Well you wanna here a bad one....grab some coffee and sit down and listen to this debacle.

It was late March in the winter of 1992, my buddy (at the time) had just got a new driftboat. We decided to go up to forks and do some steelhead fishin. Against better judgement we decide to fish the uuper sol duc from the hatchery all the way down to Whitcomb-dimmel (pretty long float). We had never been on the hatchery run but had fished a couple of the lower runs by boat. My buddy (at the time) figured he could handle it because he had rowed the Bogie and the lower Hoh a few times.

The water was really low and clear, I mean really low ( 2 boards at maxfield), and it was colder than a well diggers arce. We get to the launch and start putting or gear on and I realize I had forgotten my waders, not a real big deal other than i was wearing just sweats and sandals. So now Im a little bummed, I borrow my other friends shoes, which were huge. They were some sort of hightop basketball shoe, size 13!!! I put em on and now I look like a cross between Billy white shoes Johnson and Bozo the clown, but hey im fishing so its all good.

We start our float and it is so cold that every cast you have to break the ice out of your rod guides to even reel in. So we float along and come to the first of the three thousand rock gardens in the Sol duc. And guess what my buddy (at the time) mistakenly picks the wrong path, imagine that. So we get stuck high and dry. Now we have to push the boat back up stream about 30 yds so we can slide it over to make the correct shoot. Yep, thats right standing in waist deep water in white tennis shoes pushing a driftboat in freezing arce cold weather. It gets worse!!!!

We get freed from the first catastrophe and continue our journey, all this had happened by about 8 am already. We come down to the next shoot and buddy drops anchor at the top of it and the anchor doesnt hold so we slid into some rocks and get stuck. Guess what the anchor is stuck now too and we cant get it up. So were just sitting in the ragging current fluttering like a kite in the wind. My buddy (at the time) decides hes gonna have to get out to free the anchor, the water was about 5 feet deep. On his way out of the boat, I have no idea how he managed to make it happen but he pops one of the oars out of the lock and it goes flying in the drink. Down river she starts to go, being quick whitted like I am I immediatly cast my drift set up straight down stream and manage to snag the oar by the wrapping. Only one problem the oar turns sideways in the current, ever tried to fight a oar in raging current? It was beating the hell out of my rod on the gunell of the boat till it finally snapped the line, and down the river the oar went!!! Not so bad right? Well guess what... no spare oar!!!!!!! No we have 8 miles of river to float with one oar.

Anyway the oar is gone and we are still stuck, my buddy is the water doing his best impression of a diving mallard in raging water trying to free the anchor. He amazingly enough frees it and just has enough time to pull him self up on the back of the boat, feet still swinging in the air, we take off down river with me standing in the middle of the boat rowing side to side like Jerimiah Johnson. We make it through another near death experience!!! All this time we arent even fishing just trying to survive.

We continue down river and low and behold what is bobbing around in a back eddy...our beloved other oar so we snatch it up and share a couple high fives (this is the highlight of the day by the way). We are so cold and wet and all our shorts are full of the finest fear you can imagine that we decide to just try and go down river without dieing and not even fish anymore.

We basically only have one more small incident at another split were we went the wrong way and it involved more wading and pushing. We finally get down to the takeout at about 2pm, cold pissed, but very happy to be alive.

That is still a very vivid memory in my mind and I replay it everytime I float that stretch of river now. I have floated this chunk of river probally 50 times ( in my own driftboat!) without incident since that date. I would have to say it is by far my worst fishing experience ever, and I dont think I could ever top it.

What do you think????

And yes we are still buddies, and I have to say from that day on he turned in a hell of an oarsmen. There isnt much that we cant float in our boats now!!!