An Ordinary Saturday
Saturday, September 10th, promised a day of relaxing on the float tube at Strawberry — and it delivered. The afternoon on the lake, though overcast, was perfect. Fish swam all around me, and for about ten minutes I had the granddaddy of them all on my line. We traded glances a few times as I worked him toward the surface, but he was a lot more determined to stay free than I was to bring him in. In the end he surfaced one last time, looked at me with what I can only describe as a smile, and said, "Not today, Grandpa." Then he turned and snapped the line and was gone. Probably just as well. I'd have let him go anyway.
As night came on, I made my way to shore and started loading the truck for the drive home. Age has taught me to prioritize comfort where I can, so I changed into my "comfy" clothes — pajama pants, worn-out slipper moccasins, and a tee shirt. One last look around to make sure I hadn't left anything, and I was on the road.
A Bad Feeling at Jordanelle
About the time I reached Jordanelle — roughly 35 miles down the road — my mental checklist caught up with me. I remembered setting my two fishing rods and my fly rod case on top of the truck shell after I came out of the water. I did not remember putting them inside. I pulled over, weighed the value of what I'd left behind against the hassle of turning around, and decided the drive back was worth it. I called my wife, explained my intentions, found the next exit, and pointed the truck back toward the lake.
Off the pavement and onto the dirt road, I found my fly rod first. I stopped, grabbed it, and tossed it in the back. A little further on, my spinning rod. Same routine. Then I reached the lake shore, and there sat the $5,000 fly rod case, right where I'd left it. It was about 10:30 p.m. by then, and I was anxious to get back on the road.
The Truck Goes for a Swim
I pulled up alongside the case, opened the truck door, and bent down to grab it. I couldn't quite reach, so I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned further. Just as my fingers closed on it, I lost my balance, slipped, and fell — clean out of the truck and onto the ground. The shock of it was immediate: the ground was hard and cold, and I had just come from somewhere warm and soft.
In that same instant I felt the ground under me, I noticed my truck was moving. Forward. Gathering speed. And — did I mention I'd stopped about ten feet from the water?
I scrambled up and ran after my own runaway truck, catching it right about the time the front tires hit the water. I reached for the door just as the rising water swung it shut in my face. A split second later I had the handle — and that's when I understood the click I'd heard while falling: my hand, grabbing at the armrest, had hit the door lock on the way down. Time seemed to stand still, but the truck kept moving. I held onto the bumper and tried to steer it back toward shore, but by the time the water reached my neck, it was clear that nothing I did was going to change how this ended.
I made my way back to shore, where my faithful fly rod case was waiting exactly where I'd left it. I turned around in time to watch my 1997 Ranger 4x4 — still running, headlights on, radio playing a sad country song — slide the rest of the way under. The lights finally went dark, the engine stopped, and the radio went silent as the water closed over it. It settled on the bottom of the lake, about fifty feet from shore, under fifteen feet of water.
The Long Walk to the Marina
If that had been the only problem, I'd have called it a fine trade — I was alive, and everything in the truck could eventually be replaced. But it was 10:30 at night, I hadn't seen another soul since I'd turned back for the case, and I needed a plan. I knew the nearest phone was at the marina, and that I'd better start walking while I still had strength and the weather held. I stripped down, wrung out my clothes as best I could, discovered that slipper moccasins are decidedly not made for walking, wrung those out too, and put the whole soggy outfit back on. I figured it was five or six miles to the marina, and that if I was lucky I might run into a ranger out looking for people exactly as foolish as I currently felt.
For reasons I still can't fully explain, I picked up the one thing I owned free and clear — my trusty fly rod case — and brought it along. Maybe just to have something to hold onto. Maybe as a weapon, in case I was set upon by deer, elk, bear, or a marauding gang. So off I went, quietly trying to rewrite the last hour in my head so it would come out differently. About fifteen minutes in, I thanked my Heavenly Father for keeping me from harm when I fell, and something in me settled. I just needed to keep moving.
It wasn't especially cold, since the sky stayed overcast, but I tucked my arms inside my tee shirt one at a time — carrying the case meant I only had one free hand. My wristwatch became my only company. My slippers came off with nearly every step, and every twenty feet or so I'd stop to wrestle them back on. That got old fast. It was a long, uneventful two-plus hours. Keep moving was the whole plan.
The Marina, Finally
Turning onto the road to the marina, I picked up the pace. Maybe a mile left. As I passed the entrance I heard a truck approaching, its lights growing in the distance, and I let myself think this nightmare might be nearly over. It wasn't. I put on my best smile, stuck out my hand, and watched it drive right past. About ten minutes later, another truck, coming from the highway — same result. I watched it turn into a campground. A while later the same truck came back out, headed for the marina, and passed me again without slowing.
