Bassmaster Classic pro rescues man from chilly waters of Lake Hartwell
David Walker has lured plenty of big fish from the water in his 15 years of competitive bass fishing, but he'll be hard pressed to top what he pulled on board late Sunday morning.
Walker, one of the 56 anglers competing in this week's Bassmaster Classic, was practicing Sunday near the Lake Hartwell Dam when he noticed something in the water.
"I've seen a lot of stuff in the water over the years," said Walker, of Sevierville, Tennessee. "I figured something had just blown off a dock."
As he got within a couple hundred yards of the object, he noticed people standing near the boat ramp at the Big Oaks Recreation Area, looking intently toward the object and attempting to get his attention.
"At that point I had to find out what it was," Walker said.
Walker pulled up his trolling motor, cranked his big motor and moved toward the object, which turned out to be a man, clinging to a life jacket and barely moving in the 45-degree water.
"I pulled up and said, 'You picked a helluva day to go swimming,'" Walker said. "And he told me that his boat had sunk."
The man, whom Walker said appeared to be well over 6 feet tall and close to 300 pounds, struggled to get a foothold on Walker's boat ladder and told Walker to just tow him in.
"I said, 'No, we've got to get you out of the water or it's going to kill you,'" Walker said.
"We kept wrestling around and eventually he got a foot on the bottom rung and I dug my heels in and grabbed ahold of his jacket and pulled him in. His hands were as cold as ice."
Walker immediately sped some 200 yards to the nearby boat ramp, where a Georgia probation officer and a deputy from the Hart County (Georgia) Sheriff's Department were waiting.
An ambulance arrived within minutes.
"The whole thing was unbelievable," said Hart County Sheriff Mike Cleveland, who also arrived as the man was pulled from Walker's boat. "None of this would have taken place if not for a probation officer, one of our deputies and of course, the fisherman. You can call it divine intervention or whatever you want, but if any of those folks hadn't been there, it might not have been a good ending."
The probation officer was on the way to church with his family when he decided they'd be late for the service. So they pulled into the Big Oaks Recreation Area to listen to the service on the radio while enjoying a picturesque view of the lake.
"They were watching this guy put his boat in and go out, and all of a sudden the boat's gone – 200 yards out in 74 feet of water," Cleveland said.
The probation officer called 911 and a Hart County deputy who happened to be nearby was there within minutes. He used his siren and blue lights in an attempt to get Walker's attention.
It worked.
"It was just such a weird thing," said Walker, who left the ramp and continued to fish after the ambulance arrived. "I called my wife and said, 'You're never going to believe what just happened.' I was just in the right place at the right time."
Walker, 49, will begin competition in his 10th Bassmaster Classic on Friday, but he'll never forget the practice day he had on Sunday.
"I don't think he would have made it," Walker said. "I'm just glad I happened to be there."