Sitka Gear Turkey Tool Belt

Sad

I went for a dunk once in a river retrieving a goose.

Scared the crap out of me.

I have had one other close encounter in a swamp type area lion hunting.

I have given up waterfowl hunting since the first incident and am real cautious, maybe a bit nervous, around even small water.

Sad story for sure. :(
 
What's wild with this one is his friends watched it happen and called 911 immediately when he went under and they still can't find any sign of the boy. I kayak in and around that area a ton in the winter and that river is a fickle bitch. Strange currents and things everywhere.
 
What's wild with this one is his friends watched it happen and called 911 immediately when he went under and they still can't find any sign of the boy. I kayak in and around that area a ton in the winter and that river is a fickle bitch. Strange currents and things everywhere.
I'm not a fan of moving water.

Edit- worded that wrong I have a lot of respect for it.
 
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I’ve gone up to my head in a stump hole next to the creek current. The sheer panic was enough to give me a life long memory of that day.

I feel for the young man and his family.
 
I don’t tell this story very often because it gives me the creeps, but my best friend fell in the water while we were setting decoys.

His feet went out from under him and I heard a splash. I turned around and all I saw was his hat floating. I started charging towards where he went under as fast as I could. He came up gasping for air and went under again. The next time he came up, I was screaming at him to “STAND UP!!!!!!!!STAND UP!!!!!!” He went under one more time and then I got to him and grabbed him by the wader buckle and pulled him to his feet. Broke my right pinky finger getting him yanked onto his feet.

He is one of the toughest guys I know and he was so scared that he started crying. I felt terrible for him. I sat there with him for 10 minutes just calming him down.

He has thanked me 50 times for saving his life that day. I beleive he would have for sure died had I not grabbed him.

FYI the water was only three feet deep….

Scary stuff. Freaks me out just talking about it. I almost watched my best friend die right there in a stupid beaver swamp just to shoot a damn woodduck or two.

Be safe out there.
 
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I had an unintended swim in the Bighorn last winter on a duck hunt. Current pushed me over a ledge, I went over my head into a logjam in a side channel. Flopped up on the logs (somehow) and crawled across them back to shore. It was 10F, thankfully I had some dry layers for the 90 min of floating out. Even then we had to stop every 15 min so I could run sprints on shore then back in the raft and keep floating. We did kill 2 limits of mallards tho....
 
Only a duck hunter would think like that. We're dumb.
No doubt. The number of times I've done an unintended swim in a river, swamp, creek, lake while duck hunting is disappointing to say the least.

We flipped a canoe in January one year on the Yellowstone. Had to swim to shore, drag my buddy onto the ice, then chase down the canoe. Finally caught up to it ~1.5 miles down-river, didn't even lose a gun.
 
No doubt. The number of times I've done an unintended swim in a river, swamp, creek, lake while duck hunting is disappointing to say the least.

We flipped a canoe in January one year on the Yellowstone. Had to swim to shore, drag my buddy onto the ice, then chase down the canoe. Finally caught up to it ~1.5 miles down-river, didn't even lose a gun.
Sounds terrible. What day should I book my flight?
 

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