Operator and his son put the boat in waters of the choke canyon reservoir at the caliham park ramp at approximately 5:00pm on friday april 01 2011. They navigated across to the north side of the lake to an area called four fingers to fish. The wind started to pick up so they decided to navigate back to the south side of the lake to try and get out of the choppy waters. The boat was taking on a lot of water. They bailed out enough water to get the boat on plain. They then stopped the boat and pulled the plug and then got back on plain until all water had drained out and then put the plug back in. They got to the south shore flats and was running along the south shoreline to avoid the choppy waters. The motor grounded out in the shallow water, the boat continued to take on water and the bilge pump was not working, soon waves started to come over the stern of the vessel and the boat filled up with water and capsized. Operator and his son put on their pfds and left the boat to swim to a nearby tree, then swam back to the vessel and road the hull until it got to shallow enough waters for them to walk to the shoreline. They built a fire with the pfds to warm up with until they were found at approximately 1:00am on saturday april the 2nd.
After closer inspection of the vessel it was found to have a 2 foot gash in the bottom of the hull to the port side towards the stern.
The bilge hose for the front livewell was not sealed off allowing water to run freely into the hull of the vessel. The vessel had a nonfunctional bilge pump which allowed the hull to fill up with water which resulted in the vessel stalling out, swamping and eventually capsizing.

CALLIHAM                      