mike hartup
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In July 2002 a buddy and I were fishing in Alaska. We took a day fly-out trip to fish for big Bows on the Illiamna Lake drainage basin. We landed on a small lake, where the pilot pointed in the general direction of the river we were going to fish, told us it was about a 20 minute hike, “stay on the trail, I’ll pick you up in five hours, and good luck.” We managed to find the river and started fishing bead egg patterns under the stacked King salmon.
I was fishing a deep chute just below a little branch that came into the river. I was standing on a little triangular gravel shoal at the mouth of the branch and could see up the branch about 30 yards before it curved to the left. My buddy was taking a break on the bank behind me and he could also see up the branch. A big fish had just broken me off, and I was head down absorbed with re-rigging, when I hear “Dude, heads up!”
I looked up in time to see a small (300-400lbs) sow brown bear charging down the branch toward me; teeth bared, ears back; water splashing and rooster tailing behind her. She was about twenty yards away.
I knew I was supposed to stand tall raise my arms and yell at her, but I dropped my rod a ran backwards tripping like an idiot for 15 feet until my buddy’s repeated coaching from the bank sank in. “Dude, DON”T RUN!”
I stopped and she pounced.
She jabbed her head into the shallow glacial stream and reemerged with her teeth sunk deep into the flesh of a silvery King. She was about 30 feet from me. She plopped her belly down into the cool water and began to feast.
I took a deep breath and slowly stepped backwards to the opposite bank, while my buddy just chuckled.
He had been watching her for several minutes before he warned me. She was chasing fish in the shallows up towards the bend. I was too busy tying on new tippet to see her, but he had realized that she knew we were there and wasn’t threatened by us. He was just enjoying the show and didn’t see a need to tell me until she started charging fish in my direction.
After he explained all of this to me I relaxed, but when I first looked up I thought she was for sure coming after me.
We watched her eat just a little bit of the fish (eggs and belly fat), then roll over on her back and drop into the chute that I had been fishing. She continued to drift down stream playing with drift wood and anything else she could get her paws and jaws on. It almost looked like she had a happy go lucky grin on her face. We watched her bobbing up and down doing somersaults and splashing the water as she disappeared around a bend.
It looks like the settlement will work out to about $125 per class member. Woowho! If I talk my wife out of her share, I might have $250 to go towards the purchase of a new fly rod.
Who am I kidding? She’ll talk me out of mine and end up with a new tennis racket.
In all seroiusness, I was pleased with the course and don’t feel like I was overcharged. I got three years worth of a legal education in just a few short weeks. What do y’all think about it?
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1170410590982
NPR and PBS are a whole world cultural experience. You get a little of everything, and from a point of view that is not found in commercially sponsored broadcasts. I actually disagree that it is biased. It’s my experience that commercially sponsored “news talk” always has an agenda to push. That’s why I find NPR so refreshing.
Also, I think, but can’t quote figures, that NPR is, by the lion’s share, listener supported and actually gets very little federal funding.
I absolutely love Fresh Air with Terry Gross. It’s an outstanding collage of contemporary arts and issues.
Mike
If you are looking for first class lodging, excellent food, and private water to fish, you may want to check out Blackberry Farm in Townsend. http://www.blackberryfarm.com/
