01-29-2006, 09:29 AM
Norton creek would ring in around the top list of my favorites, no fish, no longer navigable, a cesspool for mesquites, man made drainage creek dug by the army corps of engineers a hundred years ago to dry up sections of the city of Wixom for development and stabilizing up the Chesapeake rail road.
I had many an adventure on this two-mile stretch between this creeks north and south over passes. One in particular sticks out above the rest.
Many years ago before the regeneration growth over took the creek this was once a beautiful strip to canoe coming up form the Huron River, suicide to attempt to navigate by foot due to unpredictable bog openings.
While running a trap line down the side of the shore line of this creek I got caught in one of the opening bogs, the day before I had stepped in the exact same place and on the day it opened I was sucked right down to my chest.
I thought for sure I was going to go down and would never be seen or heard from again. To disappear from the face of the earth with out a trace as it were. Fortunately for me at that time I was of younger body and sharper mind, realizing that I have only moments and firing off my shot gun would not alert any one because by now most people do not realize a three round burst in secession is a distress call, it would be pointless to attempt that avenue, besides of which if some one even realized that was a distress call I was half mile from the nearest possible assistance. There was no time for that plan; the Calvary would be by far too late.
My next thought was that my truck was parked along side of the road where many others do, and should they venture down the same path I do and the bog dose not close, they may suffer the same fate. I thought it would be best to toss my gun and trap pack on the trail on the upside so a passing avid hunter would see the truck on the road and gun laying cross ways blocking the trail in front of a possible bog hole would set off a warning of possible impending danger should one venture ahead. (An old Indian trick) This would at least allow for a possible retrieval of my carcass, tho' the thought of resting there for eternity was not all that unpleasant, I could think of worst places and ways to go.
Now up to near my armpits, my dads over sized 20-year-old rubber chest waders still keeping me dry, it would only be a minute or so before I would be completely submerged. I remembered the old stories of how wiggling and squirming only would only make one sink faster.
Not yet ready to call it quits I thought of how if only my feet would have been a little wider I would not have been sucked down so rapidly, then I thought I could have rolled across bog and would barely have sunk an inch across the whole trek. It was a thought, hardly a plan, yet it was an impossible solution to an unavoidable out come, I decided to relax and lay down, idiotic as it sounds being that I was more than 90% below the level of the ground.
My first attempt at lying down I found I gained an inch and my feet could now feel the tops of size 11 boot bottoms, I had managed to come up an inch, in side the waders. I quickly un-strapped the shoulder straps and continued the maneuver in three directions attempting to lay in each, I was coming up out of my waders, literally being reborn again in wilds of nature, knowing I must free my self of this cocoon or surly parish in my attempts. You already know the outcome because you are reading this true and un-stretched tail of surviving the wild. I did not come free of this with out a substantial amount of wonder how and why I was able to escape that would be grave.
I had managed to shed the waders and lay my way back to the surface, now wet and only my socks between me and the snow and water. I looked back at my waders that have now begun taking on water, I grabbed my pack and pulled out my machete then cutting down a ten foot willow sapling leaving one branch on the end six inches to be used as a gaff, I snagged my wader straps and pulled them up from the bog, I drained them slipped back in to them cold and wet, but still had protection from stepping on branches and who knows what on the way back to the truck.
Before leaving I could not leave the area knowing that the next would be passer by might end up not being as lucky and survive the fate I nearly subcommand to my self, I grabbed the branches and speared them in to the now watery hole where I had opened by my presence. I then closed off the opening of that trail with more willow branches to make it impassable with out some substantial amount of labor involved thus changing the rout of hunters and deer. The good lord only knows how many deer have sunk in to that hole in the last 10 thousand years.
I then decided I would finish my rout for the day not even considering that the cold and wet conditions could have caused hypothermia to set in, in fact just moving around in those over sized waders was quite labor-some, and in a few yards I would still be wet but I would once again be worm.
