birddude
Well-known member
I too have come across a few open wells. Scarry as hell. Cliffed out once while grouse hunting. Parallelling a steep bank that turned into a cliff face on both sides. I barely had room to turn around. Contemplated dropping my gun to have a free hand. Held on to the dog's collar with one hand and my gun in the other. But probably the two dumbest things I ever done involved water and or ice. During a particularly bad winter, the river had been way out of its banks then all the backwaters froze over. This stretch of the river had a mile long levy. So, river side, high turbulent current. Other side 6-8 inches of ice. The levy took a sharp curve. I decided to cut the corner and walk across the ice. Halfway across I heard a weird noise up in front of me. It was snowing so I couldn't see very well. As I got closer to the noise, I saw a what looked like a crevasse. I walked up to it and looked in and realized I was standing looking several feet down to the water. The noise I was hearing was the water rushing through a 6' steel tile through the levy. The water level had dropped several feet, and I was standing on dead ice with no water under it for several feet. It was quite a rush! My brother and I were quail hunting down the same river. There was several feet of thin ice along edges. we weren't worried about it because the river was pretty shallow. But as we came around a bend where it was deeper, his setter went out to the edge to drink. He broke through and was drifting down river trying to get back up on the ice. My brother dropped his gun and ran down river. He was attempting to crawl out on the ice when I saw the dog catch his back feet on a log or something and hopped back out. There's no doubt in my mind that he would have not let him drown no matter what. Another time I was duck hunting, again on the same river. And again, high turbulent current. I was hunting backwater, but I had to walk about a half mile of a place we called the steep banks. 30' feet straight down to the water when the river was low. 40 feet of fast current when the level is at the stage it was that night. For some reason my young Wire walked up to the edge and jumped in before I could even say anything. I ran down stream a way, scooted out over the water as far as I could and snatched her up by the collar as she went
by. Afterwards a chilling realization occurred to me. A half a mile downstream she would have easily made it to shore. I, on the other hand would not have in the freezing water with hip boots on. Iv'e had a few brushes with death. Sometimes Darwinism doesn't work
. So far that gene has not been passed on!!
by. Afterwards a chilling realization occurred to me. A half a mile downstream she would have easily made it to shore. I, on the other hand would not have in the freezing water with hip boots on. Iv'e had a few brushes with death. Sometimes Darwinism doesn't work
. So far that gene has not been passed on!!