If Only There Were More Days Like These! Day 1 & 2

Remember to click on any picture you want to see more clearly.

On Sunday Jonathan and I packed the truck and headed out to La Pine where we joined a group of guys for a great couple of days of fishing and comaraderie. It was great fun but not everything went as smoothly as we would have liked.

Let me first show you some pics of the place where we were staying. It is not huge but was adequate for our needs and had a wonderful western cabin ambience.

The first thing we did, once every one had arrived, was to find something to eat. The tentative agenda had said we'd all go over to Gordy's Truck Stop for dinner. My brother-in-law, Terry, suggested we all go to Taco Bell. All of the under 18 crowd chimed in and voted unanimously with one voice that Taco Bell was their all time favorite eating place in La Pine. I donated my truck to Terry for their transportation since Terry had hitched a ride from Jacksonville to LaPine with his friend Terry Toner.

I chose to eat with the over 18 crowd at Gordy's. After dinner, we all agreed that the meal was great and headed back to the cabin. This is where our first difficulty showed up. Josh's truck refused to start. Somehow one of the battery posts had fallen off the battery. How often does that happen? No worries! They grabbed another rig and headed to Walmart and arrived 10 minutes from closing but were successful in acquiring a battery for the truck. Unfortunately, the truck still didn't start and they were forced to leave it over night where it was parked.

The next morning, they arced across the solenoid to get it started and at least got it to the cabin. Because we all were concerned about Josh's misfortune, we got a really late start on the days fishing float. To make matters worse, a number of members of the group didn't even have fishing licenses yet and needed to rectify that issue before we could get started. Then, in the confusion, we apparently didn't coordinate well where we were putting our tubes in the river so the guys who got an even later start, put in at different spots which wouldn't have been all that bad if it weren't for the fact that some of them were parked on opposite sides of the river. This may not seem such a bad thing until one realizes that in the natural course of a float trip ones floats away and often some distance away from their vehicle, in our case over 7 miles, and it needs to be arranged with another party to pick him up and ferry him back to his rig. These are the things from which memories are made. We had hoped for a second, perhaps shorter, evening float which never came to pass due to the difficulty and time it took to get everyone back to the cabin for dinner. Oh well, at least everyone had a good safe,time.

The two Terrys, their boys, Jonathan, and I put in at a place called Tenino boat launch. I GPSed the spot so I could get an idea how far we would travel that day. We got out at Wyeth Campground which turned out to be 7.13 miles.

Ok, let me tell you about the float. We had a great time! The weather was beautiful! My arms and neck got a little burned but that was a small price for the fun. The fishing on the other hand was not as productive as I expected based on prior trips to this beautiful spot. There were a lot of fish because I saw a number of very fine ones as I floated over the top of them. I think we just hit the river at the worst time of day due to the issues that have already been mentioned. Both of the Terrys each caught a brown and later we learned that Ron caught a nice eighteen incher. There were some other smaller fish caught as well by other members of the group. Even I caught a fish finally but as I landed it was disappointed to note that it was a whitefish or some kind of chub. It was a decent 11 or 12 inches and fought me with the heart of a trout so I let him go grateful that he'd sacrificed his dignity and allow me to not go completely skunked. Here are a few shots of the lauch, the float, and the landing.


I had to add this pic to remind how and where one lives when they have money. Pretty Sweet!

Here are some more shots of the float.




Oh boy! I'll bet Seth wished he'd known how his shoulders and back were going to feel the next day!
Joe looks like he's well protected from the sun. Here's how we looked after pulling the tubes and pontoon boats out at Wyeth.
Mostly tired and happy though a couple are wet and cold.

Oh my goodness! This is turning out to be a long blog and its only the first day. Tell you what. I'll post this so the followers of this blog can get started and I'll continue day two in a little bit!