A Missouri Ozark April deluge dumped nearly eight inches of rain on our turkey camp in little more than an hour. Clad in insulated camo- coveralls, insulated boots, and insulated everything else, I heaved on a rope tied to a swamped fishing boat. The intent was to slide it up onto the dock, to which it was still moored by the bow rope, while spilling trapped water over the stern. With the boat halfway out of the water, the mooring rope suddenly snapped instantly propelling me backward into Lake of the Ozarks’ frigid waters.
Finding myself standing in bottom-muck 12 feet down, growing numb from 40 degree water temperatures, I crouched and sprang confidently for the surface. I had been a strong swimmer since childhood. However, after only rising mere feet before sinking again, I felt fear’s growing weight knotting behind my belt buckle.
It was 1968 during Missouri’s spring turkey season’s modern-day infancy. My wife and I arrived the day before the opener in South Central Missouri to hunt a friend’s farm at Lake of the Ozarks. Since the state’s legal spring turkey hunting hours ended daily at 12:00 noon, the boat facilitated fishing the rest of the day. It was my very first turkey hunt. The adrenalin surging through my veins anticipated the adventure and test of what then was a growing but new sport.
We pitched camp, launched the boat and drove into Laurie, Missouri for groceries in the late afternoon. Ominous skies were gathering but there was no way to foretell what fate programmed during the next 24 hours.
Torrential rains trapped us in Laurie before allowing our return to camp in an unnatural afternoon-darkness. Nearing the camp-site, I risked driving through some high water. A 100 feet farther from the last raging rapids, we confronted another torrent churning over a low water bridge.
Viewing boiling waters in the headlights was grim and forbidding. Now in darkness and faced with raging torrents fore and aft, it was prudent to hold what little high ground we held. We spent the night surrounded by violent flash floods. Turning the headlights of our stranded vehicle on occasionally reassured us that the floodwaters climbed no higher. There wasn’t much sleep between glimpses.
By dawn, the flow reached fordable levels. Anxious to see if camp survived, we chanced a crossing. When reaching it, everything inside the tent was dry and secure. The wife collapsed into a bedroll exhausted. I uncased the Winchester model 12 preparing to go turkey hunting.
But first, I donned insulated coveralls to combat 40ish temperatures and water proof insulated rubber boots. Later, this initially welcome protection threatened to become my shroud.
A glorious sunrise painted a crisp, cold, spring morning revealing dogwoods bursting in full bloom. Virgin ears heard their first wild turkey gobble. A tom answered the box call but was wary of my inexperienced technique. Though birdless, when returning to camp at noon, that fact didn’t dull the excitement. I reassured myself that rascal would make a mistake before we left.
While hunting that morning, the storm was blissfully forgotten, but now I was anxious to check the boat. We hurried brunch so we could. The sight dockside illustrated vividly the force of the storm. Only the bow of the aluminum fishing boat now broke the surface. Rain and waves washing over the stern had swamped the 16 foot aluminum V-bottom with its 35 h.p. Johnson outboard while moored to the dock. The stern’s mooring line had snapped in two allowing the stern to sink. The bow line still held fast to the dock.
Desperate salvage efforts created the predicament noted at the beginning. What eventually saved me was: one, controlling panic; two, recalling the death of an acquaintance whose boat overturned on a winter duck hunt. Out of that tragedy, the stark realization of what held me down somehow gave me an advantage in solving my dilemma. And, I only had mere seconds left to find a solution.
After failing to swim up to the surface on the initial try, comprehending the threat my sodden clothing posed quickly deflated my confidence with the tact of incoming artillery ordinance. The metallic taste of fear threatened to dominate my thoughts. Overcoming the urge to panic was primary to saving my mortal neck. The problem exceeded my physical abilities when I kicked with a swimming stroke. The weight of water filled boots in motion drove me down with every kick aimed upwards.
As I sank helplessly again on my second attempt for the surface, options flashed through the mind. A plan formulated before feet landed in the lake’s bottom muck for the second time.
I desperately needed to shed the boots. However, double tied bows, immersion in cold, numbing, and opaque muddy water while burdened with sodden cold weather clothing made untying them out of the question. Time was everything. There was none to waste.
My sheath knife was on my belt - under the insulated coveralls. Not sure of reaching it in time to sever boot laces, I decided to swim for the surface again but using a slightly different approach. This time after jumping upwards, I would swim only with the arms. The feet (held tightly together) would remain immobile.
I had always been a strong swimmer. If it could be done, I felt I could do it. Failing that, the last option was to try for the knife and sever boot laces with it on my way back down – for the third time. My chances of getting it in time after suffering life-draining oxygen depletion accompanied by bone-numbing cold were slim – or maybe none.
I stooped till my buttocks kissed the mud bottom. Then leaped with all the leg strength I could muster. My arms hauled desperately for the surface when the initial motion upward slowed. Then, as progress came painfully and excruciatingly to a halt, I extended the right arm as far up as I could reach hoping to blindly grab the dock. Visibility was absolutely zero in opaque flood-stained waters.
Suddenly, somebody seized my wrist. My head was pulled above the surface. The grip on my wrist guided my hand to the edge of the dock. I then hauled myself up onto its deck. My spouse had continued to kneel at the spot where I initially shot off the dock and into the water when the rope broke. Miraculously, she grabbed my hand the instant it broke the water’s surface.
I was extremely lucky. Since that fateful day, I always wear a sheath knife outside all clothing when hunting or fishing. Also, a Personal Flotation Device (PFD) on or around water is SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) - especially when dressed in cold weather gear.
That first turkey hunt was a memorable experience. None since quite measure up to it - thankfully. Not even when one puts a bird on the table. It was an outdoor excursion that helps you appreciate even the quiet uneventful ones too.
I gambled mortality that long ago day. By all rights, I should have lost it instead of just a set of eyeglasses. My friend found the latter years later when a winter draw-down of the lake left the dock sitting high and dry on 14-foot piers several hundred feet from the lake’s full-pool shoreline.
In a way, Mother Nature granted me a rebirth of sorts - a second, and hopefully more cautious, chance at life.