloaded as much submerged equipment as possible, retied another rope to the wench and then suddenly remembered my beautiful nature ride through the Apalachicola wonderland. My camcorder was right where I left it, on the floor of the boat. As I reached into the water and pulled it up with streams of water exiting its casing, I got a bigger belly grabbing, gut wrenching laugh out of my audience than Chevy Chase got in Christmas Vacation. Oh well, $1200 bucks down the drain but..I still have the video. Have a great day.