Reply
Sun 16 Apr, 2006 08:34 am
HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE TWO DUCK HUNTERS FROM WISCONSIN? ABSOLUTELY
TRUE STORY HEARD ON A
WISCONSIN RADIO STATION REPORTING ON THE INCIDENT.
A guy buys a new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500.00 (with monthly payments
of $560.00).
He and a friend go duck hunting in mid-winter; and of course all of the
lakes are frozen.
These two guys go on a lake with their GUNS, a DOG, and of course the
new NAVIGATOR.
They decide they want to make a natural looking water area for the
ducks, something for the decoys to float on. Now making a hole in
the ice large enough to invite a passing duck, is going to take a little
more power than the average drill auger can produce. So, out of the
back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a short 40
second-fuse. Now our two Rocket Scientists, afraid they might slip
on the ice while trying to run away after lighting the fuse (and
becoming toast, along with the Navigator), decide on the following
course
of action: they light the 40 second fuse; then, with a mighty thrust,
they throw the stick of dynamite as far away as possible.
Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the NAVIGATOR, the
GUNS, and the DOG...???
Let's talk about the dog: A highly trained Black Lab used for
RETRIEVING. Especially things thrown by the owner. You guessed it: the
dog
takes off across the ice at a high rate of speed and grabs the stick of
dynamite, with the burning 40-second fuse, just as it hits the ice. The
two men swallow,blink, start waving their arms and, with veins in their
necks swelling to resemble stalks of rhubarb, scream and holler at
the dog to stop.
The dog, now apparently cheered on by his master, keeps coming. One
hunter panics, grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun
is loaded with #8 bird shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The
dog stops for a moment, slightly confused then continues on.
Another shot, and this time the dog, still standing, becomes really
confused and of course terrified, thinks these two geniuses have gone
insane. The dog takes off to find cover, under the brand new Navigator.
The men continue to scream as they run. The red hot exhaust pipe on the
truck touches the dogs rear end, he yelps, drops the dynamite
under the truck and takes off after his master. Then
"""BOOOOOOOOOM""""!!!! The truck is blown to bits and sinks to the
bottom of
the lake, leaving the two idiots standing there with..."I can't believe
this just happened" looks on their faces.
The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal
use of explosives is NOT COVERED by the policy. He still had yet
to make the first of those $560.00 a month payments...The dog is okay...
I sent this story to several friends this morning.
The story of the incompetent hunters and their boomerang dog first made the Internet rounds in early 1997. The payments were $475 at that time.
But it's far older than that. Jack London's 1902 short story "Moon-Face" may be based on this legend. Another ancient example of this legend as literature is the 1899 Henry Lawson short story "The Loaded Dog."
As much as people want to believe this story, it's folklore and nothing more. In addition to the lack of checkable facts (in none of the versions are the lads named; neither is the lake where this supposedly happened, yet we know the type of truck and the amount of the monthly payments), there are further indications this story is but a fanciful tale.
Duck hunting takes place in the fall, not the dead of winter. Ducks fly south for the cold months, long before there is ice thick enough to hold up a truck. A duck's food supply is located under water ?- would they put off migrating until what they subsisted on was locked up in Nature's refrigerator and they were starving? Heck, no: unless there's an unseasonably early freeze, they're long gone by the time lakes are ice locked.
Additionally, to put a hole in the ice, one cuts with a saw or drills with an auger. Blowing a hole with dynamite would shatter the edges and cause cracks to radiate outwards, making it a foolhardy venture to attempt walking on the ice anywhere near that hole as the ice surface could give way underfoot at any moment.
I took it as a joke. Pretty funny, true or false.