The "rumor" I always heard was that they lost a lawsuit stemmed from the waterfowlers who drowned on Saginaw Bay a few years back in the (then new) Outlaw Boat. Is there any truth behind it?... couldn't say.
Please correct me if I am wrong. From what I heard was that they did go bankrupt due to a lawduit (which one, I do not know). I also believe that another company bought the rights to the name, patents, etc. As far a I know the decoys are still available, but in what type of availability, I do not know. Please let me knoe people if I am all 'wet' here.
Chad said "The "rumor" I always heard was that they lost a lawsuit stemmed from the waterfowlers who drowned on Saginaw Bay a few years back in the (then new) Outlaw Boat. Is there any truth behind it?... couldn't say."
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Captain Chad
Trippin' Dipsies
I can defininately say they did not lose the lawsuit in regards to the Saginaw Bay incident where 4 hunters lost their lives. One of the hunters was my former boss! They were let out of the suit and the suit continued against the company that produced the gas cap. Final results were in favor of the defendant. Outlaw's owner made many statements here on the internet that he would in turn sue anyone who further implicated them in the disaster. This basically shut down any discussion on the subject for a long time.
Do you have any specifics on this incident, such as the date? I don't remember this particular incident and would be interested in reading up on the lawsuit.
Thanks.
Edit: Nevermind. I found this article on the incident that also discusses other legal issues Outlaw was wrestling with.
pure hearsay, but for what it's worth for conversation....
Outlaw boat issue sunk the company. They filed for protection , then reformed under new ownership (bank financiers) , but day to day ops under direction from the past president. Trying to rebuild the decoy arm and I'd speculate that the banks are running it to recoup the investments in the previous company. I wouldn't expect to see "new" anything out of them - they'll "turn n burn" from existing dies/components. I'd think they're not too interested in investing , but rather they'll use what they have and produce what they can to get their money back out of it.
We were at Shiawassee River that day, and had birds everywhere. The wind in the crop field was so bad that we couldn't hit a darn thing (steel shot is a bugger in strong wind). We still talk about day as an "Edmund Fitzgerald" storm. We had flocks of 10-15 pintails practically landing on us...about the only time I can recall ever seeing them like that in Michigan. Funny day for us...until we heard the news from the bay.:sad:
The owners owner's son ran the company into the ground when givin control following an ATV accident. He regained control and that's when I started working for him, gathering all assets from all locations. It had nothing to do with the boat wreck. Those men were foolish to go into the water in that kind of weather, and with no phone on top of that.
I don't think there were many cell phones back then when that happened. I was hunting Hubbard lake that day and everyone was without power. I never seen a 80 foot pine tree bend in half like I did that day.
I don't know the exact year but around that time, we were heading down one of the local roads (very near hubbard) and found that a 1/4 mile wide stretch of oaks had been twisted and broken off. The area was absolutely devastated. There was a clearly defined and strangely straight line dividing the devastation from seemingly untouched trees.
Interesting, never heard of the storm, the deaths or the boat company.
Sure sounds like no one should have been out there that day. Maybe they had some design flaws. I hate to see a company go under because of a dumb move by the boat owner.
Yeah, but the company survived the boat accident. What it didn't survive was the founders son taking control after his dad Jim had an ATV accident. He brought in this venture capitalist. They ran it in the ground. When we got all the assets, including 30 computers we were able to track their foot prints and see what they had been doing.... As well as what they hadnt been doing.... Not shipping merchandise after running credit cards....
He hired 20 of us to help move everything to one location. I was the last man standing. He rented me an apt. and I lived there for a year helping him and a programer we hired go through everything. It was a mess and he was happy about the way his costumers were treated.
That was a heck of a storm I was in a canoe at Crow Island with another guy. We were paddling down one of the cuts. We could not keep the canoe going straight, just bounced from side to side as we moved along.
Glad you made it out. Jim Cripe told me of a boating accident him and his hunting buddy was in. He said they were able to make it back to his truck shed their close and get warm. I believe this happened in Post falls Idaho but can't be sure. That was along time ago.
My buddy and I were set to hunt Wigwam from the same place they launched on that very morning. There was plenty of warning about the upcoming storm so we changed plans early in the morning and went to Nayanquing instead. The place was packed as you can imagine and we got a bad draw. Still had one heck of a shoot up in the North field on DIVERS, if that tells you anything about the conditions that day.
It sent a shock through Midland because these guys were pillars of the community. The most successful realtor in town and the owner of a prestigious CPA firm and his son. Smart and successful people, but certainly not great lakes mariners who overestimated their new boat and underestimated the hazards of Saginaw Bay.
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