Hearing reports of serious accident involving multiple boats on Smith Lake this morning? Anybody know anything?

ABC 33/40 is running the story but still no details other than multi-boat accident with injuries

Just saw a post by Jordan lee’s brother on Instagram, apparently a tournament angler and non-tournament boater involved

Dam

Claiming one fatality now

I started fishing there in 91 stripe guided from 97 till around 2010. saw one bad collision and was close to being involved in a couple myself due to careless boaters. I'm surprised there is not more. how many more ants are they gonna cram in that ant hill. I don't miss that place one bit

Im gonna guess that guide boat was hit by tournament boat but just a guess.....

Fog? Did I read that correctly?

Smith =Tight corners, Blind 90's, and too many boats and if you combine fog, that's a recipe for disaster. Ceader lake has some similarities. I put in early there one AM and it was too foggy for me to even get on pad so I was idling. I hear a tournament blast off from another ramp and I took my butt back to the ramp until they chilled out. Those guys were running wide open and blind just trusting that GPS. Honestly scared me to death. There are too many tournaments/boats on every lake now. This is becoming way to common nowadays. Also there is a total lack of common sense and courtesy on the water by everyone one now. Prayers for the families of those involved. Just sad.

Was 38deg and calm in cullman this morning...prolly made for some foggy conditions on parts of the lake.

Air colder than water equal fog. Im not an avid fisherman anymore, but i have been on both lay and Mitchell on extremely foggy mornings to the point i just dropped the trolling motor and fished from the ramp until it burned off, but you would hear boats coming speeding by running off there gps. I just dont understand that since the GPS doesnt show other boats or floating objects. Im surprised if fog was the issue and a causing factor that MLF didnt delay the launch. I think it was FLW/MLF several years ago had a boater die in bad weather conditions on Okeechobee.

Possible two fatalities per news reports. Tournament boat and guide boat collided in some fashion in the fog.

I fished a tourney our of City Park in Gadsden, they were pulling water and it was foggy as heck. A bunch of boats came ripping down the river headed to Neely. So I pulled over to the side. DUMB!!!

MLF boat hit a guide boat full speed through a blind turn in the fog. Names are out there but I wont list them here.
reports are the fog was really bad this morning, happened at blast off.

I don't understand why these competitions don't delay the start of tournaments when it is foggy. It is dangerous enough with dozens of boats out there at full throttle trying to get to their fishing spots as it is. And, maybe on tournament days lakes should be closed to all other water activities with or without a watercraft.

These tourneys are going to have to change something b/c obviously the folks fishing them aren't using much common sense.

Most of the time they do.

I used to fish Smith all the time. It’s tricky to run if you don’t know it. Did they launch from the park?

I'm betting that some lawyers are going to go after the tournament, sponsors and the tour for negligence.

Big payouts on the way.