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Came a knock on the door this AM. It was a young fellow dressed in desert BDU pants and a green shirt. He told me that he had his deuce stuck and figured I might be the only sucker in the area that could pull him out. He didn't actually use sucker but you see where I'm going. I asked a few questions while loading my straps and snatch blocks. He said he bought the deuce a few weeks ago at a local equipment auction. I asked him "How Stuck" and he replied pretty good. Then he told me that he also got his fathers 4x4 fork lift stuck while he was at it. I followed him over and was contemplating my options. I was figuring that he tried to cross one of these bottomless muck lots. Upon arrival my suspicions were confirmed. When he told me he had a deuce I certainly wasn't expecting to see another tractor, much less one previously owned by a friend. Kind of a piece of junk rustbucket but it has a decent running non turbo with a sprag case. He was about 175' from terra firma. The bystanders tried to talk me into backing out to it but I'm no fool. Deuces with 9.00X20s don't do well in bottomless mud. I chose to use the winch. Set everything up and spooled off almost all the cable I had to reach the truck. Got everything hooked up and started winching. Nothing moving but my truck. Poop, nothing to tie off on. This kid had his father there with a Kenworth tractor and a flatbed so we tied off on that. Started winching, everything tightened up, the Kenworth and trailer started sliding and within a few seconds the winch stopped. Zapped a shear pin. Replaced said pin and re evaluated. I was way over 150' short of running a 2 part line and coudn't get anywhere close enough to do a strap recovery. We decided to try to motor it out with my truck and the Kenworth. It took some jerking with the KW but we finally broke it free. From there I started winching it again and got it right to the bank and trees when I popped another shear pin. Dang it ! Replaced pin and 2 parted the line and got it right out. Unwind the entire drum of cable again to reach the forklift. Same deal, had to tie off to the Kenworth, got hunkered down and broke another shear pin. Man, I'm sure glad I'm not breaking cables. Again we had to use the Kenworth banging on the back of my tractor to break the suction. Once that happened it winched in easily. At the bank I popped one more pin before 2 parting the line again. This time it came right out and the saga ended. I got some birdnesting on the winch cable which I was planning to replace anyway. The moral of the story is this, use the correct shear pins and keep plenty available. If I had been using a steel bolt like lots of folks do, I might have been dodging flying cables and winch chains. Also, 2 part your lines whenever you can. I refused to charge him but he was good enough to give me $50. Took me over and hour and cost me the 4 shear pins. I think I have less than 10 pins left, yikes! Oh yeah, I keep my shear pins in a little plastic decon box in the glove compartment. Along with the pins have plenty of cotter pins, you lose these whenever the shear breaks.
