Gullible!
By Jim Stone, The Pickleville Philosopher
I have been yearning to get the fly rod out and go catch a
nice trout up on the river today. We drove
all the way up there and it still had ice on it so the fish are still safe for
a little longer.
When I see any river I always think of Alaska. When I was
guiding up there we would fly in an old restored nineteen forty to Grumman
goose float plane. The planes would drop
us off, then we would get all our gear ready to float a hundred and twenty five
miles to the ocean where the float planes would fly us back to the top of the
river so we could do it all again. It
was a new adventure every time.
One of my favorite things to do on the last day on the river
was to feed the big wild leopard rainbows. They were unreal fish. They were brilliant reds oranges and scarlet
in color with black spots.
We would eat fresh salmon three days a week while we were
floating down the river. The salmon were
full of eggs, several thousand per fish, I would save all the eggs from them,
then the last day on the river I would have all the clients put away their
fishing poles and get out their cameras. We would all kneel down on the river
bank I would lay flat on my belly and take a handful of salmon eggs and put my
hand under water and let small clumps of eggs escape my hand and float freely
down the river within about ten minutes there would be a whole line of leopard
rainbow trout that would just appear for a free meal. These big rainbows would
come right up and take eggs right from your hands and everyone could
participate and get pictures of these beautiful fish. it was a great memory for
all of the clients to remember Alaska by.
After we fed the fish it was time to send the clients home
with another memory from the guides in Alaska. The bugs are horrible in Alaska
they would literally drive you crazy. We were on a river named the Kenektok and
on the last night on the river everyone would get very sentimental not wanting their
trip to Alaska to end. We guides knew we
weren’t leaving yet, we were gonna get picked up by the float planes and flown
back to the top of the river to float it again.
Well we always had a box of wine for the last night on the
river, we would fill a thirty two ounce cup with wine than add a table spoon of
powder orange Tang. We would mix it up
with the wine; we named it the Kenektok cooler.
We made everyone a cooler. The clients chugged them down so I made them
another.
The bugs were driving one guy nuts so he asked, “Why do
these bugs always buzz around our heads?”
By this time the clients had almost finished their second Kenektok
cooler so I replied, “Well, they always fly around the highest point of your body.
What you guys need to do is go cut down some of those willow tree branches and
tape them standing up on and around your heads then the bugs will buzz above your
heads and not bother you.”
After two Kenektok coolers they sucked right into my plan. Well I just so happened to have a big roll of
duct tape. Imagine that how convenient at this point it was. All us guides could do to not crack a smile
or fall over in laughter. Soon they had
duct taped branches to their heads some of them had taped more like tree limbs
four feet tall over their heads.
“These Kenektok coolers are really good. Let’s have another!”
They shouted as they all danced around the bonfire. “Hey you guys,, this really
works! There are no bugs biting my face. This is awesome. How come you guys didn’t tell us about this earlier?”
We could only have a bonfire the last night on the river
after we were below the wildlife refuge. Of course it wasn’t the tree branches
that kept the bugs away it was the smoke from the bonfire.
The clients danced around the fire and just had a blast. We new eventually they would figure out our
prank and they did the next day. On our
last day on the river they tried again but it wasn’t working.
We explained the best we could and that was another great
memory for them to remember as well as their great trip to float one of Alaska’s
most wild rivers.
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