Posts: 81
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2005
Reputation:
0
My favorite stream is one that is not too far removed from the world. It is a stream called the Ham's Fork in Wyoming. It is not a large stream or in the most scenic area, though it is beautiful there.
I love this place because it is a trip me and my father share from time to time. As I watch him get older, I start to realize how mortal he is and that we won't always have this opportunity. The last time we were there, I sat about a hundred yards from him and prayed that God would give me another trip there with him. I hope this summer will see us reunited there.
Regardless though, it is a place filled with memories that I will carry for the rest of my life. Memories that I probably will never share with anyone as they are just for me and pops.
I love that place.
[signature]
Posts: 23,576
Threads: 0
Joined: Dec 2001
Reputation:
0
Norton creek would ring in around the top list of my favorites, no fish, no longer navigable, a cesspool for mesquites, man made drainage creek dug by the army corps of engineers a hundred years ago to dry up sections of the city of Wixom for development and stabilizing up the Chesapeake rail road.
I had many an adventure on this two-mile stretch between this creeks north and south over passes. One in particular sticks out above the rest.
Many years ago before the regeneration growth over took the creek this was once a beautiful strip to canoe coming up form the Huron River, suicide to attempt to navigate by foot due to unpredictable bog openings.
While running a trap line down the side of the shore line of this creek I got caught in one of the opening bogs, the day before I had stepped in the exact same place and on the day it opened I was sucked right down to my chest.
I thought for sure I was going to go down and would never be seen or heard from again. To disappear from the face of the earth with out a trace as it were. Fortunately for me at that time I was of younger body and sharper mind, realizing that I have only moments and firing off my shot gun would not alert any one because by now most people do not realize a three round burst in secession is a distress call, it would be pointless to attempt that avenue, besides of which if some one even realized that was a distress call I was half mile from the nearest possible assistance. There was no time for that plan; the Calvary would be by far too late.
My next thought was that my truck was parked along side of the road where many others do, and should they venture down the same path I do and the bog dose not close, they may suffer the same fate. I thought it would be best to toss my gun and trap pack on the trail on the upside so a passing avid hunter would see the truck on the road and gun laying cross ways blocking the trail in front of a possible bog hole would set off a warning of possible impending danger should one venture ahead. (An old Indian trick) This would at least allow for a possible retrieval of my carcass, tho' the thought of resting there for eternity was not all that unpleasant, I could think of worst places and ways to go.
Now up to near my armpits, my dads over sized 20-year-old rubber chest waders still keeping me dry, it would only be a minute or so before I would be completely submerged. I remembered the old stories of how wiggling and squirming only would only make one sink faster.
Not yet ready to call it quits I thought of how if only my feet would have been a little wider I would not have been sucked down so rapidly, then I thought I could have rolled across bog and would barely have sunk an inch across the whole trek. It was a thought, hardly a plan, yet it was an impossible solution to an unavoidable out come, I decided to relax and lay down, idiotic as it sounds being that I was more than 90% below the level of the ground.
My first attempt at lying down I found I gained an inch and my feet could now feel the tops of size 11 boot bottoms, I had managed to come up an inch, in side the waders. I quickly un-strapped the shoulder straps and continued the maneuver in three directions attempting to lay in each, I was coming up out of my waders, literally being reborn again in wilds of nature, knowing I must free my self of this cocoon or surly parish in my attempts. You already know the outcome because you are reading this true and un-stretched tail of surviving the wild. I did not come free of this with out a substantial amount of wonder how and why I was able to escape that would be grave.
I had managed to shed the waders and lay my way back to the surface, now wet and only my socks between me and the snow and water. I looked back at my waders that have now begun taking on water, I grabbed my pack and pulled out my machete then cutting down a ten foot willow sapling leaving one branch on the end six inches to be used as a gaff, I snagged my wader straps and pulled them up from the bog, I drained them slipped back in to them cold and wet, but still had protection from stepping on branches and who knows what on the way back to the truck.
Before leaving I could not leave the area knowing that the next would be passer by might end up not being as lucky and survive the fate I nearly subcommand to my self, I grabbed the branches and speared them in to the now watery hole where I had opened by my presence. I then closed off the opening of that trail with more willow branches to make it impassable with out some substantial amount of labor involved thus changing the rout of hunters and deer. The good lord only knows how many deer have sunk in to that hole in the last 10 thousand years.
I then decided I would finish my rout for the day not even considering that the cold and wet conditions could have caused hypothermia to set in, in fact just moving around in those over sized waders was quite labor-some, and in a few yards I would still be wet but I would once again be worm.
The coldest part was the drive home, I did not want to set my blackened feet in my boots with the stench of swamp, tho' in the view of some that might have been an improvement.
.
[signature]
Posts: 52
Threads: 0
Joined: Nov 2005
Reputation:
0
I have a regular spot that I go to. It's about 20 miles from my house. It's along the San Joaquin River, around a collapsed bridge in a small town called Friant, below the Friant Dam on Milerton Lake. This is no trophy water but is plenty of fun for stocked rainbows and the occasional, I do mean occasional, 2 or 3 #er. Up until a few weeks ago I never learned how to drive a car and had to hitch a ride with friends if I wanted to do some fishing. So I would ride my bike out there with about 25 #s of gear and waders in my panier bags once or twice a month. Lots of memories there.
But I would have to say my favorite place so far has been the Williamson river in OR. I was up there over the summer and we stopped there for a day. I was pulling Brookies out left and right. I only wish my FF skills were better at that time, I kept getting my line tangled and my tippet twisted. I even lost a fly from whipping the line too hard. It was beautiful regardless.
[signature]
Posts: 4,244
Threads: 12
Joined: Mar 2003
Reputation:
0
Lately it's been the lakes of VT. This spring I will be bringing Pops up to Lake St. Katherin. to fish with me and my buddy for five days. There are some faverite spots up there, but the picture is one of my faverites.
[signature]
Posts: 19,235
Threads: 2
Joined: Nov 2005
Reputation:
1
My favorite river is the Provo, but for small streams and lakes it is definitely the Uinta's. Thousands of lakes in Pine trees and quakeies.
[signature]
Posts: 529
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2004
Reputation:
0
I love the HENRY"S FORK!!!!!!!! I live ten minutes away from one of the best trout rivers in the world. I love it!
[signature]
Posts: 19,235
Threads: 2
Joined: Nov 2005
Reputation:
1
I guess I need to think outside the box. I was thinking close waters, but Henry's Fork YEAH! I also like the Madison. Those waters are fantastic and several of the rivers around Idaho Falls are fantastic!
[signature]
![[Image: gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=14505;]](http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gforum/gforum.cgi?do=post_attachment;postatt_id=14505;)
,