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Summers at Nolin Lake: Jon Boat

My aunt Jean and Uncle Roy owned a lot on Nolin Lake many years ago. In the spring and summer months we often went there to camp, fish, swim and generally enjoy ourselves. In his early 20s my cousin jay purchased a used Jon boat. I think it was made out of dropped-forged battleship armor; it was a tough little boat, and it needed to be considering what my cousin did to it one day!

A 15-20 horsepower motor powered the boat, and at top speed it probably went only about 15 MPH with the wind. It got us to where we needed to go; it just did not set any speed records getting us there. Like most boats, the motor was mounted on a swivel that allowed the motor to be angled up for being hauled on a trailer. Luckily for us, Jay forgot to lock the motor down in the drive position when we launched the boat.

We liked to fish in an area off of Dog Creek we called the “stickups.” We called it by this name because of the number of dead trees that stuck up out of the water when the area was flooded to create Nolin Lake. One week we all gathered at the campsite for a week of fishing and swimming. Several guys with speed boats decided to come ripping through the Dog Creek area at top speed and mess with people trying to fish. One night a bunch of the fishermen got together and drug large logs and other debris out into the lake all throughout the Dog Creek area. This sets the stage for the adventure about to befall my cousin jay, my father and myself one morning.

When we got up that morning, we noticed all of the debris in the lake, and my father said he heard the fishermen dragging the logs out into the water during the night. My cousin Jay decided he wanted to see the extent of the debris in the water, so we hopped into his Jon boat and took off. Jay put me in front of the boat and my job was to tell him if I saw any large log in the water that we were about to hit. We made it all the way to the stickups with no problem, and Jay turned the boat around to head back to the campsite. We probably traveled a couple of miles or more up the lake before we turned around.

On the way back Jay and my dad started talking about something, I don’t know what, and they were totally into the conversation to the point to where they blocked out anything but their conversation. Jay had the boat motor wide open as we traveled back to the campsite. As I sat in the front of the boat, I noticed a huge tree in the water. Due to the size of the tree and its location in the water, I figure the tree fell into the water all on its own. I yell out to jay, “There is a tree in the water directly ahead!” I expected Jay to turn the boat to avoid the tree, but we kept going straight at it.
So, I yelled, “Jay, we are about to hit a huge log!” Still nothing. I look back and he and my father are in an animated conversation. I started waving my arms and yelling, “Jay we are going to hit a log!” It had absolutely no effect. He and my father had totally tuned out everything but their conversation with one another.

When I saw we were going to hit the log I grabbed life jackets and tossed one by my dad and another one by Jay, and preceded to put my life jacket on. I hoped my tossing the life jackets would get their attention, but to no avail.

It seemed like we were traveling in slow motion, and we slowly kept getting closer to the tree in the water. With the boat going at full speed, we slammed into the tree, ramped up and over it and back into the water. Remember the motor swivel I mentioned earlier that Jay forgot to lock down? When the motor arm hit the tree the motor kicked up and then back down, which prevented the motor from being ripped off of the boat. Otherwise we would have had to paddle the boat over a mile back to the campsite. The impact did dent the front of the boat a little, but it did not knock a hole in it, or cause a leak of any kind.

When we landed in the water on the other side of the tree, Jay yelled at me, “Why didn’t you tell me we were about the tree?” I calmly looked at him and said, “What part of ‘we are about to hit a log!’ was confusing?”

By Ralph Dickerson

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