A few of the recent posts on funny fishing stories plus Bruce's saga jogged my memory. I thought I'd share with the Board my longest day and ask others to describe theirs as well.

This one goes back about four years. Buddy Slick and I are fishing in the Alaska wilderness to begin with, but after 5 days the crowds are building and we decide we need some solitude. We talk with the lodge owner and he comes up with a beaut: the first guys to float the upper river this year. Wow! Lewis and Clark, move over.

We are to drive to the end of the road, then hike 2:40-3:00 to the lake. He'll send a plane over and the crew will kick out a Zodiac plus ancillaries. We'll inflate the boat and float downstream. Bliss. (As you might imagine, we didn't need to set the alarm that night: it was being 6 years old on Christmas Eve all over again.)

Loaded down like Charlie Sheen in 'Platoon' we hike a breakneck speed. We then hit an alpine meadow and couldn't pick up the trail on the other side for 20 minutes. (We're city slickers, plus there was plenty of snow on the ground.) Eventually, we followed moose tracks to the lake. After all, the moose knows where he's going, right? Anyway, we're really running late for the plane as the pilot won't drop the boat w/o a visual on us. Completely out of breath, we just make it. The pilot finally spots us, drops down low and out come our parcels. Hallelujah!

Only problem, neither of us could figure out how to put the oars together for the longest time, and the pump for the boat was wheezy. But 40 agonising minutes later we were ready to go. Down the river we go till we hit a nice looking hole. It was unbelievable. Absolute steelhead suicide as the fish were stacked up till they looked like sockeye. Must of been 50 holding in 3-4 feet of water. We slaughtered them (metaphorically only: strictly C & R) on just about anything we threw at them. Finally, even this honey hole dried up. It was 2 p.m. and we'd travelled about a half mile in six hours. Uh oh.

Time to start paddling, boys! We did a little more fishing but basically we were in a Last of the Mohicans mode. I don't think I've ever paddled over more fish-holding holes without wetting a line. One of the places we did stop at was a minor honey hole. It was pissing down (as it usually is in Alaska when it's not snowing), and we dragged the boat up on the shore at an angle. After an hour there, we went to get back in the boat and noticed two things (a) our knapsacks had slid down to the stern and (b) the stern was full of water. I lost both a video and still camera. (Managed to save the video tape, but about 30 great photos went kaput.) [This is why I can't be bothered to try to save 5 cents on hooks. When you blow $1000+ on cameras in an afternoon, Gamakatsus don't seem so expensive after all.]

Downstream we go, and it's getting dark. About 6 p.m. we start meeting anglers who've walked up the river. If we'd have been on a steamboat on the Mississippi their eyes couldn't have been any bigger. 'How's the fishing?' they'd ask. We'd say 'Fan-taaassstick!' Then they'd smile and shake their heads.

About the third time this happened I said to Slick 'There must be some bad [Bleeeeep!] downstream or else those guys wouldn't keep pointing and giggling at us in the boat.' Move over, Albert Einstein. The last 3 miles was a workout that I've never seen the likes of. You all have been there and done that, so I won't bore you with the details of the portages, the branch bending and breaking and the near drownings. A couple of highlights though. One was deciding to submerge the Zodiac to get under a log. Bad idea. Worse idea: trying to haul the loaded boat about 5 feet out of the water over the top of a jam. Highlight: Slick up to his neck in water with bow rope in teeth trying to pull front of boat over some obstruction while I push and lift from the side and underneath.

How we made it to the takeout w/ gear and bones intact I don't know. It was the most tired I've ever been (up till then and since). The drive back was in a fog, but I do know that we got to lodge at 9:45 p.m., walked straight into the dining room with full gear on: waters, Gortex parkas, neoprene gloves, hats. We were so exhausted we ordered two spaghetti dinners each, plus a sixpack of Amber. I inhaled a beer before I even got my gloves off. The third beer was history before the bread hit the table.

Moral of Story: do not volunteer to be the first boat of the year down any part of any river w/o chainsaw and a lot more rivercraft than Slick and I have!

Snagly, I'm not responding directly to your thread, but I just wanted you to know that I fished the American yesterday (I know you have.), and I caught one at the "grist mill". I usually fly fish, but I now go back to spinning--sometimes. I think I get more action using a variety of methods. The water is up, but at the grist mill the water has some green. I've heard that's "fishy" water. Although I fell in once, I caught this one fat, round native(?), which I enjoyed catching and releasing. Jim W.

