Be Safe

I carry a small very sharp knife on both my trout and bass vests in order to cover an unexpected emergency. The need for this came when I almost drowned on a large river in Montana. I was dragging an anchor behind my personal kick boat when the anchor became stuck in very fast ten foot deep water. Foolishly I assumed that if I could wrap the anchor rope around my forearm and pull my kick boat upstream I could free the anchor. It did not work! However, my wrapping created a half hitch knot over my forearm which pulled the back of my boat deeply underwater and I knew I was in serious trouble. To this day I do not know how I got out of this dilemma. I do know if I had a knife on my vest I could have easily cut the rope and floated freely down the river.