Martin’s Rapid Madness

I wasn’t going to write about this but since “Plus Thirty” (affectionately nicknamed because you have to add about thirty minutes to his estimated time of arrival) titillated his readers on Upstream in Oregon with the short version, I guess I have no choice but to give you the full story . . .  here’s what happened.

We put in Tuesday for an evening float from Silver Creek on the Mckenzie and drifted to Thompson’s Landing, aka, Helfrich and things were almost uneventful, which in river running is a good thing.  Matt had a hot hand, slamming planter after planter that impaled themselves alternately on his dry indicator, a stone of some sort, and his nymphs both Prince’s and Possie Buggers.   The fish seemed less inclined to eat my offerings on those occasions when I pulled over and anchored though I did catch a few.  Whatever.  Every dog has his day.

We made it through Bear Creek Rapids and Brown’s Hole without issue and headed towards Martin’s.  The initial plan had been to let Matt out so he could photograph me running the rapid for the Oregon Fly Fishing Blog but darkness was soon upon us, it was raining and it was too late for that mess.  Instead, I suggested that Matt fish the pockets approaching the rapid as they probably aren’t fished much as people are too worried about setting up.  First mistake.

In the final pocket behind the downed tree he picked up a nice native but I couldn’t hold and we were getting sucked into the top of the chute.  ( I told him I couldn’t hold us and to hoist the fish as we were drawn into the heavy water which he did.)  Just as we entered the chute the leader broke and the fish fell into the bottom of the boat setting Matt into a frantic, balance altering and ill-advised search for the fish leading me to yell, “F@#$ the fish.  F#$% the fish!”  Second mistake.

We were fast heading for the boulder on the river right side of the chute, which Matt felt the need to point out to me.  (Yes, that giant protruding rock we are about to smash into, I see it too.)  I can’t blame him, I’m sure I’d do the same thing.  I pulled hard in the frothing water to avoid that rock which we did barely.  But the need to pull back had given us momentum to river left where there is a gargantuan boulder about the size of a small house that we were unfortunately careening toward.  Third mistake.  I corrected as best I could trying to point 45 degrees away and pull back but it was too late and we hit, bow first, a glancing blow and spun a little sideways.  My only concern at that point was getting her straightened back out as hitting the standing wave at the bottom sideways would have swamped us.

We recovered and punched through the bottom of the rapid.  I ferried over to the side to anchor up and retrieve the fish and Matt got a couple of shots:

Holy double chins!  Apparently, the diet, while whittling away some poundage is going to have to continue for an indeterminate amount of time.

The damage to the driftboat was mercifully minimal, a nick on the handrail that I can refinish in about four minutes and no one will ever know.  I think next time Matt will probably opt to get out for the photo-shoot, and you know what?

I wouldn’t really blame him.