While fishing?

I slipped off a log jam on the Entiat river . Not paying attention while swatting skeeters. Fell in up current and it took everything I had to hold on and not get sucked under. The current was so strong it sucked my shoes off as I pulled myself up. Never let go of my fishing pole however.

One other time on the SF of the Boise we where drifting lazy throwing woolly buggers for big bows. I was on the front of the raft with my leg hanging over the side. I just hooked a keeper for dinner that night and was negotiating him into the raft. The guy on the oars tried to help and when he leaned down he buried an oar causing the raft to spin to the left. My leg was hanging out the side and got hung up on a rock. The current kept shoving the raft and I could not bail. I thought for sure my leg was going to break from the force . We finally got the raft moving and when I pulled my leg up the shin bone was bowed over a couple of inches. It tore the skin off the inside of my shin down to the bone. After about an hour or two the bone regained its shape. I still have a scar for that memeory.

The first time I ever made the Hatchery-Maxfield run on the Sol Duc, we hit the "Wall". The Smurf got and out and pushed and pulled us through the big boulders. Eventually he gave us one big push. We ended up nose in between two big boulders, wedged tight. I was probably stuck there for a minute before we wiggled around and got the fiberglass to give a bit this way and that and we slid through. I was one scared fisherman!

There have been a number of times on that run that the pulse has been elevated!

I had a lightning "step leader" come off a wrist watch once fishing the I-90 fill over Moses Lake. The static was arcing on the chain link fence. A bolt hit a tree between me and my car. This all happened in about 2 seconds.

I probably don't even know about the closet calls I have had. One oar stroke this way or that can be all the difference in the world.

I was fly fishing a river in central BC when walking through a field I startled a sow Grizzly with a cub or two...She charged and I was able to jump off a high bank into the river...I floated in the cold water all the way to the lake to scared to get back on land. Close call.

About 15 years ago while elk hunting over by Cle Elum it was getting dark and myself and 4 or 5 other hunters in our group were unloading our rifles preparing to hop in a truck for the ride back to camp, we had an older gentleman in the group that had hunted with us for years and occassionally he would bring his wife along who had limited hunting experience. Well, she was in the process of unloading her 30-30 (levering each round out) when she accidently touched 1 off, I'm pretty sure that bullet passed within a foot of my head as I was standing about 5 ft in front of her and had just looked up when she touched off the shot, had a view of a muzzle blast I never care to see again, scared the crap out of me and shook her up so bad I heard she never carried a rifle again, don't know for sure as that was when I said the hell with guns and started bow hunting.

Then there was the 6 years I rode dirt bikes, can't remember how many times I cheated death there.

About 7 or 8 years ago, I drove up to fish the Harrison River in B.C. for chums. I was going to fish by myself in my 14' Lund(20 h.p.) As I was ready to launch at Kilby, another angler was taking out in his 20' sled. He told me he couldn't make it upriver because of the waves(rollers). It was very windy and the river level was higher than I had ever seen it. I had just driven 3 hours and was not going to turn around and go home. It was slow going and the waves were awful, my boat was bow light so I was banging each wave. With one wave a huge gust of wind hit the bow at the same time. The boat went right up and was nearly perpendicular to the water. I stood up quickly and with my hands pushed the boat back down, it nearly flipped. I had no life jacket on and was wearing chest waders Made it to shore, caught 2 or 3 chums, worked my way back to the launch and went home. I still get butterflies in my stomach when I think about it.

I know this doesnt really compare but...

I was on the Green this summer with a buddy of mine. I got kinda dumb and started wading upstream of these huge boulders that overlooked a deep pool. Well I slipped, lost my rod (we got it later while snorkling), my waders filled up quite a ways, and i honestly felt like i was drowning as i held onto a branch coming off a boulder. The rapid water flying past my mouth... That was insane. I am pretty darn cautious about that now, it's almost like that guys story with the gun going off.

My buddy ended up bailing me out of that one, he tossed his rod and somehow grabbed me without getting pulled into it.

Curtis

PS: Don't tell my parents that one! hehe

Wow...some awesome stories. Akkings scares me the worst.

