I was with Vince yesterday when the so called Theft took place, so here is my story and I'm sticking to it. We were anchored across from where the rods were left for almost an hour. we had previously seen the rods there for about 20 minutes prior, no one was in visiable sight during that time period, we looked up and down the river , up on the bank, and hill top, no one was any where in the vincinity. There were fishermen visiable upstream from us. We rowed across the river to the island where the rods were left. We talked about whether someone could have waded to island or not from the bank. Hell, we even fished there for about ten or fifteen minutes. I asked Vince, you dont think someone could have gotten into trouble wading and drowned do ya. since no one was visiable. Or maybe someone from a boat ahead of us left them there. I did not see a fish any where, but there was a artical of clothing that was also left there, no tackle, vest or any other type of fishing related gear. We decided to put the rods in the boat and if at any point we saw or encountered that was mising their rods they would be returned to them , or they would be dropped of at Mahaffeys. We then got into the boat and seriously tried to row upstream in the current to get within yelling distance to the fishermen that were up river from us. The current was fast and after a few minutes of not making much headway we decided to just continue our float down river. A couple of miles down river we see a vechicle up on the roadway with somone standing there, Vince hollered up Hey are you missing a couple of rods. And the guy replied he was, then a noticed a sheriffs vechicle that was parked a ways behind the guy. Vinced rowed over to the bank the dude walked down the hill and Vince handed the rods to him and I didnt hear any thank yous or F%ck yous exchanged between them. The Sheriff came down the bank and started to talk to Vince and asked for our identification and licenes. Vince told him where we found the rods, the time period that had passed from when we saw them to the time we put them into the boat and the thought they had been left behind and or abanded. then Sheriff then said we could go.
At no point in time had the thought occurred to us that we were going to be accused stealing someones personal belongings or being arrested for a crime. the only thought was someone is going to missing the rods and we would be gladly return them to their rightful owner.
As far as the BASHING Vince has taken from this situation, I feel there a a bunch of imature ASSHOLES that are on this Board, and you should not accuse or make slanderous accquations about someone if you dont know what really happen. I to am very sorry for the persons inconvenience and glad you got your gear back ,as that was our INTENT.