So This is How it Ends

[Sep]

Sitting here bummed about the weather, so it's story time. Loosely based on a semi-unreal experience from last summer, the names changed to protect the stupid.....


So, this is how it ends. Hundreds of years from now they will find my mummified body, fly rod in hand, completely encased in the hardened sediment within which I now find myself mired. They will put aside their tools, scratch their heads, and wonder just what this ancient man was up to. Truth is, I wonder that myself sometimes.

******

All I wanted was just one more good bass. It had been a cool day by North Carolina August standards, meaning that both the temperature and the percent humidity were below 90, and despite the recent droughts, the pond’s largemouths had been eager and willing to chase my deer hair popper. I had caught a number of 12-14 inch fish, but something big was splashing about, chasing bait fish, off the tip of a small island in the north end. Under normal conditions the island was inaccessible except by canoe or float tube but the drought had dried the north end shallows, exposing three-quarters of the island to the shoreline. I simply needed to walk out through the mud, get on the island, and catch that something big.

See, even you know what’s coming. Shoot, I knew what was coming, but summer sun and big bass make folks do, ummm, questionable things sometimes. I was able to get half-way there along a fallen tree which, during better times was great cover for the largemouths, but now was a fine balance beam bridge. The final fifteen yards was just going to be a little muddy. Little did I know, it was going to be mid-thigh muddy and sinking an inch a second. Trapped like a fly in amber. Oh, the indignity of it all.

And yes, I was alone. But I had my cell phone; tucked safe and secure in the truck. The backside of the pond is pretty remote and I sure as heck wasn’t up high enough for anyone too see, so you could say I was up against it. Just before panic settled in, they appeared. The deer.

*****

I am sinking to my death and there they stand, calmly watching me from the wood’s edge. They are laughing at me with their silent deer laughs, snickering to one another how you don’t see THEIR hoof prints out there in that muck. And despite my feeding them my nice azalea bushes and tender garden greens, they don’t have the courtesy to pull a Lassie for me and go get Timmy or Ranger Corey. Heck, even June Lockhart would do! (She was hot, no?) But NO, I’m going to die a slow, lingering, muddy death here, deliriously fantasizing about 1950s TV housewives, and they just LOOK at me, those snarky, dumb dear, laughing, chewing, stupid deer. How would you like this popper right between your eyes? And look. It's deer hair!!! It’s your MOMMA!!! Venison, you hear me, VENISON!!!!!

It all gets sort of fuzzy about then.

******

Okay, obviously, I escaped. Mud from head to toe, but I escaped. The only thing still our there in the muck is a chunk of dignity, but I’ve been whittling away at that for many years now so it’s no big deal. Heck, looking back it’s even sort of funny now, after a little therapy.

**Censored** deer.

And don’t tell me YOU”VE never done something, ummm, questionable……

Sep

[fysh]

How in the world did I miss this?
Great story Sep. Glad you got out of that there mud.

Have you gone back to look for that monster Bass?

[Sep]

Originally Posted by fyshstykr

How in the world did I miss this?
Great story Sep. Glad you got out of that there mud.

Have you gone back to look for that monster Bass?

Been back a bunch. Did pull out an 8 pounder a few weeks later and there's more in there.

I'm staying away from the mud, though.

Sep

[mcnerney]

Sep: Good story, especially since it has a happy ending. I remember while in Alaska, people would walk out on the mud flats at low tide south of Anchorage, they would get stuck and as the tide started back in the panic would set in. The tide there is huge, I want to say 10 ft or better so at low tide it exposes a lot of mud flats. Some of the unlucky ones don't make it.

Larry

[yatahey]

Originally Posted by mcnerney

Sep: Good story, especially since it has a happy ending. I remember while in Alaska, people would walk out on the mud flats at low tide south of Anchorage, they would get stuck and as the tide started back in the panic would set in. The tide there is huge, I want to say 10 ft or better so at low tide it exposes a lot of mud flats. Some of the unlucky ones don't make it.

Larry

Good story Sep.
Larry,
That has got to be one of the very worst ways to go.

[CowboyJustin26]

Originally Posted by yatahey

Good story Sep.
Larry,
That has got to be one of the very worst ways to go.

I think I would rather put a chunk of lead between my eyes, then slowly drown...