http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/12/29/hunter-survives-subzero-temps/

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. My hat is off to this man. He defines "don't ever quit."

Many a hunter has died in cold weather and it pays to be cautious.

tough yes - but the situation was avoidable

Anyone - and especially those of us who have a few years on us - should - at bare minimum - tell someone where you will be and when you expect to be out

i have made a habit of that since i was a much younger man - without fail - before cell phones - i left a note

if nothing else they will have a smaller area to search

He's a lucky man.

Not too bright, but definitely lucky.

Tough yes, wise no.

Glad he made it

This episode reminds all of the need for a Float plan, letting someone know where you are and when you'll be back. I know we've discussed over the years PLB's, EPIRBS, SPOT, etc, and they have their place in locations outside of cellphone coverage. Gil

An unwise man had a thing happen that could have been avoidable? He had emphysema and went grouse hunting three miles off the main road with a broken cell phone.

If they had been searching for him and found him frozen to the pavement we could conclude he didn't show up when he was supposed to, but that's not what happened. His truck slid off the road and he tried to walk for help.

He went grouse hunting though he had emphysema and his cell phone was broken. Broken before he went? Discovered it wasn't working after he got stuck?

Man does not go grouse hunting because he doesn't have a cell phone.

Man doesn't go grouse hunting because he has no-one to tell where he is going.

Man doesn't go grouse hunting because he has emphysema.

He went grouse hunting. I vote "tough guy".

His daughters would feel worse if he sat home and blew his brains out with his grouse gun.

I can remember when I went hunting without a cell phone. I have a brother I could tell where I am going. He might even remember what I told him, though I am pretty sure he wouldn't notice I was gone for a couple days anyway. Maybe I ought to give up grouse hunting? I am not a tough guy.

He might still have his digits if he had just looked at a weather report, or carried some dry gloves in his truck.

Call it what you want, but he was in trouble from the minute he left his house. It just caught up to him this time.

I don't wish anyone ill, but old men in poor health are in more danger than they realize all too frequently outdoors.

And on a day when it's going down to minus 30 tonight?

I have known Dave for many years. He was a Deputy Sheriff and a State Trooper for decades. I was really surprised to read about it in our newspaper.

Good topic. It is damn frigid out there!

I go through this with my wife from time to time, most recently yesterday. Though we don't have the severe cold here that ya'll do "up nawth", we do have dangers. One of the biggest is the danger of drowning, or capsizing and not being able to get to help in a timely manner because of the remoteness of the area. I enjoy drifting and jump shooting ducks. My favorite waterway is Brier Creek, what many would call a small river ..........swift and deep enough in most places to drown you. The way I drift, in a fiberglass kayak, does not lend itself to taking a partner ......... no room in the kayak. So, I go alone. My son meets me at the extraction point, we leave my truck there, and he takes me upstream a few miles to the insertion point, with my kayak.

I wait for weather like we have coming the remainder of this week, cold enough to freeze all the ponds in the area, which causes all the ducks to be on running water. The combination of swift areas, cold in the low 20s or teens, and the remoteness combine to lend a modicum of danger, I will concede. But, you consider the risks, mitigate those which you can, and if you're healthy enough, go kill ducks. Cell phone? yeah ......... but, good luck getting a signal down in there.

I don't know how many years I will be physically agile and healthy enough for these kinds of drifts, so while I can I am going to enjoy them. When I can't, I'll sit by a fire and read my hunting journal that I have kept for decades. (When I can't do that, maybe a grandson will sit and read it to me).

SRH

I am now 82, and I'll be damned if I will sit home because other people decide I cant hunt or fish. My Dad went goose hunting with me when he was 91. He often told me "When your gun feels too heavy to carry in the field, get a heavier one" ....NEVER QUIT....

+1

SRH

Yes, what's meant to happen to you will happen no matter what you do. Eat well, exercise and NEVER QUIT,.....and PRAY HARD!

Like this guy, I managed to get myself stuck on a trail a few years back when my setter decided to take a walkabout and I made an unwise choice going to look for him. It wasn't cold and I did have a cellphone, although the battery died immediately after I made the 911 call. The worst that would have happened is that I would have had to either spend a night in my pickup or make a fairly long walk to the nearest house. But ever since then, I am somewhat more cautious when I'm hunting alone. I make sure my cell is charged, and I have a cord in the glove compartment so I can charge it in the truck.

