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Well, I've been confiding this story to very few people but since I love everyone here....
About 2 years ago I was blessed with the opportunity of having Emgred teach me how to fish the inlet where I live (I never fished one before and at the time I didn't wear my wader belt and never heard of Korkers until he told me about them). Learned very important lessons from him but I was dumb enough to still not wear a belt or Korkers until this happened....
1 week later, it is my mother's birthday and she wanted Striper for birthday dinner (granted I was extremely new to this type of fishing, so no guarantee but I gave it a shot). Still did not have Korkers nor did I have the belt on. Hook up with a solid 12 pound bass (35 inches), carefully went down the rocks and went to sit down so I could just grab the fish to evaluate and climb up unharmed.
As I went to sit, my boot went on some green algae I couldn't see and in I went with the fish. My waders filled up and it filled like a parachute was pulling me under with my rod in one hand and the fish in the other. Swam back to the rocks with both hands full, climbed out by only my wrists and toes, my toe slipped and my knee immediately slammed down on a rock, got up top and immediately tried to take my waders off, they were vacuum tight. Ringed out my 2 sweatshirts which weighed easily 10 pounds each, took my bag, the keeper sized fish with a bluefish I caught earlier and walked about 3/4 mile back to the car where I collapsed up against it due to the adrenaline rush.
I had no other set of clothes (because I had no plans of swimming). I looked around and had to strip naked and pile everything in the trunk on a mat and drive home wet and naked at 1-1:30am (the drive is about 40 minutes). If that weren't enough, I had to drive past a club with cops all over along with people peeking in the car and I had to hunch over making it look like I was without a shirt. I get to the highway and I see cop lights in my rear view mirror. Mind you I was doing the speed limit and there was no way I was letting myself get pulled over. This cop would have had to ram me off the road because I had both fish in a big black plastic bag which looked like body parts at a glance in the back seat. What felt like forever, the lights began to fall off to the distance. Someone was tail gating me so close that I couldn't see them!
Finally back home, I knew the lashing I'll get since my parents' worst fear happened and if I had my own vehicle at the time nobody would have ever found out (lost my car to a deer a few years before that). Since it was my mom's car, the stink of the inlet filled it.
Damage report:
Cut up wrists
Badly bruised knee (right under the cap no less)
Separated nails on fingers and toes
Verbal lashing from a lot of hypocrites the next day (mainly lashed about going alone at night)
A much gentler lashing from Emgred
Shock for a few days then realized how lucky I was that I didn't knock my head on a rock and go under.
Furthered my opinion of not liking inlets past the massive fishing pressure that occurs there.
Copious, never ending amounts of embarrassment
Side note - I have never heard from Emgred again, very nice man, miss him. Hope he is doing ok.
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