By then I was talking myself through it. It was Sunday morning, around 12:05 a.m. I hadn't shaved since Friday. I was soaked to the bone. And I was carrying an object that, in the dark, looked an awful lot like a sawed-off shotgun. Looked at that way, I wouldn't have stopped for me either. Not that I had much choice in transportation anyway — the thing I would've been driving was busy corroding at the bottom of the lake. I digress.
At last I reached the marina and the little hotel beside it. The office said "please come to the store." The store was locked and dark. But there were two pay phones, and one of them worked. I placed a collect call to my wife and told her I'd had "car trouble" and could she please come get me. She was worried, but I didn't have the patience to explain further, so she agreed to head out.
It was 12:20 a.m., and the cold was starting to catch up with me. A light breeze was coming off the lake. I found a spot out of the wind and noticed a light on in the restroom — a little warmer inside, and better yet, a hand dryer blowing warm air. Stand close enough, lift your shirt a little, and it blows hot air straight up your back. I did that every five minutes for an hour. I also had plenty of time to watch a bug make his way across the floor in what looked like a pattern. He never stopped moving either. Maybe he was looking for a phone to call his own wife.
"Are You Steve Nuddy?"
About an hour after that first call, I heard a car coming and figured if it was my wife, she'd been driving like she meant it — it usually takes an hour just to reach the visitor's center from our house. I walked out into the lot and waited for the headlights to reach me. I must have made quite a picture, standing there in wet pajamas holding a rod case. As the car drew closer, I realized it wasn't our Pathfinder. It was a Wasatch County Sheriff's deputy.
He pulled up and asked, "Are you Steve Nuddy?" I looked around the empty parking lot and said, "Maybe. Is he in trouble?" He assured me I wasn't, and explained that my wife had called the department and asked if someone could pick up her wet, tired, hungry husband. She was waiting at the station in Heber City. As we drove, he made small talk and asked how I'd ended up out here. I asked if he knew Chaplin Point. He did — about six miles down the road. I told him that a few hours earlier I'd watched my truck disappear under fifteen or twenty feet of water, and that I'd walked to the marina to call my wife.
He gave me the full deer-in-the-headlights look, stopped the car, and said, "Huh?" I told him the whole story. When it was over, he said he'd need to file an accident report, and first called his captain — waking him up — to ask whether we needed to pull the truck out that night or if it could wait until morning. Fortunately, morning won, saving me a small fortune. Then he asked if I minded swinging by the site to take a look. At that point I was warm-ish and grateful to be alive, so I didn't mind much of anything.
When we pulled down to the exact spot from hours before, the headlights caught something out in the water. The pontoons I'd deflated still had just enough air in them to float up against the tailgate, push the shell window open, and poke out about a foot each — enough to lift the back of the truck so six inches of the shell stuck above the surface. A few things had drifted ashore: half an oar, a can of bug spray, my box of flies. A bucket bobbed upside down about five feet out, still holding the pontoon straps. Being already warm and dry — a low bar at that point — I waded out and grabbed it. In the end, nothing was missing from the bed of the truck. Amazing, really.
Recovery
From the lake we drove to the station in Heber City, where I found my wife and our son, who had driven her there. About thirty minutes of paperwork later, we were finally headed home. We hit the sheets around 4 a.m. with the alarm set for 7:30 — I still had to get back to the scene and start sorting things out.
When the alarm went off, I started calling wreckers. The first one said it was out of his way and to try someone else. A few calls later I found someone willing to be on the road in about thirty minutes. My wife and I headed out around 9 a.m. and arrived to find the truck in plain view — while two dozen people fished nearby as if nothing were unusual. One guy had ridden his quad down to the shore and was on the phone with 911, telling the dispatcher it looked like someone might be trapped in the back, since a foot appeared to be sticking out. That "foot" was one leg of my waders, which had floated up. Interesting that nobody swam out to check. Go figure.
Our wrecker driver showed up in a dive mask and swim trunks and made quick work of hooking up the truck and dragging it back to dry ground. We towed it to my mechanic, emptied out what we could, and left him a note to call me in the morning — I'd be happy to explain why he was about to find water in the oil.
The Fly Rod Case on the Mantel
Telling this story to a friend later, we got to talking about what lesson, if any, was in it. He put it simply: no one is immune from tragedy. Any of us, at any moment, could find ourselves in a life-changing situation. For my part, I made my peace with it and moved on. I thanked my Father in Heaven for His love and for keeping me from harm, and when I finally climbed into bed that night, I understood — clearly — that life was, and is, good. I'll go fishing again. There's a fish out there somewhere with my hook still in him, and I intend to find him.
So if you ever stop by the house and notice a fly rod case hanging above the mantel, now you know why it's there. The $5,000 price tag is what the final number will come to, once the truck and everything else that was ruined gets replaced.