I too, am fortunate to be alive after to many occations to list. The one that stands out the most was crossing Admiralty Inlet to Port Townsend from the San Juans and bad weather turned into a raging northern blow. The waves were an easy 20 high and my dads 18-foot Glasply was no match. Between getting my spine hammered at the bottom of these and watching dad work the trottle to keep waves from coming over the stern, I was positive we were going to drown.

My experience was about Twenty years ago over near Twin Falls, Idaho while driving a Semi Tractor Trailer about 1:30 AM I had a major wreck happen in front of me and I had no prayer of a chance of stopping until I got on the otherside of the wreck. I and the rig behind me made it through wreck without hitting anything before we could get stopped.

I think the closest I came was when I told my wife I'd be back from fishing in 5 hours and I came home 10 hours later, that was scarey!!

a buddie and i were goofing around out at possession one afternoon in a 10ft aluminum with an 8hp merc. it wasn't the nicest of days with a front moving in but we were pretty bold back then. anyways we ended up hooking in to so many fish we lost track of time and the fact we had drifted nearly to double bluff, by this time it was dusk, we had no lights, no radio, no lifejackets, no nothin and hardly enough gas to make it back. we started the trek back to edmonds at near dark. by this time the evening winds had really picked up out on the bar. it was blowin 20mph easy (remember 10ft boat with 8hp merc.) dodging logs from the outgoing tide, surviving freighter waves along with the 3-4 foot chop and god knows whatelse. we had to stop and bale out the boat every 5 minutes and untangle the seaweed from around the prop numerous times all of this in the pitch dark. all told we lost 3 crabpots, a rod and a tacklebox. i lost count of how many time we almost dumped the boat. that was by far the worst nightmare iv ever been through. i thought we were dead forsure, every news story id ever heard of small boats and stupid fisherman never making it back were running through my head. ill never forget the look on those who were still in the marina when we came puttin around the breakwater boat flooded and us soaking wet 3+ hours after we started back. to this day i still dont know how we made it.

Meow!

not fishing related, sorry.

Although I've had many instances while fishing where I felt I was in danger, I've never felt anywhere as near death as I did this one time...

About a mile from my house in Hilo, Hawaii was a place us kids used to go swimming on the Wailuku river called boiling pots, so named because when the water would rage through there after a heavy rain it looked like cauldrons of boiling water.

The water was pretty cold for Hawaii as it descended Mauna Kea from great altitude, carving its way through lava fields thousands of years old, sometimes even taking its path through the ancient lava tubes. There are towering waterfalls in the boiling pots stretch of river that carve out deep plunge pools. The combination of high sides and deep water made it an ideal place for cliff jumping.

Some local kids showed us the place originally, pointing down river and saying 'whoa brah, no go down dea...kapu' which I took to mean 'our foolish and antiquated ancient hawaiian belief system suggests that all people with brown skin avoid the downriver treasure trove of fun'.

...and yeah, if you were to go downriver from boiling pots you too would find what I found, one of the most beautiful and amazing things I've ever seen in nature...

The entire river appears to get very, very tiny and dump thirty five feet from a waterfall into a pool with no exit. This was our favorite pool to jump into because the sun never reached way in there and it was always cold. We called it the 'icebox'.

To get to the next pool downriver you have to walk uphill about ten feet. I wrote that correctly....the downriver pool is ten feet higher in elevation.

I never really considered WHY it was like that until we were jumping into the icebox one day and I felt the cold fingers of death grab me by the ankle and try to pull me under. I know now that it wasn't some monster, evil hawaiian spirit or the ******* pele but at the moment I was suspended between life and death swimming as I hard as I could for the surface you could have fooled me. That pool had no above ground exit but the water was going somewhere.....it tried to take me with it.

Only later did we find out that boiling pots was a place held sacred in 'ancient' local hawaiian history as a hiding place for the ******* pele. There may be some association between that mythology and the place's later becoming a popular place for suicides.

This experience radically altered my frame of reference for the phrase 'near death'.

I did put the boat on a rock dropping into the canyon this year but managed to get it off and remain upright...fishing wise that's as close as I've come.

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Unfortunately, I've learned all my Hawaiian from 'Dog The Bounty Hunter'---Does 'brah' mean brother / bro, dude or something else?

Can't seem to stop talking to everyone like they are a baby for some reason so forgive me when I exclaim....

My what a good guesser you are!!