for all hunters,, a tradgity

[walter]

Harold Hettrick:
When I was a young lad in high school, November 11, 1940, Armistice Day, the weather started out very beautiful. Got up to 72 degrees along the Mississippi River and other waterfowl places in the state of Wisconsin. The weather at noon was still warm, and quiet. Hunters had gone out with broadcloth or canvas shirts and canvas jackets. The weather started to deteriorate. The wind came up first. And the shooting got good. Hunters were going for their limits, which were big limits in those days. They didn’t pay that much attention to the ferocity of the wind until all of a sudden it was 4 o’clock. Then it was too rough to go back. That was when the hunting season closed everyday at that time, 4 o’clock. So they were stranded out there, many in hip boots and waders and small skiffs, small boats, in marshes or on shallow islands above the water line. The wind was coming over, bringing the waves over these islands and these marshes, and as 6 o’clock came, it was sub-zero. They were freezing. They were sheets of ice.
Those who were a little better prepared mentally tried to get to higher ground, an island with a tree on it or something, and gather marsh grass and stick it down their hip boots, their waders, in the sleeves of their jackets, and build a nest in their boats by tipping their boats on the side and huddling in and trying to maintain their warmth. Those who were less fortunate that didn’t get in, they just froze.

Duck hunters on the Mississippi River with skiff, decoys and dogs. Photo by Ruth Olson

The next morning, a pilot…well, I’ll tell you just a little bit more.
I was a kid, I said, in high school. We got home from school at 4 o’clock and the storm was really kicking up and everybody said, “Well, we got hunters out.” And we had a lot of duck hunters in those days. So everybody responded to the riverbank, seeing if they could help hunters get in. Or seeing if they could get a larger boat out to go rescue ‘em. The only ones who had big boats were the commercial fishermen and they even couldn’t get off from shore. They couldn’t get enough momentum to head into the waves.

So those hunters were out there all night. They froze stiff in the ice, those that were in the water. And a pilot from Winona, a real famous pilot in his later years, he was called “The Flying Grandpa,” Max Conrad, flew over the river at dawn the next morning and tried to locate hunters which had survived and also located the hunters that looked like they were dead and direct the rescue parties at ‘em. That storm on the Mississippi River and in the Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa marshes, and I believe there were some as far south as Savannah, Illinois, took 93 hunters. But there were hundreds that survived. I know some of the hunters that survived. My grade school teacher’s father, 76 years old, a gentleman named Kling from Augusta, he was out there hunting. And he was a good woodsman so he protected himself by picking marsh grass and making a nest for himself.
There was a lawyer, a young lawyer right out of the university law school who married my neighbor’s daughter about the previous year. And she was expecting a baby. And Marv was a good river rat. Because it was a holiday, he didn’t have to go to court and practice law so he went hunting. And he got stuck out there in a skiff, much like the one I have up by my hunting camp, except his was wood. He knew his wife’s situation so he tied his gun, his decoys in his boat, the ducks he had killed, he tied those in. Then he rolled the skiff upside down and climbed in and held on underneath this air pocket and waded out to deeper water towards shore where the wind picked the boat up and him and moved him to shore. He’d have never made it right side up but he made it upside down hanging on in the water. And there was an old, older lady named Cookwell who lived on the shore where he had started out from and she was worried about him. So she had a roaring fire going and she was walking the shore along with the rest of us waiting to help a hunter come in and when he came in, his boat came in and we didn’t know there was a body with it! So we went and pulled the boat up on shore and out of it climbs Marv Fugini. And he was literally a frozen ice stick. We couldn’t bend him to walk because his clothes were stiff. So we drug him. And that older lady Mrs. Cookwell, she really drug. She did much of the pulling. We got him into the kitchen (with the) stove and he thawed out and he went on to the hospital that night and his wife delivered him a son. That’s a true story. And those are people I know who survived it up there.
Also hunted for years with an FBI agent who is now dead, but he was out on an island and he didn’t get rescued until the next noon. He was down off of DeSoto and Ferryville and he was on a channel island close to Iowa. And the next morning, a commercial fisherman out to see who he could help found him and some other of his hunters and brought them in.
But that’s one of the causes of concern with water and the cold time of the year when the weather is really building up a blow, which every duck hunter wants. He waits years to get the right blow so he can have good hunting. But there’s the hazard factor. Now today we have better weather forecasts, so we’re a little better off. We have better floatation in our boats; we have better clothing to wear, clothing like the fleece that can be wrung out and put back on and maintain warmth. We have float coats that are life preservers and camouflage gear that give you a little better chance.
But every three years on the part of the river I hunt we lose three hunters. And they’re usually in the same boat. They overload a boat and then they make the mistake of heading into the wind, and they usually have these chisel bottom, chisel bow, flat bottom boats and they have so much gear that one of the hunters has to sit up on the bow. And when they come into the wind, they work just like a chisel. They go nose down. And I’ve seen that happen there. And by the time you get a boat off of the Wisconsin shore and go across two and a half, three miles of river, you can’t recover them. I mean, it’s too late. So there’s a hazard to it. But the hazard doesn’t stop people, it should just make them more careful.

