May 2001 ---> Fishing small lakes in Michigan. 11 years old.


My friend and I had a Friday off of school so we thought we would do a little scouting on Thursday night and hit it hard for spawning largies in the morning. On our way out we found a boat tipped over and submergedin the water about 3 feetwith the anchor down. We shored the boat and emptied the water, looked around a little for anything, and assumed that the kid on the hill were having a huge party and just trashed the boat. After that, we marked some nice beds and headed in for the night. On the way in we tied the boat to ours and hauled it back to my dock.

5:15 AM came early as the alarm sounded. We were really excited. We loaded the gear and headed off back through the channel to the lake where we had marked the big bass. As we came out of the channel the darkness of the morning had not yet rose. It was very dark but visibility was about 10 feet. The fog was beginning to lift. We crossed the area in which the boat had been tipped over only to hear a large CLUNK of something hitting the prop. I quickly looked in the wake to see a dead body floating on the surface.

We proceeded to think awful and profane thoughts, swear a little, and race back home. I got on the telephone and called the state police and we had sirens coming from every direction, FBI agents, scuba team, the whole works. It was now about 7:00 AM and I had to take the officers to where the dead body was. We searched for about 30 minutes and found nothing. The officers kept asking me "Are you sure you didn't mistake a dead body for a swan." I assured them I know what a dead person looks like. We buzzed around the lake and on the other side, there lay a dead man in his middle 60's. Autopsy confirmed he had died from drowning the previous day when he flipped his boat.