TIRO — Larry Stacklin has fished in the waters of Lake Erie “a million times.”
However, a fishing trip Oct. 12 will always stay with the 57-year-old Tiro resident.
Stacklin, who’s the head custodian at Shelby High School, said conditions that day included four-foot waves when he was driving out of the channel.
For reasons still unknown to him, Stacklin’s electric anchor began to unload itself.
“At the time I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?'” he said. “I had to stop, mess with that and get it working properly again and get moving again.”
Moments later, Stacklin heard a man on his radio making a “mayday” call to the Coast Guard because their boat was taking on water.
“I looked at my first mate and I said, ‘He’s about five miles from us,'” he said. “I’m like, we’re going to go look.”
As Stacklin directed his path up toward the Portage River, he and his first mate spotted the sinking vessel — which was located slightly off the distance reported to the Coast Guard.
“He (boat owner, Chad Hughes) was wrong on his distance, so we were able to get to him sooner,” Stacklin said. “After we got them in the boat, we called the Coast Guard.”
About five to 10 minutes after his call, the Coast Guard responded to assist Stacklin with the rescue of Hughes and three other fishermen who were on the boat with him.
Fellow employee says Stacklin ‘is a hero’
Moments after leaving the area of the sinking boat, Stacklin was alerted by his fellow fisherman.
“My first mate turns around, looks at me and says, ‘My God, it just sank,'” he said. “I turned around and I saw two feet of the nose sticking straight up in the air.
“The crazy part of all this is, had my anchor not done what it did early on into the trip, I would have been four or five miles over towards Kelly’s Island. I wouldn’t have gotten to them before they sank.”
Stacklin said the Lake Erie water was about 65 degrees two weeks ago. All four fishermen on Hughes’ sinking boat were wearing life jackets.
Stacklin, who began operating a part-time fishing charter business on Lake Erie six years ago, Stacklin Fish Charters, has been on the other side of an incident like this himself.
Once while out fishing with family, his boat took on water — prompting him to call the Coast Guard for help.
A math teacher at Shelby High School, Scott Gurney emailed Richland Source about Stacklin’s heroism.
“What an amazing positive story for our area,” Gurney wrote. “He (Stacklin) is a hero.”
Avid fisherman stresses safety
Serving the Shelby City School District for the past 25 years, Stacklin looks forward to operating his fishing charter full-time upon his future retirement.
“That was the whole idea,” he said. “Starting that was to supplement my retirement.
“They say when you retire, you should have something to do and I thought, ‘what a better way to supplement my retirement than do something I enjoy doing?’ “
The avid fisherman stressed the importance of having life jackets on board when taking to the water, as well as some form of VHF radio.
“If they could have GPS on their fish finders, it would be really helpful,” Stacklin added.