 

[SFC]

Tragic story Walter. We have had our share of them as well up here on Saginaw Bay,and Lk St Clair as well.....

 

[walter]

Tragic story Walter. We have had our share of them as well up here on Saginaw Bay,and Lk St Clair as well.....

yeah it is quit tradgic,, their is a better story of it in a magazine i had form 2005 but i cant remember the mag it was in ,, some sort of $25 waterfowl mag the story was told much more tragic,, i am not the type of person to get upset about things easily,, but when i was reading the story it was stricktly about the hunters and it told ,, how many people where not found until the snow had melted ,, cuz people tried to shelter them selfs under their boats and canoes,, and the shelter worked but also worked to well,, the sheet of ice that came down befor the snow was so heavy on the boats and canooes that it traped them in and they died in their trapped so it was also a mistake many of them made,, trust me reading this put my throught in my stomach.

 

[upinarms]

Here's an Idea; Cannabis Camo, that would be cool in a field jacket..

 

[walter]

Here's an Idea; Cannabis Camo, that would be cool in a field jacket..

although this cammo would look cool yes i agree,, but first what are you hunting in marijuana? and this cammo would kind of be heat score and just let evryone no that your a pot head,, not saying thats wrong but i choose in life not to advertise myself to the world as having stuff to do with marry jane and letting everyone no this is just my oppinion ,, and its also about respect ,, some people think weed is terrible ,, just cuz it is illigal,, and if you ever get stoped in an M.N.R and POLICE road stop you can guarenteed yourself getting searched and probely busted for that roach in your ash tre,, and i dont no about you guys but getting busted for narcotics ,, will involve my firarms licens being taken away,, most of you will respond to the cops cant just search your veical ,, but remember the ministry of natural resorses dont need permission to search anything if your huntin ,, they can knock on your door at 2 in the morning and ask to see you firearms and you freezer,, and with the mnr,, they are alloud to be ocompanied by an officer of the law

 

[allgrownup]

That was a crazy water fowlin story. Thanks for sharing

I have taken a dip in waders more than once. When i was 12 or so i was chasing a stray decoy down the slough. bottom was solid and then it was gone. I grabbed one handful of tera firma on the bank and got a slight shriek out. It didn't take long in those days for plastic chest waders tofill up. And then the currents trying to rip you death grip loose. I was petrified. Ah the days of no neoprene.

Good thing my father kept a close eye on us. It always sukcs getting wet cuz by the time you get in out of the cold its just painful and only gets worse as it thaws......

My only other close call was a very foggy, cold goose hunting trip. My older brother and i separated from my father and other brother. We got lost and couldn't find our blind. We had somehow managed to get so disorientated we were starting to panic. We tried to retrace our steps, and then the one's we were trying to retrace with. i remember crossing a fence and now our feet were just aching as the morning grew colder. We couldnt see 40ft in front of us. My father had taught us that if we were ever lost to fire three shots in succession, and then a pause, followed by three shots, etc. up into the air. My older brother had remembered and did so. then we crossed another barbed wire fence. He fired 3 shots followed by 3 shots. and finally we were out of shells. We were now walking a muddy dirt road and my brother was carrying me cuz my feet hurt so bad. He got tired of carrying my gun so he through it barrell first in the mud and abandoned it.

Finally we heard it, my father was firing shots in succession from behind us. We headed that way. When we met up my father was so pissed. He tore my brother a knew one. Gave us both a hug and then said, " Dont you ever cross another fence again when your lost, you understand me!" it had never occurred to either of us that we had not crossed any fences coming in????????why were we crossing them lost???????? To my amazement while i was thawing my wet frozen feet, my muddy semi auto 20g was in the truck as well.

being the smart kid i was back then...although i was very young...i preceeded to take that gun out and fire it. I had completely forgot that i had never cleaned it after my brother threw it in the mud. That dry mud clogged barrel caused the end 4" to mangle and curl. Very lucky again......

Maybe i shouldn't be hunting???????

Of course.........i witnessed my older brother blow out my grandmothers front window/door with a 12g while cradling it walking past their house. we had been shooting blue jays in the orchard.

that was hilarious..........i'll never forget that