How a Lost Hunter Gets Home Safely With Hunter-Ed

Hunter education courses can help in unexpected situations. While it might be obvious that these courses help hunters learn firearm safety and other aspects of being safe on a hunt, you might be surprised at how that online safety certification can help you when you least expect it. 

Darkness fell when first-time hunter Seth Basler realized he was in serious trouble. He was lost in unfamiliar woods, surrounded on all four sides by water at least hip-deep, and it was getting cold.

However, Seth had recently completed his hunter education. Keep reading to learn how he applied what he learned to survive in extreme conditions and return home safely after a hunt. 

Hunter Education Helps a Hunter Survive

When Seth realized he was lost, he immediately thought back to his hunter safety course. Standing there in the gathering dark, he recalled the lessons on emergency survival. 

He had left his flashlight behind, and the encroaching night was making it hard to read the printed hunter education manual he'd brought with him, but he'd read and reread it during his lunch breaks and remembered what to do.

Because of his hunter education, Seth was able to keep himself safe until help arrived. Here's how the story begins. 

Getting Off Track

Seth, a 23-year-old Indiana student, completed his hunter education certification online that September. He had a passion for the outdoors and was eager to begin hunting. 

He bought his hunting license and prepared for his hunt. He packed a light backpack with a copy of the Indiana hunter education manual as a backup resource and prepared his longbow. He decided to start with the nearby LaSalle Fish and Wildlife Area he'd visited previously.

The hunt started well but quickly led Seth away from the main trail. 

"I was following tracks for the longest time. I finally spotted the deer quite a way away from me; it was too far because I was hunting with a longbow, so I had to go further and further until I was in unfamiliar territory," Seth said. "Because it was my first time hunting, I was more focused on getting the deer than where I was."

Losing the Deer (and His Bearings)

He ultimately lost the deer in the brambles of a marsh and realized how lost he was. He found the Kankakee River and tried to use it to navigate back toward the park entrance, but dangerous barriers such as swampland and thick briar kept turning him aside.

"I knew my cardinal directions and which way I had to go, but a lot of the marshes were blocking my direct path," Seth explained.

He wandered for so long that he found his own footprints. He tried to trace them back again but lost even his own tracks in the sandy soil. Then, he stumbled upon a tree stand, but the hunter was not nearby. The tracks near it indicated the hunter had come in from the river, likely on a boat.

"I was completely confused," Seth said. He had a map, but it didn't clearly depict topographical changes, and he couldn't tell if the marshy areas nearby were shallow enough to cross – or deep enough to pull him under.

Darkness Sets In

He'd been out for hours, and it was beginning to get dark. He was drenched from his travels, and the air was taking on a chill. That's when he remembered what he'd learned in his Hunter-Ed course.

"I calmed down and thought about what to do as it said in the Hunter-Ed guide," he said. He was on a marshy island with water on all sides, and in the dark, he couldn't find the path he'd used to safely cross.

He first called his girlfriend, asking her to look up the number for the game warden or manager, but the office had already closed. With his cell phone battery dying, Seth called 911. He told the police his general location, and they began the search to find him.

Meanwhile, he was still cold and wet. So he again used what he'd learned in his Hunter-Ed course and built a survival shelter. He used a light tarp in his backpack and branches to make a lean-to and collected branches to start a small fire for warmth. 

However, the wood was damp and didn't catch, so he used the only paper he had available: He burned a few pages of his hunter education manual and a temporary hunting tag, using a small Bic lighter to start the flames.

"Eventually, after an hour, I had a decent bed of coals so the fire could sustain itself, big enough to keep me warm and dry my socks out," he said.

Help Arrives

It was now fully dark. Seth couldn't see farther out than his little campfire, but then he heard a boat on the river: the police and conservation officers coming to find him. He called out, and the officers zeroed in on his location, but they were still stymied by the thick marshes surrounding him on all sides.

"I could see their lights, but I couldn't see anything around me," Seth said. Police had to use satellite images to determine the best route to reach Seth, but he kept in contact the whole time. "I was joking with the officers that this was the worst game of hide-and-seek I'd ever been in," Seth said.

Officers finally saw Seth's small fire and were able to reach him, though it meant slogging through waist-high marsh water in pitch blackness.

It turned out Seth wasn't far from his goal all along. He was only 200 yards from the parking lot, but the marsh was a difficult obstacle. 

"If I were to have crossed the marsh in front of me, I would have been able to walk a straight line north to the main trail and take that back to my car," Seth said.

Lessons Learned

Despite his ordeal, Seth is still enthusiastic about the outdoors. He's already been back out hunting, though he's more cautious about wandering in LaSalle. 

He's a little more careful when hunting: "I won't be as zoned in on a game animal as I was last time," he said. I'll at least be aware enough to mark a trail."

Even though he is embarrassed that police and conservation officers had to come rescue him, Seth is grateful for having gotten lost. 

"When I was sitting in front of the fire, I realized this is actually something I had wanted to do: just me, the things I have with me, nature, and figuring out how to get through the night. It's one of my dreams to be in a survival situation, and it's funny – that's what it was! Because of hunting, I got to live one of my dreams and go out and basically be in the environment for quite some time."

Use Hunter Education to Return Safely from a Hunt

While we hope you never get lost on a hunt, having the knowledge from a hunter education course can help you get home. Hunter safety education can also help you avoid dangerous situations, like mishandling your firearm, setting up a tree stand the wrong way, or shooting outside your safe zone of fire toward other hunters in the field. 

We're glad Seth already had his Hunter-Ed safety certification before his hunt! To prepare for your first (or next), make sure you're certified too. You never know when what you learn can get you home safely! 

Find the course for your state, then start learning. All of our courses are 100% online! 

Originally published November 20, 2015. Content updated May 29, 2023.