Well being the total screwup that I sometimes am, long days on the river that never seem to end seem to occur more often than not. Maybe that why they call me "Special"
I am only 18 so all of these have occured over a very short period of time.
When I was 13 I spent a summer up on Kodiak Is. One day I decided to fish this lake instead of the Buskin river as I normally did. My dad dropped me off and went off to work as I hiked down the lake. I was walking around the shore in my hipboots casting krocidiles and kastmasters out into the lake. Everything was going fine untill I walked a stretch of mud and preceded to sink to my ankles. I struggled to get out but that only made things as I was now up to my knees in my mud and totally stuck in the middle of bear country in heighth of the salmon season. There was nothing I could do to keep the stories of bear attacks I had heard all summer out of my head. I screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs hoping someone would hear me so I wouldnt be stuck in the mud for the next 4 hours. I waived the and screamed at passing planes but that was futile. The day seemed to drag on as clouds came in and it started to rain. I managed to pull myself out of my hipboots after a couple hours and crawl gently across the mud. I did manage to also get the hipboots untuck but I was caked with mud to the wait and so were the inside of my boots.

Another time up in Kodiak, I decided to pull out a trout rod to fish for humpies. After my dad dropped me off and went to work for the day I made the first cast with that reel in months. After about 15 feet my pixie stopped dead in the air. I looked down to find my spool totally empty. When I left that morning I did not know I only had about 5 yards of line on my reel. 8 hours manages to go by very very very slow when you have nothing to do along a river.

Lastyear I decided to drive up with my mom to work and then take her car to fish the Stilly because she works in Arlington. That way I could save some money on gas. First stop was Deer Creek and I preceded to fish it w/o a hit. So I decided to move on and give Fortson a try. I went to open her trunk and her keys were nowhere to be found. Before I closed the trunk after I put my waders back inside I set the keys in down in the trunk and closed the door, I could get into the car but not the trunk because her seats didnt go down. So I called her up and told her the situation and she 'calmy' told me that I had royally messed up. Her fiance was going to have to drive from work in Mountlake Terrace to deliver keys to me and then take me to my car.
Good 'ole Bob Arnold drove up and offered me his truck if I had keys waiting for me in Arlington but I didnt so I threw my gear in the car and locked the door and walked up to the bus stop and wait the 30 minutes or so for the bus that goes up and down the highway. On a sidenote, today I was wearing my battered old jeans that had holes in the knees and one huge hole in the crotch. I walked into my moms work like and she wasnt vary happy. I couldnt uncross my legs. Well I got there she realized that because she bought the car at the dealership in Arlington they would be able to make a key for her but her fiance still had to drive up from Mountlake Terrace to pick up, deilver the key and take me back to her car. If she had realized earlier there was a key waiting for me the day would have gone by alot faster but it just never ended.

Ive have also gotten a flat tire up on the Stilly. My jack and spare tire were rusted to the bottom of the trunk so my mom had to send up some Heman from work to help me. He literally had to climb into my trunk, give it his all and rip the tire from the trunk. Driving the 30 or so miles on the freeway that it is in a spare tire isnt very fun. I couldnt go over 35 mph and I was literally reading my history book and driving at the same time.

Thats only some of it but Ill shut up now cause if anybody really stuck with it and read all of the above ramblings I highly doubt theyed want to read more. But I have a story about a broken down car on Hwy 2 on a raining buckets Presidents day last year if anyone wants to hear that

Tight Lines
Ryab

Idono -- The American River is truly remarkable. Where else can you catch 15lb steelhead in the middle of a city with almost 2 million people? I take my hat off to the folks who decided way back in the 1960's to start an organization to clean up the river and its banks (esp. Goethe Park). That steelhead swim at all in the Sacramento-American and Feather Rivers is a tribute to these folks. Congrats on the nate.

Ryan -- I should have mentioned that there were two divisions for this topic -- 'Below 21' and 'Over 21'. Your post hasn't won the 'Below 21' contest (there's bound to be plenty of competition), but it will certainly beat anything in the 'Over 21' category by a long way. I didn't laugh as much as I said 'Oh, he's done THAT, too' as I recognized myself in your stories. Everyone on the Board must have lost their Mom's car keys at LEAST twice (or locked them in the trunk), just for starters. Before we get into the 'no line/ no lures/ no license/ stepped on rod/ tore hole in waders' parts.

Reminds of some wise man's observation that "That only thing Man learns from history is that Man doesn't learn anything from history." Oh, to be eighteen again . . . .