Monday, just two days after his truck was T-boned on California’s Interstate 5 and his boat was wrecked, Jared Lintner was scouting Clear Lake for his next Bassmaster Elite Series event. But the California native from Arroyo Grande was still struggling to get his mind off of the crash.
“I’ve never had any kind of drama like this, my head is still on it,” he said. “It puts things in perspective. I’ve been out on the water now for three hours and I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve probably thought about fishing for about 10 minutes.”
Lintner won a Bassmaster Open event on Clear Lake in 2005, so the lake has good karma for him. Monday he was practicing for the Golden State Shootout, March 18-21, in Lakeport, Calif. It follows the March 11-14 TroKar Duel on the Delta out of another northern California city, Stockton. Like the Duel, the Shootout carries a $100,000 first-place prize.
“I know I just need to fish and kind of put it behind me, but it’s hard,” he said.
Lintner’s 9-year-old son was in the truck with him, a big reason the accident shook the Elite pro down deep.
“The biggest thing is my kid is OK. If anything would have happened to him …”
While he practiced Monday from a boat loaned to him by a Clear Lake friend, Lintner described the Saturday, March 13, accident and aftermath.
“A car came flying up on me — on the shoulder, actually — going about 70, 75, went off the embankment, came back up and T-boned my truck, pushing us sideways down the interstate,” he said.
“I remember seeing my (boat) motor in front of the truck. All of a sudden we came to a stop and the trailer was up kind of along the side of the truck, and the boat was 15 feet away from the trailer.
“My first instincts were to make sure my son was OK, then to get away from the truck. We had just bought fuel.”
Lintner said his son complained of a headache and a sore neck. The boy was examined at an area hospital and appears to have no injuries.
Lintner said he has no apparent physical injury. “I didn’t move. The truck is heavy. If I had had a smaller vehicle, it probably would have flipped,” he said.
He said he assumes that the boat careened end over end because the top of the motor cowling was badly damaged.
Lintner’s thoughts also have been focused on his wife, Keri, and two other children, who were caravanning with him in a separate vehicle as the family traveled from Stockton to Lakeport. Keri was driving a few miles ahead of him with the other two Lintner children, a 2-year-old and 12-year-old. When she got the call that everyone dreads, she turned around at the next exit and backtracked to the scene.
“I’m grateful they weren’t behind us, that they didn’t have to go through the trauma of seeing it happen,” the Elite pro said.
His truck was slammed so hard it bent the axle. “The rear end is totally crooked,” he said. “One tire is probably 8 to 12 inches ahead of the other tire.”
His tackle was scrambled. He didn’t lose much because most pieces were packed in boxes and stowed inside the boat’s compartments. But it took all day Sunday to pick out damaged pieces from shattered boxes and put everything back in order. He lost several rods — maybe all.
“Today I stood up, made my first cast, and the rod broke in half,” he said. “It probably had a hairline fracture that I couldn’t see. That was discouraging a little bit. Hopefully I’ll catch fish in practice and test out more of my rods.”
The fraternity of Elite anglers, along with friends near and far, are helping him get past the bad experience.
“You really don’t know who your true friends are until something like this happens,” Lintner said. “I’ll tell you what, these guys are great — I’ve had phone calls from guys I didn’t even know had my phone number. They’ve offered rods, reels — whatever I need.
“Rich from Tackle Warehouse — that’s my main sponsor — came up with a truck and we loaded all my stuff,” Lintner said. “(Sunday) he helped me all day. I might have lost a few things, but it could have been worse.”
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