Fast Times in Prineville, Oregon
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Hey guys –
As you may know, I was in Oregon this week checking out the new Orvis casting course there. You can read about my impressions in the magazine, but suffice it to say I was *shocked* at (a) how nice and cool the course was and (b) how much fun I had. Basically this is fly fishing meets mini golf. As an instructional tool I am sure it will be great, but for just screwing around with a fly rod, it is unsurpassed.
Anyway, when we all arrived, four of us decided to try to get a little fishing in before the sun set. We didn’t all have licenses yet, so I just came along to take pictures. We stopped at a roadside pullout on the Crooked River, near Prineville, Oregon. I suspect it’s a Deschutes River tributary.
I left the group pulling on their waders and went in the restroom to take a leak. When I came back out, the car circle had turned into an armed camp. Two, um, gentlemen, holding shotguns, were talking to the various editors, but mostly to Joe Healy, who edits Fly Rod and Reel.
Meet Exhibit “A”.
“Whaat powr.”
So it seems our new friends, in addition to practicing exemplary gun safety, had a little problem. They had killed “a duck” and needed someone with waders to go across the river and get it for them. The dog was “back at the house,” and the “Little Cleo” they had been attempting to snag the duck with (on their spinning rod) was inadequate. Apparently this was quite a big duck.
The duck had come to rest in the dead center of this picture, upside down.
Joe, being a good guy and not someone to argue with a pair of gentlemen who had so many things going for them, like these guys, agreed to play retriever. I accompanied to document this endeavor for your enjoyment.
Having carefully traversed the river in an area that at times looked pretty dicey, Joe triumphantly held his bird aloft.
At that distance, I couldn’t tell what it was (this shot has been blown up), but I thought I saw red, so I asked them: “Do y’all have ruddy ducks out here?”
Redneck 1: Yeah, but I don’t know about this one.
Redneck 2: These here don’t eat too good.
Me: What do you do with them, just eat the breasts?
Redneck 1: Yeah, bout all you can do is make duck jerky.
Redneck 2: Yup. Duck jerky.
When the duck arrived, I noted that the feathers appeared to be completely undisturbed except around the head.
Me: Did y’all kill this one in the air?
Joe: Looks like it was a good head shot.
Redneck 2: Naw, that guy was still on the water.
Redneck 1: Yeah, he was all tangled up in them weeds when we shot him.
Joe: Well, good luck, guys. You going to keep hunting?
Redneck 1: Oh we’ll probably quit for today.
Me: It’s awesome that it’s legal to hunt on a trout stream like this.
Redneck 2: Oh yeah, Oregon is great. We hunt this spot all the time.
Redneck 1: Yeah, it’s legal as long as you got the pur-mitts and everything. We got those.
Zach
PS Here’s a popular recipe for eating Mergansers:
Merganser Stew
Ingredients:
1-3 Mergansers, plucked
Lemon Wedges
Serrano Peppers
Honey
Salt and Pepper to tasteDirections:
Fill an old work boot with water, then place in skillet over an open flame. Bring water to boil. Place merganser breasts and all seasonings in boot. Boil 45-55 minutes at 750 degrees. When finished, throw contents of boot on ground and eat boot.
Mmmm… Keystone
As to gun safety you are assuming that this gentleman had a full set of toes, the worry over had his shotgun gone off. I am not sure I could make that assumption.
Well I guess all’s well that ends without a Deliverance reenactment.
What a great tale Zach,
I’m not sure that it could have happened at all here in Oz……
The Green, no guns,duck loving, treehugging whale savers here have ensured that shooting ANYTHING here in OZ is all but Impossible………….
Oh except Kangaroos of course …and wombats ….
You can also shoot ‘ferals’ like wild pigs ,dogs and foxes and troutZach,
As you well know I see that kind of back ass words shiznit everyday down here. It tends to make a person feel real intelimagent fo sum reason!
I would drink Keystone here but It’s not as cheap as Busch lite! 😀Like they say down here- ” yu sho got a perty mouth”
The picture with the gun resting on his boot is priceless. That was one of the more entertaining posts in a while. Did you guys catch any thing on the stream? I would guess that multiple rounds of shot being fired into the river does not exactly improve the fishing.
I’m 1/2 surprised that when the duck was raised up over Joe’s head, that they didn’t take another shot at it!!!
Zach,
That travelogue and those pictures are a total hoot. Were you wearing Kevlar? Did you happen to find out where those guys went to college…would have been fun to talk mascots, fight songs and such.
I am a little jealous…I thought we only got that kind of action here in the Ozarks…
Kevin
I’ve spend a lot of time since Sarah Palin hit the airwaves here defending Americans from accusations that we’re all just a bunch of dumb azz rednecks and it’s not helping my argument when you post shots like that.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Just one more reason to love the West… No one around here would bat an eye at that sort of thing.
Hell, one day last autumn while on the river, I loaned a few hunters an old climbing rope so they could winch a bear across the river.
Of course, afterward we stood around the bear laying in the middle of the road and drank a beer or two. Down the road came a little rental Subaru whose passengers looked like the well-groomed types. They looked a bit astonished and horrified at the scene. Haha.
Git ‘er done!
In the first photo….I believe counsel refers to it as Exhibit A…..looks to be a handgun butt protruding from beneath his shirt on his right hip.
I was not sure where this was going when I started reading, especially after seeing the first picture.
Encounters like that are not as bad when you have a group of people with you but on your own they get pretty hair raising.
I ran a cross a few beer drinking locals on a back road on Molokai this summer while I was trying to find some bone fish to chase.
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