Was out on Canyon Lake yesterday. She�s about 3-4 feet down, making upriver trips in my tritoon a bit more wary. I went upriver to a favorite spot where I encountered a minefield of stumps on or just below the surface. Headed back down about 100 yards and fished the day away. About three hours later, I hear a roar, and a bass boat comes roostertailing around the bend where the minefield was. My question is this, was he that good or just lucky?

If you can't see them; there not there. was watching over him.

He was lucky, but that won't last long. The mouth of the Guadalupe is tough. That's OK, if you can plop down $70K for a bass boat, a lower unit is chump change. I idle using the marked route on the graph and if I get off that it's trolling motor only

There�s some stumps the size of kitchen tables up the river, I avoid it as much as possible. I was there yesterday too and went into the very back of Toms creek, wow there�s some serious stumps and trees that are now exposed.

Yep, situations like that are largely luck. The Sabine river is treacherous with stumps and lay downs. You can see them when it's low, but as the level rises they get covered up. Doesn't slow many people down though, in fact, most go faster when they can't be seen. Seen and heard more than a few conflicts between lower units and trees, propulsion plus coverage on my insurance gives me peace of mind.

He may just know that piece of the river well enough to run it. Or he may have a GPS track through it that allows him to run it. If you're familiar enough with the area you can run it. stumps don't move.

I have been and watched bass fisherman do the same thing, Most of them know the lanes and their boat very well .

Stumps don't move, but contact with the lone wolf you never know was there can be dramatic. The same goes for large "floaters" that become submerged as they waterlog and settle into a new spot that was once upon a time along the path of an angler's safe route through an area.

If he has idled through the area and mark a route where he didn't hit a stump and saved his route he would be good to go.
You're a lot shallower on plane so any stumps you missed idling would be less likely to hit on plane.

In that case you shouldn't ever run above idle anywhere. "floaters" can be anywhere on the lake, not just in the coves.

My brother knows about dem floaters. He has an entire lower unit with a high 5 prop laying in the bottom of Fork. Sheared it right off at about 60 mph on a Ranger with 175merc. Didn't even crack the gel coat on the transom. I guess he wasn't on pad high enough.

You need to work on reading comprehension. First, I never said that floaters were only in coves. I didn't even mention coves, in fact. Second, I was speaking about what you get AFTER a "floater" has waterlogged and settled to the bottom. (Check my post for that.) This is a bigger concern when the water is shallow enough that a new obstacle on the bottom is close enough to the surface to snag lower units. You said I need to idle everywhere if I apply my risk logic. That's not true either. While floaters are expected in the open lake, when they sink in DEEP water, they become a non-issue. Yes, you can hit a floater anytime anywhere there's water to float it. My discussion was related to the ones that have sunk. Think of this like planting new stump that wasn't there before.