I coiled the fishing line on the ground so it would flow easily when I threw the dummy to the boat. I tied the end to Monty’s collar, sat him down and threw the dummy. I did manage to get it to the crabber, and I gave Monty a loud, “Back!” He made one of his flying leaps off the boat-launching ramp and almost disappeared into the mud.

Before his rescue, the crabber had been stranded on a mud flat a good distance from the boat ramp where he had put in at high tide.

For a second I thought I might need to wade in and pull him out, but he came up swimming and went right to the boat and delivered the line to the man’s hand, then returned carrying the dummy and looking like a big bundle of black mud.

I watched carefully as the man tied his heavy bow anchor line to the smaller decoy line. He then waved that all was ready, and I began to retrieve the decoy line.

When the anchor line reached my hand, I tied the line to my car’s trailer hitch and drove the car away slowly, dragging the man and boat to the ramp where we could easily winch-load it on his trailer. Needless to say, Delaware Bay’s mud was in and on everything and Monty and I could not travel in the car all muddied up.

Monty and the crabber. The Labrador's sleek coat cleaned up much better than the men's clothes.

After loading the boat on the trailer we found a small sandy beach nearby with clean ocean water and the crabber and I both took a clothes-on bath and emerged about half clean. Monty’s sleek Labrador coat cleaned up much better than our clothes did. The crabber offered us a bushel of crabs, which I declined, as we had crabs in our refrigerator at home. As we said good-bye he came to my car’s window and said, “You know, you really saved my life, and I can’t thank you enough.”

I said, “You would have done the same for me,” but I was thinking that it was really Monty who deserved the credit--he was the one who took the lifeline.