The coldest part was the drive home, I did not want to set my blackened feet in my boots with the stench of swamp, tho' in the view of some that might have been an improvement.
.
[signature]
I had many an adventure on this two-mile stretch between this creeks north and south over passes. One in particular sticks out above the rest.
Many years ago before the regeneration growth over took the creek this was once a beautiful strip to canoe coming up form the Huron River, suicide to attempt to navigate by foot due to unpredictable bog openings.
While running a trap line down the side of the shore line of this creek I got caught in one of the opening bogs, the day before I had stepped in the exact same place and on the day it opened I was sucked right down to my chest.
I thought for sure I was going to go down and would never be seen or heard from again. To disappear from the face of the earth with out a trace as it were. Fortunately for me at that time I was of younger body and sharper mind, realizing that I have only moments and firing off my shot gun would not alert any one because by now most people do not realize a three round burst in secession is a distress call, it would be pointless to attempt that avenue, besides of which if some one even realized that was a distress call I was half mile from the nearest possible assistance. There was no time for that plan; the Calvary would be by far too late.
My next thought was that my truck was parked along side of the road where many others do, and should they venture down the same path I do and the bog dose not close, they may suffer the same fate. I thought it would be best to toss my gun and trap pack on the trail on the upside so a passing avid hunter would see the truck on the road and gun laying cross ways blocking the trail in front of a possible bog hole would set off a warning of possible impending danger should one venture ahead. (An old Indian trick) This would at least allow for a possible retrieval of my carcass, tho' the thought of resting there for eternity was not all that unpleasant, I could think of worst places and ways to go.
Now up to near my armpits, my dads over sized 20-year-old rubber chest waders still keeping me dry, it would only be a minute or so before I would be completely submerged. I remembered the old stories of how wiggling and squirming only would only make one sink faster.
Not yet ready to call it quits I thought of how if only my feet would have been a little wider I would not have been sucked down so rapidly, then I thought I could have rolled across bog and would barely have sunk an inch across the whole trek. It was a thought, hardly a plan, yet it was an impossible solution to an unavoidable out come, I decided to relax and lay down, idiotic as it sounds being that I was more than 90% below the level of the ground.
My first attempt at lying down I found I gained an inch and my feet could now feel the tops of size 11 boot bottoms, I had managed to come up an inch, in side the waders. I quickly un-strapped the shoulder straps and continued the maneuver in three directions attempting to lay in each, I was coming up out of my waders, literally being reborn again in wilds of nature, knowing I must free my self of this cocoon or surly parish in my attempts. You already know the outcome because you are reading this true and un-stretched tail of surviving the wild. I did not come free of this with out a substantial amount of wonder how and why I was able to escape that would be grave.
I had managed to shed the waders and lay my way back to the surface, now wet and only my socks between me and the snow and water. I looked back at my waders that have now begun taking on water, I grabbed my pack and pulled out my machete then cutting down a ten foot willow sapling leaving one branch on the end six inches to be used as a gaff, I snagged my wader straps and pulled them up from the bog, I drained them slipped back in to them cold and wet, but still had protection from stepping on branches and who knows what on the way back to the truck.
Before leaving I could not leave the area knowing that the next would be passer by might end up not being as lucky and survive the fate I nearly subcommand to my self, I grabbed the branches and speared them in to the now watery hole where I had opened by my presence. I then closed off the opening of that trail with more willow branches to make it impassable with out some substantial amount of labor involved thus changing the rout of hunters and deer. The good lord only knows how many deer have sunk in to that hole in the last 10 thousand years.
I then decided I would finish my rout for the day not even considering that the cold and wet conditions could have caused hypothermia to set in, in fact just moving around in those over sized waders was quite labor-some, and in a few yards I would still be wet but I would once again be worm.
The coldest part was the drive home, I did not want to set my blackened feet in my boots with the stench of swamp, tho' in the view of some that might have been an improvement.
.
[signature]