I've quit doing a lot of the foolish things like floating the river for ducks or even going duck hunting at the lake alone. Fear isn't the reason, just the realization I can't handle a bad situation alone anymore.

I'm not that old, just sat behind a desk for too many years. Well, that and a stroke and heart surgery. The post about staying home and blowing one's head off was way more scary than any foolishness I might think up in the way of hunting risk...Geo

Winter driving - always a full tank, and a sleeping bag, extra winter boots, over pants and gloves in the back. This shows a good example of why.

grouse hunting - two gps', extra batteries, two compasses, lifestraw, lighter, waterproof matches, emergency blanket and a small first aid kit.

should have stayed with the truck and saved his fingers. But that's just me.

The walking stick is a lifesaver for some of us. When I was in the middle of several spinal surgeries, I fell in an open field while running my Wirehair. I couldn't get up, no matter how hard I tried. I had to crawl a great distance to a tree that I used to get back on my feet. A stick would have eliminated all problems. My pup is a great help in getting up, but at 50 pounds, she just couldn't do it.

Yes eightbore, falling is a worry for some of us. A cane is a Godsend some times...Geo

The guy is from Minnesota. I would have expected more foresight.

Coming from Winnipeg, Manitoba.....which on average is significantly colder than a lot of Minnesota, it should be second nature to have extra warm gear/candles/sleep bag etc in the car or truck. People die from the weather with regularity. Farmers die of exposure because they get lost going from the house to the milking barn early in the morning. People are found frozen in their cars 4 days after the end of a wind storm. Doesn't matter how much snow is falling, it's the sideways snow, along with the low temps, that is the problem. You are raised on a diet of news that drives home the point....be unprepared for the cold and you risk your life. And not in the theoretical sense.

Dal's comment is right on the money and really, the only part of this thread that has value. For those who don't know, or haven't considered what may happen, it's time to prepare a life saving kit for your vehicle.

I hunt by myself pretty often.

I carry a device called a SPOT. It has a GPS and a satellite transmitter built into it. SPOT sends my GPS location to a satellite which in turns sends it to a website which then displays it on a map. My wife watches my progress from home. It has a "Send the Medivac helicopter and shell out $20,000" emergency button. If I choose to press that SPOT will send my GPS coordinates to the service and they will notify local emergency services.

I turn SPOT on when I get out of the truck. I carry a spare set of three triple A batteries in my hunting vest should it run out of battery. As I remember the device was about $100 and the service was about $140/year.

I am diligent about keeping my cell phone charged. I often have cell coverage out on my birdleases. While I was out hunting my wife has texted me and asked if I had the SPOT on. Both times I didn't. So it has some value I think.

I keep a car battery booster in my hunting rig.

inReachSE has texting, real advantage to keep temperatures cool at home i.e. not an emergency but I'll spend the night at the camp or snug in the plane and will try to get home tomorrow. I kept my SPOT. My son used my inReach last month sailing Halifax to Guadaloupe via Bermuda. A strong instinct for safety is No. 1 in making things pleasurable.

I am happy the outcome for this hunter turned out as well as it did. I think it is a good reminder for me and all of us that we need to guard against becoming complacent. Be Safe..

WBLDon

He was a lucky man. Like him I too have done a lot of things hunting that in hind sight we're not safe, not smart and which I would prevent me kids from doing today. Like busting through several inches thick ice on the Nanticoke river to get to a shore blind with the temps 10-20 below zero. Or hunting in Alaska for a Moose, with a .270, when even a child should know Brown Bears were nearby. Or going out into the Cheasapke Bay, in a small gale, so bad I had to use a 32' cabin cruiser to pull my john boat to an island I owned to shoot redheads and cans. Weather was so bad but had to stay three days before I could come back in. Killed a lot of ducks but was lucky to not die doing it. Like I said more lucky than smart.

I read about this coming home from Pennsy yesterday. Easy to forget about how hard mother nature can sometimes be. This fellow should have known better, but we all could easily do this. It's a form of denial, I suppose, that we aren't as spry as we used to be. And...we foolishly tend to rely on things like cellphones (and 4x4s, and GPS!) to get us out of trouble. As the old saying goes, no fool like an old fool.

I like to call it complacency.

To me word tough defines foot soldier of Special Operations Command. These guys are true "dangerous game hunters". They get the most dangerous assignments which takes great deal of intelligence, guts and I suspect little measure of craziness. That CQB against determined adversary would scare the living shit out of me.