Keep Your Seat
Posted by Pete Robbins on Jul 5th 2021
This past weekend I operated a camera boat for a TV crew, toting two or three full-grown dudes and their equipment around the Potomac, and occasionally housing four of them at once while on the trolling motor. The gear they use to produce their art is heavy, and the wait between action can be lengthy, so prior to getting on the water they made it clear that they’d want to sit. One of them who had experience with bass boats asked me to bring both my fold-down seat and my butt seat.
The immediate problem that this request presented was finding those items. I knew that the butt seat was in the back of the garage. I’d put it there right after taking delivery of the boat in April of 2018 and it had never seen the light of day since that time. I knew where the “seat part” of the fold-down seat was because I’d placed it on the back deck for various fishing partners a few times a couple of years ago, but since I mostly fish alone these days, I hadn’t used it in quite a while. I searched the storage compartments of my boat, various shelves and cabinets in my garage, and finally found it in a Rubbermaid storage bin in the back of my Suburban. First problem averted.
Once at the ramp, they decided that someone could sit on the oversized Pelican case on the back deck, allowing me to leave the butt seat in my vehicle, but they wanted the folding seat on the front deck. Putting the boat up on plane to get to our first spot, I quickly realized that the thing effectively creates an eclipse, even without anyone in it. You have to crane your neck hard to the left or the right to make sure you’re not going to run into a floating log, a crab pot, or another boat. It was a monumental pain in the ass. Honestly, David Fritts must be a hell of an uber-aware and conscientious boat driver, because he’s had the darn thing on the deck of his boat for thousands upon thousands of hours of driving a bass boat and to the best of my knowledge he’s never had a crash. My advice to myself: Next time tell them I lost it.
