Getting Stuck While Quail Hunting

Usually, I put at least one post on the blog a week and more often two. The Dermatology Doctors found some Basal Cell Cancer on my nose and took it off, the cancer not my nose, last Monday, April 26. Then they told me I couldn’t lift more than 10 pounds. I thought it was just for a couple of days and wasn’t too worried. Then I reread my instructions and found that I was on light duty until the stitches come out. Hopefully, that will be tomorrow, May 4, when I have a return visit to the Dermatologist. Light duty sucks.

I read a magazine article, written by a new hunter, evidently. They were writing about getting stuck for the first time, while quail hunting. This got me to thinking about some of the times, more than once, I have been stuck.

For me, rain or snow , most times, doesn’t keep me from going hunting. I have four wheel drive in my truck so I think I can navigate almost any road. And sometimes I can but I still get stuck, occasionally.

One day a few years ago, while hunting by myself in Kansas I needed to turn around and when I pulled into what I thought was a road into a farm field I found a deep hole. I dropped the front wheels into a hole that high centered the truck. The frame was on the ground and the front tires were off the ground. The rear tires were sitting on ice. When I tried to back out the truck didn’t even shake.

I have a tow service through Good Sam’s Club but I had no cell service from where I was sitting. Also, at this time the Kansas Walk-in Atlas didn’t show the name of the roads. I couldn’t even tell someone where I was located even if I had of had cell service.

There was a walk-in property close and a farm house about half a mile away. I decided to hunt toward the farm house and when I got close to see if someone could pull me out. I turned a couple of dogs out. I did find a covey of quail as I went toward the farm house. When I got close to the farm house I tied the dogs to a fence and hid my gun. I didn’t want to walk up to someone’s house carrying a gun. But when I knocked no one answered.

Back to the walk-in property and when I got to the south east corner there was a street sign and I had just a faint cell service. But it was enough. I got through to my service and they sent a tow truck but it had to come from about 60 miles away. The tow truck driver called to confirm my location and gave me an approximate time he would be there. I hunted until about the time he was to be there then went back to the truck.

When the tow truck got there it was no big deal for him to pull me out. When he moved the truck just a few feet I was free. When I signed the ticket I asked if I owed anything and the driver said, “no. Good Sam’s takes really good care of their people”.

I followed him back to the highway as the roads were thawing out and the snow was melting. Even if Good Sam’s “does take really good care of their people” I didn’t want to be stuck twice in the same day.

Another time, a long time ago, Dennis Garrison and I went out near Bellville Kansas on a really cold morning. We belonged to a hunting club that had an old farm house rented where we were going to stay. The farm house was off the road about a quarter of mile. As I pulled off the road there was a low spot, larger than the truck, that was solid ice. Dennis opened the gate and I tried to drive through but the truck would only spin. This truck didn’t have 4-wheel drive.

We tried several things but nothing worked. We knew there was a farm house on the next section to the east and we decided to hunt through to that house where we hoped to get someone to tow us out. That was one of the coldest hunts I’ve ever been on. The ice had been on for a while and as we were hunting we saw a hawk flying, with a frozen quail in it’s claws.

We hunted down a draw and came out just a few hundred yards from the farm house. I thought walking up that road where the wind had a straight shot at us was cold but it was nothing to riding on the back of the tractor that the farmer took over to pull us out. Our dogs weren’t used to us riding while they ran. We had to keep calling them. They would follow then start slowing down. The farmer didn’t slow down. He wasn’t happy about having to pull us out.

When we got to the truck we loaded the dogs and hooked the tow chain to the tractor. The tractor jerked us right out. We paid the farmer, I don’t remember how much. But he was a little happier when he left to go home. After seeing the hawk with the frozen quail we decided the quail had enough trouble without us adding to it. We drove on home.

Don Bolen and I were hunting near Hiawatha Kansas. As we drove along a long narrow place we wanted to hunt the road became ice covered. We were still going pretty good until the tires broke through the ice. There was about 2 feet of snow on the road then an ice storm had covered the snow. The ice for a ways was thick enough to hold us up. Then the truck broke through. The frame of the truck was sitting on the ice with all but one tire floating. Stuck again.

This time my Good Sam’s Club was able to call someone in Hiawatha area to pull us out. They were close and it didn’t take long. On this day we were able to go to another area and find places to hunt without getting in trouble again.

