Since the river has stopped rising, maybe things will get back to normal.

As the flood scare fades away, people are beginning to get back into fishing and boating. Memorial Day weekend is here.

This holiday unofficially casts-off the pleasure boat season. Many of us are on the water 12 months out of the year. We get used to the calm days and very little boat traffic.

Those days are over for now unless you fish areas where pleasure boats don’t go. Boating safety is always important but more so during the holiday weekends and throughout the summer. There will be many people and a lot of boats on the water during the next few months.

Some boat captains do not have a lot of boating experience and some do. If you are the driver you are the captain and with that title is the responsibility to keep all passengers on-board your vessel safe and your boat legal as well as sea worthy. When approaching an oncoming boat never take for granted which direction they will take.

You are supposed to steer to the right just like on the highway, but many don’t do this. You’re never supposed to pass oncoming boats on the left but sometimes you have no choice. I have thousands of hours behind the wheel of a boat and only one accident.

I think it was 1982, and I was running the bayous. I had boats coming straight at me. I throttled down and went so far left the stumps were within inches of my boat. This boat kept coming toward me.

At the last minute I turned hard left to avoid a collision. My boat went completely on its side and his boat hit the underside of mine. His wife flew in one direction. Their dog went the other way. Somehow he stayed in the boat, but it was sinking.

My boat came back down and landed upright, but I went over the console and landed on the front deck. My trolling motor was the only thing that kept me from hitting the water. I trolled over and pulled the lady on-board my boat then the dog. She was going off on him.

His boat was going down fast so I pulled it to a shallow flat so it would not sink very far. I loaded everyone up and headed back to the landing. We were in Cocodrie Bayou so it’s not like a lake where you have a lot more width and plenty of room to avoid a collision.

That is why I went as far left as I could go without running aground. The bayous are where most accidents in this parish occur. Places like the Black River/Horseshoe Lake Complex and three bayous down there are accidents waiting to happen. Workinger, Cross and Cocodrie Bayou have many “blind” curves or bends. To be safe when you enter one of these bends please slow down and keep as far to the right as you can and watch out for on-coming boats.

Please help us make this an accident free holiday weekend and an accident free summer boating season. If you are the captain please take that responsibility seriously. Common sense does go a long way when boating. Have a great, safe Memorial Day weekend.