By Chuck Hakari

This close call happened several years ago on my first goat hunting trip up Tracy Arm. It was early October and I was hunting with Tracy Moore and his friend Dave. I can't remember Dave's last name, and it is just as well, since Dave was the almost victim in this story and probably doesn't want to be reminded about it.

We left Douglas Harbor sometime during the morning on Tracy's boat the Fun. The Fun is a 26', heavy duty fiberglass, east coast fishing boat that was originally equipped with a fire breathing Chevy 454. With the combination of the hull design and this engine, we could have cruised into the mouth of Tracy Arm in about two hours. But this was not the case. Sometime during the time before Tracy bought the Fun, a madman removed the 454 and put in a 4-cylinder diesel sailboat engine. This person of unsound mind must have done this during the oil embargo of the 70's when diesel fuel was cheaper than gasoline, so he was willing to give up speed for the promise of saving a few pennies on a gallon of fuel. So instead of getting there in two hours, we plodded along for hours and hours. Fortunately, the weather was great and this gave us plenty of time to get our gear together for the upcoming hunt.

Don't get me wrong about Tracy's boat. It has served him well in all the years that he has had it. Just check out the King Salmon Derby records for all the winning fish had caught from it. If it could talk, it could tell you about all the deer, goats and other fish and game that has been haul on this stable boat. It has enough room to sleep four people and plenty of room on the deck to fish from and pack the catch, be it fish or game. It is just too slow for me! As I have often told him, I am too young to go that slow. That is why I have a 24' belch fire!

Tracy had been to the "Arm" before, so he showed us how to get lined up with the channel markers and run the bar, which was uneventful due to the state of the tide. We had only gone about a mile beyond the bar, when a loud flapping sound started coming from the back of the boat. Tracy quickly took the boat out of gear and the noise stopped. A look under the hatch revealed that a piece of inner tube that Tracy had installed to keep the driveshaft from splashing water on the engine had broken loose and gotten wrapped around the driveshaft. Whew! I had thought that something serious had happened and we hadn't even started hunting!

After making the repairs, we continued up the "Arm", dodging small icebergs while glassing the hills for goats. As soon as we made the first turn into the steep sided fjord, we spotted a goat at about 500' elevation. It was decided that Dave and I would try for this one while Tracy continued up the "Arm" to do some scouting. Dave and I grabbed our gear as Tracy nosed the boat up against the only area of rock that wasn't almost vertical and worn smooth by the glacier. The transfer to be shore went smoothly and we were on our way.

I was packing my archery equipment and Dave had a scoped rifle. We made fairly good time, only encountering a couple of spooky ledges that we had to inch across. When we thought that we were high enough, we started to sidehill and hit the edge of the clearing the goat was in perfectly. Only problem was that the goat wasn't there. Dave looked up and noticed the goat working up a drainage directly above us. He had the scope on it, but didn't shoot because he only wanted a big goat and he couldn't tell how big this one was. I didn't have a problem with that. After all, this was only the first stalk of the hunt. This decision turned out to be one that would haunt Dave for the rest of the hunt.

We worked our way back down to the shoreline, which in this case was where the timber met the almost vertical rock slope. We dropped our gear and settled in to wait for Tracy to return from his scouting trip. Even though it was sunny, it was cool under the trees, probably because I had worked up a sweat going after the goat. Anyway, I decided to move out onto the rock and catch a few rays. I grabbed my gear and found a spot where there were a few wide ledges and settled in.

Dave, upon seeing me basking in the sun, decided to do the same. Where he came out of the treeline, there was a little trickle of water flowing down the hill onto the rock. In this trickle were spruce and hemlock needles as well as some moss. When Dave stepped in this trickle, he slipped and did a slow roll onto the rock. On the first roll, he dropped his pack, which miraculously got caught on a 2-inch ledge. On his second roll, he dropped his rifle, which also ended up on a ledge. Dave was not so lucky and he ended up rolling into the icy waters of Tracy Arm.

Now, I am normally kind of excitable, but I guess things just happened so fast that I didn't have time to get excited. Dave fell in the water. Bummer. I guess it was only natural that I be so calm, collected and unexcited since I was the one that was high and dry! Dave, on the other hand was in water a few degrees above freezing, and looking up an almost vertical, smooth rock face with little apparent hope of getting out.

I could see Tracy's boat a mile or so up the "Arm". I could have called him the VHF, but he never would have gotten there in time. I just had to rescue Dave myself. I grabbed my bow and started inching my way down ledges, making sure that I always had a good handhold as well as secure footing. I sure didn't want to end up in the water with Dave.

When I got as close as I could, I reached out with my bow. Dave easily grabbed it, but he was in such a state of panic, he almost pulled me in with him. His eyes were huge with fear! I managed to hang on and pull him up the rock high enough for him to find a hand hold. I then moved up a couple of ledges and pulled him up some more. He was then able to get his feet on a ledge and haul himself out.

We both had spare clothes in our packs, so he was able to get out of his wet clothes and start to warm up. I then slowly worked my way over to where Dave began his fall and retrieved his pack and rifle.Tracy was contacted on the VHF and he retrieved us a short time later.

This hunt had some other interesting things happen, but I am not going to relate them to you now. Instead, I am going to wait until one of you mighty hunters submits a feature story for the next issue, then I will write Part II of this story.

The End. (For now!)