Gary Howell and his looking accomplice Trey Lucas are third-generation waterfowlers from northwest Louisiana. The 2 have been looking geese within the South since childhood, they usually’ve realized a factor or two about staying heat on the water over time. These survival expertise made all of the distinction final week, when Howell and Lucas discovered themselves stranded on a big lake in flooded timber with a sunken boat and no technique to name for assist.
After 13 hours spent clinging to bushes simply over the water’s floor, Howell, 46, and Lucas, 61, have been rescued by Texas recreation wardens and different first responders round 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 16. As they prayed and waited by the freezing evening, they stayed heat and saved morale up by beginning a fireplace of their cooler. The 2 hunters burned their decoys and different gear to maintain the fireplace rolling, and the flames and smoke helped lead rescuers to their location on Bois D’Arc Lake.
And now Howell is aware of probably the most environment friendly technique to set an AvianX duck decoy on fireplace.
“I came upon should you gentle them from the invoice after which maintain them the other way up, that’s one of the best ways,” Howell tells Out of doors Life.
When Scouting Goes South
Bois D’Arc Lake is a newly constructed reservoir in Fannin County, Texas. It lies simply south of the Oklahoma state line and never removed from the place Howell and Lucas stay in Louisiana. The person-made impoundment was flooded in 2023, and it opened to public waterfowl looking for the primary time in October 2024.
Howell was excited to get out and see the reservoir, and he and Lucas made time to hunt there for every week beginning Saturday, Jan. 11. Exploring the lake was a uncommon expertise, as they have been doubtless the primary duck hunters to scout a number of the newly shaped fingers and backwater coves.
“I’d guess cash that we have been [the first ones back there]. There have been no trails or indicators of exercise, and no shotgun shells. Simply the waterfowl and us,” Howell says of their first 4 days of looking. “And we killed mallards daily.”
Getting to those secluded spots required some dangerous navigation, nonetheless, as a result of in lots of locations, the brand new lake coated standing forests that had been left behind when the impoundment was flooded. This meant Howell and Lucas have been floating among the many treetops as Howell navigated his 18-foot Professional Drive by the flooded timber.
On Wednesday afternoon, after an honest morning hunt on Bois D’Arc, the 2 hunters determined to discover a brand new space to the north, the place they’d seen greenheads coming in. Howell ran the boat deeper into the flooded bushes they usually ultimately discovered the spot — “it wasn’t actually a gap, only a low spot within the timber,” he says. They deliberate to hunt there the following day, in order that they pre-staged their string of decoys and located a disguise to make setup simpler within the morning.
“After that we have been simply sort of watching the geese and having fun with the afternoon. It was a reasonably night. Blue skies, sunny, and chilly.”
When it got here time to depart, they gathered up their decoys and Howell weaved his boat by the flooded cover. He and Lucas pushed and broke by limbs, simply as they’d been doing since Saturday. However one specific treetop that Howell says “was thick round as a Coke can” wouldn’t break. When he eased on the mud motor’s gasoline, the limb bent and sprang again and shoved the boat’s stern into the water.
Learn Subsequent: Why Duck Hunters Die
“I regarded again to see water coming over my transom,” says Howell, who wore overalls and rubber boots however no life jacket. “Then all of a sudden, I checked out my buddy, and I regarded again at my ft they usually have been within the water … I simply keep in mind leaping out and going below.”
Ready in Purgatory
When Howell got here to the floor, he grabbed onto a ship cushion, his waterproof blind bag, and the bag of decoys that had floated up. Then he swam for the closest tree. Lucas, who was sporting waders, had jumped out on high of the tree that wouldn’t break, and he was nonetheless holding onto the boat’s bow when Howell yelled at him to let go.
Most of their gear sank together with the boat. They misplaced their shotguns and cellphones, together with the boat’s emergency equipment that held flares, whistles, and different essential objects. Lucas was capable of get better the floating K2 cooler, together with some burlap they’d introduced for a makeshift blind, and he used this materials to make a tree saddle to take a seat in.
Howell, who was shivering uncontrollably after his swim, stood on the nubs of some lower tree limbs about 30 ft away from Lucas’ tree. He regarded inside his blind bag, the place he discovered a lighter and a crushed soda can. He broke off some twigs and lit a tiny fireplace atop the aluminum can as he balanced on the tree limbs.
“I held that may near my coronary heart, and man I used to be freezing, my palms have been chilly, every part was chilly,” Howell says. “I don’t know what time this was, however I saved that little fireplace going lengthy sufficient, and I simply keep in mind grabbing each twig I might. By dusk I had a pocket full, and [the fire] had really dried my chest out, as a result of the can was so near me.”
Learn Subsequent: The right way to Begin a Fireplace: The Final Information to Trendy Fireplace Constructing
Lucas, in the meantime, had began utilizing the cooler as a makeshift fireplace pit. A smoker, he carried two lighters within the chest pocket of his waders, and one nonetheless had a spark. As Lucas constructed a small stick fireplace within the cooler, and as darkness overtook the lake, Howell hung his decoys within the tree to see how effectively they’d burn. The hunters each knew swimming was suicide, and there wasn’t a lot they might do moreover sit tight and pray.
What Howell and Lucas didn’t know on the time was that their wives had notified the authorities after not listening to from the lads at sundown. Howell and his spouse additionally use Life360, a monitoring app that confirmed the placement the place his cellphone and boat had gone down. Texas recreation wardens have been already on their manner by boat, together with officers from the Fannin County Sheriff’s Workplace and a rescue helicopter.
The hours that adopted have been considerably blurry for Howell, who has a decrease chilly tolerance than most because of the chemo treatment he takes. (Historic climate knowledge exhibits air temps between 28 and 34 levels in close by Bonham that evening, however it could have been even colder on the water.) He says there have been a couple of instances in between prayers when he began to nod off in his tree, solely to have Lucas wake him up with a shout. He additionally remembers one vivid second after sundown, when he thought he heard jet planes overhead. It turned out to be an enormous wad of birds pouring into the timber.
“All I might hear was wooden geese and mallards coming in throughout us. And I simply sort of put my head on this tree and closed my eyes and prayed to God. I had Heaven above me and Hell beneath me. I used to be in Purgatory and didn’t comprehend it.”
The Lights of Salvation
By some level within the chilly evening, Howell ran out of gas for his soda-can fireplace. He’d burned every part inside attain, together with poison ivy and each scrap of bark he might peel off the tree. At this level, he says, he “was operating on prayers.” Lucas, at the very least, was capable of hold his cooler fireplace going by including one other deke every so often.
Lastly, after hours of trying up on the stars, the 2 hunters noticed helicopter lights within the distance. Because the lights approached, Howell began throwing extra decoys to Lucas, who was lighting them as quick as he might get his palms on them. The flame and smoke plume drew the helicopter even nearer (Howell says the crew had thermal imaging tools and will see their two our bodies along with the fireplace), and it slowly circled in on their location.
Learn Subsequent: 11 Methods to Sign for Assist
It could take the rescue crew one other two and a half hours to achieve Howell and Lucas by boat, due to how far again they have been within the bushes. After they made it to shore within the heat Sheriff’s boat, it was round 2 a.m. Howell collapsed on the dock. Each males have been handled at a neighborhood hospital for extreme hypothermia earlier than they might return to the comforts of house and their households.
“It was a humbling expertise as a result of we take a lot as a right. However fascinated by touching my spouse and children, that’s what saved me hanging onto that tree,” Howell says. “The issues we’ve on this world aren’t that helpful. However the individuals that you simply love and cherish are.”
