After reading Kiwi's thread about the dramas on the Finniss River regarding shonky fuel mixes and kinked lines, I thought it might be good to relate some of the unfortunate experiences some of us may have had during our fishing and/or boating adventures. This might help others to avoid the same sort of fate down the track. Obviously, some things are beyond anybody's control but so many incidents are directly related to human error and can be avoided with a little prior knowledge.

Mine are more to do with tackle loss...doesn't have to be overly dramatic, just little bits of info that can help somebody later.

 Was bottom bouncing with my son and his mate last Easter holidays when the young bloke became snagged on the bottom. I decided to pull the sea anchor in and motor back up to where the snag was so he could at least get most of his line back. Well I wasn't paying attention and failed to notice that he wasn't winding his line in so I ended up running over it, cutting it off and losing most of the 50lb braid that had been on there. Was lucky it didn't get up on to the prop shaft and possibly damage the seal. What I learnt there was that as a skipper you really have to take in the experience levels of everyone who comes out in the boat and adjust your actions accordingly.

The other one from last year was when I was trolling solo along the back edge of the FFB. An X-Rap Mag20 on one rod and a little Richter Jelly Babe on the other, doing about 7 knots into a light northerly. Bang, X-rap gets hit, put motor into neutral, wind in, dehook and release one 5kg sambo. Meanwhile, the wind has pushed the boat slowly back to where the now stationary Jelly Babe was sitting. Being a skirt, it sank and became snagged up on the reef, where I lost it. The lesson here was, if you're going to troll alone, be prepared to handle both rods, or put yourself in a situation where the drift and/or action of the lure isn't going to bring you to grief.

Again, not necessarily expecting to see dramatic, life-threatening situations, just simple little things that many would not even think twice about but can save someone a bit of aggro down the track.