This is a great story about the Elite pro’s in a crisis.
from Mark W.
6/13/2009 8:19:59 PM
Rated:
If you don’t beleive most of these guys are truly class acts then read this!
Accidental blessing
Elite anglers show mettle as they band together in crisis
By Steve Bowman
An accident that took place on the first day of the Genuity River Rumble could have marred this event and its memory for several years.
As it turned out, an unfortunate, almost freakish accident revealed the true nature of some of the anglers on the Bassmaster Elite Series.
The accident occurred on Day One of the River Rumble when the Marshal for Elite angler Derek Remitz, Jerry Van Sickle of Oelwein, Iowa, was thrown from the boat. Remitz was following a line of anglers into one of the backwater lakes in Pool 18 on the Mississippi River.
James Overstreet
Randy Howell was one of the nearly 30 anglers who stopped to help the injured Marshal.
In a game of inches that normally translates to fish lengths, Remitz’s boat struck an underwater object that everyone else was fortunate enough to miss. The object was hard enough to completely shear off the lower unit of the boat, sending it into a hook and slide across the canal where they were traveling.
Sickle was thrown from the boat, landing on the bank in some thick kudzu, the fall knocking him unconscious and injuring his shoulder. Remitz immediately jumped from the craft to aid Sickle.
Gerald Swindle was one of the first anglers on the scene. He rounded the bend just as Remitz’s boat was sliding down the embankment minus its two passengers.
"My first thought was they were both in the water,’’ Swindle said. “It was such a blur. I started tearing off my clothes to jump in and see if I could get my hands on them. I heard someone yell, ‘They’re in the woods.’”
That’s when he saw Remitz looking for Sickle in the thick kudzu that lined the bank. Sickle was face down and unconscious. Remitz was shaken up and clearly in emotional distress.
"As
