Very close call! Glad you are still alive to see another day!

At least you shared what happened so that others can learn from it. I know people that think that a PFD is for people that can't swim. I like mine. I wear it.

Glad your ok!! You know now what to change so this doest happen again!

Thank you for sharing. It might save a life, or two.
I'm glad you were able to collect your thoughts, and had the strength/stamina to save yourself.

Yesterday, a man jumped in the water in order to cool himself, and was NOT able to make it back to the boat (it happened at Canyon Lake, and he didn't live). I read about it in this morning's paper.

Glad your ok!!!! That's to darn close man.

Some of the best lessons in life come from "near misses". Glad this one turned out OK for you.

On that anchor issue,
If you will get right over the top of it and then start to pull up, that will help you from getting hung up as much. When you pull in the anchor from an angle, that anchor is going to travel through the water and it will catch anything that might be in it's path (rock, limb, tree, old concrete, etc.)

do you have a sit on top or sit in yak?

Unless he is has upgraded recently I see a sit in in his signature pic.

Tells me you're in decent physical shape if you can fight the rollers, the hook and weight of the rod (assuming you didn't just cut the line and let her go), and get to and enter your kayak and paddle back. Adrenaline sure, but you couldn't have overcome a serious lack of conditioning, adrenaline or not.

I sold the old Sit inside about a year ago and have a 10' sit on top now.

I Thought about cutting the line since the rod was dangling under me. Every time I would kick to swim I would bump the rod and it would hurt like hell. The problem was that my reel was spooled with 20# braid so there was no cutting it off till I reached the kayak. I am 28 and in decent physical condition, but let me tell yall, that was a WORKOUT!

That kind of experience can generate some very deep thinking. Glad you're safe bud. In the military we called that "a significant emotional experience" and generally meant you learned a lot from having survived it.

I fish at night allot in my two man pontoon boat. What you describe is the sum of my fears in a small boat at night. It's always better to have a buddy around but when by yourself, I think wearing that PFD is the least you can do. I know they are hot, but being ejected suddenly into the water is bad enough without finding yourself without that PFD.

This was a good post and I'll certainly take it to heart.

you are so lucky, it could have turned out the other way so easily, I hope you really take it seriously, because you may not get that lucky next time.

Glad everything went well, could have been a real tragedy. I almost met my maker a year ago this month. My father-in-law (who just passed away this past Dec. at age 90) and I were launching my boat on Pine Creek Res. in OKla. Due to his advanced age, I used the method of hooking a tag line to the front bow clete and tied off to the bow stop on the trailer. Either I failed to hook the clete or it just came loose, don't know. Anyhow, as I pulled the trailer forward after the boat floated clear, the rope came loose. The boat started to float up the river with the wind (we launch in the upperend of the lake in Litte River. There was no one around with a boat to retrieve my boat, so I went in after it. I lunged to reach the bow, and missed, took a lung full of water, started strangling, lost my breath and down I went. Being not in the best of shape at 60, found out my strength for swimming wasn't a good as I thought. My poor father-in-law was watching all of this from the bank and couldn't help me. I finally went under far enough for my feet to touch bottom, gave a push that moved me closer to the shore so I could stand up. Talk about your life flashing before your eyes. That was as close to drowning as I had ever been. Fortunatly, the boat floated close enough to shore that my father-in-law could hook it with his cane. After we got things setup to fish later, there was a word of prayer said. Now my wife won't hardly let me fish alone, says it worries her too much. Course I wore my pfd (auto-inflatable) when I did fish alone, but because we were launching the boat, never crossed my mind that I would have to go in after my boat. This also happened once before, same place, except the rope broke and I went in after it. I guess I was in better shape then since it was about 7 yrs ago. Sorry for the long post..that's why they call them LIFE SAVERS (it ain't the candy).