A Bush Fish Story

U.S. President Bush goes fishing, boat anchor gets stuck off Maine coast

1 July 2007

By DEB RIECHMANN

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) - U.S. President George W. Bush's presidency is stuck in low gear. Today, his fishing boat was stuck on stop.

The Secret Service had to bail Bush out of a jam when his boat anchor got wedged in rocks along the Atlantic coast.

Relaxing before his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president went fishing with his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and daughter, Barbara.

They dropped the anchor to fish less than 30 metres from shore at Biddleford, Maine, but when they decided to leave, they couldn't. A fishing guide along on the trip tried unsuccessfully to pull up the heavy anchor.

Bush yanked hard too, but couldn't dislodge it either. Soon after, the president's security detail called divers aboard a Secret Service boat that had been following behind.

The anchor was untied, and the elder Bush backed the boat, a blue-and-white craft named Fidelity III, out of the way. After a diver dove down into the chilly water, the president, nonchalantly, resumed fishing.

But he had time to cast his line just a few times. Within minutes, the diver surfaced with the anchor in hand.

An Associated Press photographer took pictures of the incident.

Residents and vacationers renting houses along the coast gathered to watch the anchor retrieval mission.

Bush waved his hat at the crowd as his dad began steering the boat back toward the Bush family estate at Walker's Point.