Another time Don Bolen and I got stuck we were in northern Missouri hunting a friend of his farm. We parked along the gravel road and turned our dogs loose. It wasn’t long Don’s dog was gone. I don’t know if she chased a deer or some birds but she was gone. We hunted for a little while and she didn’t come back so we drove around to the other side. There was a two track into the farm and we drove down it.

We stopped several times calling his dog with no success. As we went to the north along this road it dropped into a small bottom. We were going along pretty good until the bottom dropped out. Again, we were down where the frame was on the ground. There was no moving. We tried to put tree limbs under the wheels to no avail.

It was early in the morning so we went hunting. I had raised Don’s dog from a puppy and knew that if it could hear me it would soon come to me. As we hunted along I would whoop every once in a while. Not long after we started back to hunting, she came to me. When we got back close to the truck Don called a friend who came to our rescue.

He drove up in a truck but stopped well back of me. The day had warmed up and it was thawing. We didn’t need both trucks stuck. We hooked several chains and tow ropes together and he pulled my truck out. We turned around and went to higher ground.

Another time it wasn’t my truck but Dennis Garrison and I were going out near Bellville Kansas. The weather forecasters were saying possibility of snow flurries. We had left about 6:00 pm. At the time we heard this it was snowing so hard we couldn’t see the hood ornament on a Datsun pickup.

We had slowed to a crawl. We couldn’t see the road when it turned. The front wheels went off the pavement and we were going so slow Dennis was able to stop and back onto the highway. We got a motel in Clay Center Kansas when we got that far.

The next morning we tried to get to our hunting area but the east west roads were drifted in. We were able to drive the north south roads. We saw a farmer walking and stopped to offer him a ride. His eye brows had ice and where his nose was running had frozen. He was cold but he said, “I appreciate it boys but y’all can’t even get close to where I need to go. I have to water my cows or they will die”.

We went back to Clay Center and were sitting in a cafe drinking coffee. We were talking to a truck driver and he told us he was heading to the interstate. He said if we would follow him he would bust the drifts and we could make it to the interstate. The interstate was open on into home. Sounded good to us. Anything was better than sitting in a cafe waiting for the roads to be cleared.

We followed the truck for about 15 miles and he was busting the drifts really well. We were going good then the truck stopped, in the middle of the road, just past a drift. We stopped right where the drift had been not realizing that we were going to be there for a while. There was nothing in front of the truck to stop him. In just a couple of minutes the drift was all around the Datsun pickup. We were stuck. The truck went on down the road, leaving us.

I’ve thought about this often and the only thing I can think is the trucker wanted us to get stuck in that drift. We got out and dug our way out of the drift but then we were in between two drifts. There was a small drive into a pasture that we parked in to wait for what was to come. It was early afternoon.

The wind chill was 50 below zero. Not far from us an older couple got out of their stranded car and died. We had food and sleeping bags but 50 below wind chills is cold. We stayed with the truck. We had almost a full tank of gas when we got into the drift. We ran the truck for about 15 minutes our of every hour to warm the truck. It still didn’t get real warm.

I don’t remember what time we got stuck but it was probably about 3:00 pm. The next morning about 6:00 am a snow plow came real close but turned around just before it got to us. We didn’t realize that we were a hundred yards across the county line. The snow plow cleared the road to the county line then started back to do the other side of the road.

We were still in between the two drifts and Dennis jumped the truck out into the road and flashed his lights. The snow plow saw the lights and came back. There were 2 or 3 guys in the snow plow and when it hit the drift it got stuck, for a few minutes. The guys started digging it out. Dennis and I got out to help but they told us to get back in, they would get it. At 50 below we got back in the Datsun.

It didn’t take long to break the drifts where we could get back to Clay Center. We were concerned that we didn’t have enough gas to get back to Clay Center but we made it. We spent another night in the motel at Clay Center before we headed home.

Most of time, getting stuck is just an inconvenience but when it’s snowing and blowing and the temperature drops, it can be dangerous. I really believe that truck driver tried to do just what he did. He stopped where we would be in that drift. He waited long enough for the drift to settle around our truck before he drove away.

Now with cell phones and being able to use them in most areas it’s not as hard to get help but I try to have extra gloves, warm hats and coats in my truck. But I also haul enough dogs with me to just put another dog on. When you have 5 dogs with you a 3 dog night is no big deal.