Good Fishing Memories

When I was twenty-seven I got a job in Wenatchee. Shortly after moving there I meet a young man name Mark and he invited me to go fishing. Well, it didn't take long to find out that fishing is about all he did. Since I was single at the time we went fishing as often as we could.

Mark had a small twelve foot fiber glass boat with a hole in it. I told him if he sold me the boat for seventy-five dollars I would fix the hold and we could float the Icicle River in Leavenworth and fish for the salmon. He agreed and sold me the boat and I patched the hole. Mark told me he had floated the river many times so we loaded the boat and he and I and my father-in-law Mike went up to the river in Leavenworth. We put the boat in the water and got in the boat. Mike in the back, Mark in the middle to handle the oars and me in the front.

The river has a lot of  twist and turns and the first turn in the river is a big drifting hole for the bank fishermen and they take their fishing very seriously. Well, Mark is in control for navigation and Mike and I are setting back enjoying the scenery when I notice Mark is not staying close to the inside bank of the river and I told him we needed to move over to that side. Mark said no problem and he started trying to move over but the current was strong and he was not able to move over and we drifted sideways into a big rock and got stuck on it. To make things worse the rock was at the top of the last whole where the salmon held up for the drift fishermen.

Now picture this, we hung up on the rock and the bank fishermen, about fifteen or them madder then blazes threatening to sink the boat, I told Mark he had to pull us up off the rock. He tried several time unsuccessfully and the when I of the guys on the bank threatened him he just through the oars down and crossed his arms and told us all to just stuff it.

I finally talk him into moving to my spot and I moved to the oars. Now remember I have never rowed a boat before. After about three tries I got off the rock but the bad thing is I had to move over to the bank where the fishermen were to avoid passing over the salmon whole at the top end of that drift. They didn't have to many good things to say to us but we made it through them and down the river.

My father-in-law hadn't said much during the whole thing. Well, I found out later that he didn't know how to swim so I'm sure that was on his mind while we were hung up on the rock. All good memories.