“The Washout”

It was the year that the river cut the washout west of McClouds Bluff and Ed Latta and I had received word that the ducks were working this area heavy.  I had a sixteen foot aluminum bass boat with blind on it and a 35 hp Evinrude motor with camo cover.

We launched at Hickman harbor and headed upstream to the washout.  It was all my motor could do to make headway in the washout the current was so strong.  It may not have been so safe but I was confident of my boat handling and my boat was built for rough conditions.  I tillered over to the north side where it was slow eddy current and pulled in to  a little exposed ground.  We had 2 three foot thick bundles of cane and stuck it in the mud around the blind and far enough out that it looked like a small cane break or thicket and it hid the outline of the camouflaged blind well.

We were ready to go when I found I had no shells.  I had left them on the tailgate of the truck…………..in Hickman.  Ed was using 3 inch mag and I could not chamber three inch shells so we set the blind off the boat and I was off to Hickman.   With nothing in the boat but me and the gas tank.  I have never gone so fast in an aluminum flat bottom boat.  I knew the way well and slowed where there was risk and opened the throttle otherwise.  I picked up my shells and headed back……Fast.  During the time I was gone Ed hunkered on that little island in the middle of the bottom.  Hate to think what would have happened had I not been able to get back or communicate to someone where he was.

We were having a fantastic day and to set things off we spotted two deer headed our way on the other side of the current.  They headed into the water without hesitation.  Now deer have small hooves and they swam across that current, that labored my 35hp, without losing hardly any ground. 

We limited out that day but I think seeing these two deer master so much current meant just as much to us.

At one point during the day Ed decided we needed to rearrange our camo and move our decoys to a different pattern so we got out of the blind to change everything when he stepped back, stumbled over a root and sat down in water barely below freezing.  He said the same thing he always said when stepped back and fell with water over his waders.  Oooooh.  Him being about the size as my father in law, I offered to run back to Hickman and borrow some clothes.  He declined the offer.  Later he was quivering and told me that if it happened to me I would have to stay.  I informed him that would not be the case if we were in my boat.