The joint project between the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks conducted the project for several hours Saturday night. Field sobriety tests were conducted on 11 boat operators which resulted in the five BWI arrests.

Iowa DNR Conservation Officer Steve Griebel said there were also two boat operators who had blood alcohol readings above .08 but less than .10. The blood alcohol level in Iowa is .10. In Nebraska and South Dakota, the blood alcohol level is .08.

“I think the project was successful,” said Griebel. “The majority of the families on the river are being safe, but too many boaters are disregarding boating safety laws and putting themselves and others at risk. We want people to have fun boating, but safety needs to be their priority on any body of water.”

The Missouri and Big Sioux rivers hazards include a fast current, both are narrow and have a lot of debris.

In addition to the six arrests, the project handed out 13 citations for safety and equipment violations primarily for not having the proper number of lifejackets and for speed and distance violations. Officers also handed out four written warnings and gave three verbal warnings.

Friday

It was unbelievably cold all weekend,  the 60’s, in July? Its unheard of! We got down to the Queen dock at the Marina around 6:30pm. The cabin cruiser we stayed on, ‘the TimTation’ is owned by my friend’s uncle, who was spending the weekend working on his new dry docked houseboat. Its over 60 feet long and has been completely gutted and is in the process of being entirely redone. After checking out the boat and drinking a few beers we went ahead and went back to the dock to night fish. We fished until we ran out of worms. I caught several bluegill and 6 catfish. None of my catfish were more than 1.5 lbs.  My friend hooked into the biggest carp I have seen in a while. It must’ve been 20-30 lbs. Its head was as big as mine! He tried to reel it in a little too quickly and it snapped his line after it broke the surface. He did pull in a4-5 lber. He held the pole and I got belly down on the dock and grabbed it by its lip to put it out.  We drank about 3 bottles of wine between both of us and our new friend Norm, before passing out in the Cruiser.

Saturday

Saturday morning my friend and I woke up around 8 AM, went to grab some breakfast and then headed back to the lake. Apparently his uncle needed some help removing a generator from the new houseboat. They had the bright idea to have my friend and I stand on top of a cube truck with ropes to ’stabilize’ it, while they lifted it over the side of the boat. Realizing this was a recipe for disaster they opted to instead just cut away part of the railing and use some rollers to get the generator to the truck.

After avoiding that disaster I went back to the docks to fish some more. I caught another catfish and a few bluegills before getting called back up to the dock because they were about to launch the boat. I had tried to use some cranks and spinners but the water was fairly murky and I didn’t have any luck.

The boat launch gave me a chance to start drinking. I had a few beers while they slipped it into the water. It only had bubbles coming up from one place, but we think that place was actually the tires. There was a leak however, from where my friend’s Uncle drilled screws through the bottom of the boat! Eventually they pulled it back out, grinded off the screws and patched it with some boat epoxy and told us it was about time to go boating.

While we were watching them put the boat in the water I saw 2 guys cleaning fish at the courtesy station. That had caught a lot of catfish. They had 2-3 in the 5lb range and a bunch of 2lbers. They said they were fishing up near honey creek.

While we waited for them to show up back at the docks to go boating we had a little contest to see who could catch more bluegill. We probably caught around 60-70 in about an hour while waiting. We could catch them at will on that dock. We went out boating and drinking for several hours on the cruiser. Everyone got extremely drunk, once I hit land again I tried fishing again but the wine would let me have none of it. I almost passed out with my hand on the line, laying on my back on the dock, but my friend grabbed me and put me on the floor of the boat.

Some of the Catfish from the first night

Sunday

We woke up around 9am and just lazed around. I found an extremely comfy lawn chair and sat in there with my line in the water for about an hour before catching the biggest catfish of the weekend. It was still less than 2 lbs so don’t get excited, but it was fun to catch.

Around noon we packed up our stuff and headed back to Des Moines after saying thanks and goodbye to our hosts.

This one snuck by me, I didn’t realize kids now are required to WEAR the vest, as opposed to the boat just being required to have enough vests for everyone aboard.

The Des Moines River near the Center Street Dam in downtown Des Moines during the rescue yesterday

A construction worker dangles from a crane, his arm stretched out to reach a terrified woman trapped in swirling water at the base of a dam. These astonishing images show the dramatic rescue of the woman after her boat overturned near the dam on the Des Moines River in Iowa. She was pulled to safety by the quick-thinking construction crew – but her husband, who was with her in the boat when it overturned yesterday, tragically drowned.

Jason Oglesbee

The heroic Jason Oglesbee, a construction worker working in the area pulled the woman to safety.

“I saw the boat drift down, and he started it up and he hit the bridge base,” construction worker Joe Lowe told local media. ‘”Then he tried to wrap it up with an anchor or line and then I heard him holler at his wife, put your life jacket on. He didn’t have one on.”

The unnamed husband’s concern for his wife may have saved her life. Her life jacket kept her afloat in the swirling waters of the river for up more than half an hour as construction worker Jason Oglesbee battled to reach her. Des Moines police Sgt. Joe Gonzalez said the workers saw the woman floating in a boil and they tried to move a crane over to her. Meanwhile, fire crews tried to throw life preservers from a boat.

Construction worker Jason Oglesbee dangled from a crane and saved the drowning woman in the Des Moines River yesterday

Emergency crews said it is likely the woman would have drowned had it not been for the construction crew’s heroic rescue operation. Clutching life preservers thrown to her by rescue services, the woman struggles to stay afloat near the dam before the rescue.  After the initial attempt with the crane was unsuccessful, the construction company rigged up Oglesbee to the crane with a harness and Oglesbee was able to grab the woman from the water.

‘They just harnessed me in and dipped me down in the water and I grabbed her,’ he said. When asked if he volunteered to be rigged to the crane, Oglesbee said he just happened to be wearing the harness. “‘I just told her to hang on tight. I won’t let go,” Oglesbee recalled.

Oglesbee is lowered to the water by the crane

The Des Moines River near the Center Street Dam in downtown Des Moines during the rescue yesterday He insisted the rescue was a team effort and was reluctant to talk to media, saying: “It’s no big deal. The whole crew did it. If it wasn’t for the team effort of Cramer & Associates, we might have two drowning victims,” Gonzalez said.

The body of the man, who was in his 60s, was pulled from the water about 25 minutes after the boat overturned at 4pm yesterday afternoon. The woman was pulled from the water at 4.35pm and rushed to hospital, where she was pronounced stable last night.

The body of the man, who was in his 60s, was pulled from the water about 25 minutes after the boat overturned at 4pm yesterday afternoon.

The Des Moines River near the Center Street Dam in downtown Des Moines during the rescue yesterday