Huge waves, these tips could save your life

good afternoon guys Chuck Rollins big grumpy comm guide service and Dallas fishing charters down here at Cedar Creek Lake today's January 20th 2020 wanted to talk to you a little bit about boat safety what I'm mainly referring to is what you need to do in case you're out here and it's really really rough Cedar Creek lakes one of the larger lakes in Texas in it it gets pretty rough sometimes for a lake it's not like being offshore and huge swells but this Lake can actually get get pretty bad at times most of the time when we get a cold front in the early spring like March and early April those cold fronts will bring 30 40 mile an hour winds and when it does this Lakes 20 miles long so it can throw some pretty good waves toward you I see a lot of people running around at 16 18 foot votes sometimes smaller and you put three and occasional four footers out there and it can be life-threatening I've seen five footers but it's very very rare most of the time at these fronts will have 30 35 mile an hour winds occasionally we'll get forty five mile an hour winds it's not near as common but we get them I think one of the worst days I've ever ever seen we had 44 mile an hour winds that day coming from the Northeast I'm sorry the Northwest and it just blows well right down the valley of the lake and that south end now there by crappie island the waves were monstrous they were monstrous luckily they were not super close together they were far apart but they were probably five footers again very rare but it happens if you're if you happen to be out and the waves get really really bad here's some things that that you need to know number one you don't want people in the front of your boat it's extremely dangerous going through waves and people bouncing around one for backs and into just for throwing them off the boat or back in the boat and getting hurt so man get your kids back or get get your family or friends back in our case we make sure we try to get our customers back to at least the center part of the boat the further back you ride in the boat the more comfortable it's going to be when you're going forward and hitting in waves so get those people back and let them sit down and save their backs for another day the other thing you want to do let's say it's really bad and you know you need to get over here sometimes what we do is let's say that you know I've got high winds coming out of the Northwest which is typically where they come from and I happen to be way down the lake ten miles from my dock what I will do is I will actually shoot over to the west side of the lake and I will run that side of the leg all the way up to where I can make a straight shot across those waves now luckily most of the boats that we run on the lake can easily handle the waves that are thrown but I'll actually run the tops and the sides of those those waves as as I'm shooting across the lake the lakes only what two miles wide in this in this twin Creek area so it's it's it's not the end of the world to have to cross that stuff but it is dangerous if the waves get too big you don't want to be sideways in them if you do get sideways obviously it can it can't flip you over if your boats small enough and the waves are big enough it's gonna flip you over it could happen in this boat if it were bad enough this is about a 25 foot boat so anyway what I do is I'll run up that west side then I'll shoot across and if it's bad the one thing for sure you want to make sure it keep your bow in the wind if it's like really really bad and you're just trying to stay afloat you shouldn't be worried about anything but that you know if you lose something out you lose your net or a fishing rod or whatever and it's really really bad don't worry about it just don't turn her out add and keep plugging forward and because if you turn around it could get really really bad for you so anyway keep the bow on the wind now let's say for example that you're up on the northern end of the lake and you need to get to the south end and you've got 40 mile an hour winds and you start getting down towards the lake and all of a sudden you're in four footers and your boat can't handle it very well what you need to do is slow down but keep your bow up and don't let just you're basically going to be just riding at the at the speed of the wave you don't want to let that wave catch you so doesn't necessarily mean that you need to go faster then the waves are moving but you'd be surprised how fast those waves move when the wind's really blowing so basically you're gonna come in you're already in there and when that big swell comes up if you had stopped or slowed down let's say that wave would would crash into your boat obviously you don't want that for a couple of reasons one if it comes into your boat it could swamp you the other thing it can push you and actually cause you to steer and the opposite direction like safe to the rider to the left and then all of a sudden it flips you over there's a bunch of videos online of boats in big swells and like crossing a bar and you'll see a lot of times what they'll do is they'll get in those big waves and they'll either punch the wave in front of them or the wave behind it will swamp up so anyway you just want to make sure and keep your bow up and don't let that big wave catch you and you're just going to move right through it and then once you get to a safe area you know get out and into that area and you know if it's a summer squall it's gonna pass into 2030 minutes sometimes less if it's a cold front that's moved through it's not gonna pass that quick a lot of times it'll blow that hard for a day sometimes two days and so you know you need to be able to run back to where you've got your trailer or whatever so anyway just a couple of things one always wear your lifejacket - of course Texas got the new kill switch law I got to have that it's my understanding on the law and I could be wrong on this but if you're just idling like this I don't think you're actually required to have it on but once you get your speed up I think you are so so anyway I could be wrong on that but that's my understanding of it so anyway live jackets make sure that everybody is you know towards the back if you've got anything on the boat that could potentially get thrown around and cause some kind of hazard you don't get it in a in an area where it won't do that luckily I like a lot of the bay boats like we run they've got they've got rod holders and you know even on the side so you can put your your rod in them and it keeps it secure I don't I try not to ever lay anything on the floor I don't want rods on the floor I don't want tackle on the floor I don't want anything on the floor except for my fish cooler and our feet sometimes I'll put the net down there but other than that that's it so anyway guys I'll be safe as the as those fronts approach and good luck to you out there

Channel: BigCrappie Fishing Guide Service

Views: 23,917

Rating: 4.6778522 out of 5

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Id: AoMbM4olVKE

Length: 7min 29sec (449 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020