click

An embarrassing adventure

 

One glorious Alaskan summer day in 1995 my good friend Bruce Passe announced that he was going to take me to a fishing hole that was sure to provide us each with our day’s limit of Red Salmon.

 

We assembled our gear and began loading his floatplane for the short flight from Soldotna to the “secret spot” on the West Side of Cook Inlet. He had warned me in advance of a resident bear family at the fishing hole so I had elected to bring my trusty Smith & Wesson, just in case...

 

As we readied the plane for departure I double-checked to be sure the revolver was unloaded for the flight. It was and our adventure began.

A short time later we landed at the fishing hole to view a multitude of Reds in the water. We secured the plane and immediately got down to business.

 

Bruce soon caught the first salmon and, as anticipated, a young brown bear appeared and began nosing around. I was high on the bank while Bruce was fishing in the shallows below me with nowhere to retreat. The bear stood between the plane and us and was unwilling to leave in spite of repeated shouts and various animated gestures. As the impatient bear advanced on Bruce’s position, I instinctively decided to deploy my mighty weapon to launch a thunderous warning shot that would surely send the bear fleeing for his life. I confidently raised my gleaming sidearm to the sky and smoothly pulled the precision double-action trigger. The three of us heard only a bashful “click”. Again I pulled the trigger only to hear the same embarrassing “click”. Indeed, I had forgotten to reload the gun after we landed.

 

Bruce was quick to take a photo of the bear standing on my jacket that was piled among our gear on the rocky shore. The bear was looking directly at me when simultaneously I noticed the faintest smirk on his face and remembered that the bullets were in the pocket of my jacket under his paw.

The bear quickly stole away with the only fish of the day.

 

We loaded up our gear shortly after and took off leaving behind Bruce’s fish, my pride, and a well-fed bear. We still had plenty of ammunition though, just in case...

Reviews

[Gandré]

what a fantastic story and how professionally written... this is kind of adventure I 'd love. I 've been in Slovakia, in www.tatry.sk High Tatra.. the smallest mountain in Europe and the only place where still live brown bears ... And I've never met one.... even this is dangerous I desired so much! I find bears so magnificient for they are loners.. I like loners.
I enjoyed your text a lot.
Be well, lara

[Michael X]

A.K, this is a tale of a tale, the entire idea was written with a dynamically smoothe. I found myself taken
by the first 3 lines, in many ways the meaning holds a great lession and can be looked at in various ways,

metaphorically, I can how the idea takes on a humorous, delightful, embarassing, aspect in every way
that would make a great comedy scene and a lesson to be learned, draws the reader to ponder just

what it means to be prepared but knowing that now matter how prepared we can be, sometimes its
just not enough, I really enjoyed the scene where the bear is sitting on the jacket, paw probably resting

on the bullets, everything about the adventure takes one to nature, I really enjoyed reading this.
Take Care, Mike

[BrightEyes]

ohhhhh Dale - tsk tsk tsk hehehe Those pesky bears will get you every time - good thing you had some fish for him or he might never have left!!!! Funny tale now; looking back and knowing that all worked out well - have to agree with Carole here - could have been a not so funny adventure! glad the bear was only looking for a fish dinner and went about his business!

[Carole]

I can't even imagine, AK! This is unreal...Your heart must have fell to your knees when you recognized the bullets were in your jacket pocket under the bear. Thank God he only took the fish. Bear maulings are no joke! This one kept my attention. This is a fairly new genre for you, isn't it?? You do story telling well, my friend! XO Carole XO

[Emily B]

aw, embarrassing stories can happen anywhere. Catching a good mess of fish would never have made a story this good.

[Kali]

Only a true Alaskan can laugh about confronting a bear with no greater weapon than a camera. I loved this, I felt like I was sitting around swapping fishing stories with you. Cheers!

[J]

Ha!! A smirking bear indeed! Yikes! This is hilarious ~ you have a flare for comedy. I'm glad it turned out the way it did, I would have been scared silly and certainly would never have had the presence of mind to take a photo!!

Well done, Dale. Enjoyable read!

~j

[Damien Dsoul]

Just sitting here trying to imagine what would've happened had the story-teller's friend not stepped up with the camera ... the look on his face at the empty sound of the gun click ... it's too much to imagine how afraid he must have been at the time. Pure adrenaline just a click away.