ONWARD!

Basstravaganza 2010, Part III

Note: The first section of Basstravaganza2010 deals with my trip thru British Columbia. It is posted onto another blog site:

http://tesbr.blog.com/2010/06/27/basstravaganza2010/

This section covers my trip thru the US, beginning at the start of August.

Also, in response to questions from non-bass fishermen, who ask me what I do with all these fish I kill, be advised that all fish appearing in this blog are released unharmed. Except for one unfortunate sheephead.

Aug 2                                                                                               

After returning from my trip to BC I was initially hoping to take right off again on another, larger trip. But I had too much to do – including major repairs and upgrades on the boat & trailer, and moving out of my apartment. I spent, a horrid month of 100F temps in Ashland, and was finally all moved out of my apt on Aug 1, hoping to leave the next day. Spent all day Aug 2 arranging and stowing stuff in my storage unit and prepping to leave. This is an insane concept – quitting my job and moving into my car for a long range bass trip. There is no way I will ever be truly prepared for insanity, so why spend the effort? Better to leave now and let the chips fall as they may. I am just about to leave my storage unit in the evening when I have my first catastrophe. Since this journey will undoubtedly be a litany of catastrophes, I will refer to it as Cat 1.

I have purchased an account with Verizon, including a little chip called an “air card” that will link me up to internet and email all across N America. I have too much stuff in my car, and when I open the door my laptop computer falls out and lands right on the air card, smashing the USB connection. I must race up to the Verizon store in Medford to get there before they close at 8 PM. I say hurried goodbye to sister Barb, and head up to Medford. Turns out that I must purchase a new air card for $189. When we go to load in the new card Windows Vista decides it is time to install 61 upgrades, which takes about 45 minutes. Did I mention that I hate Windows Vista, and Bill Gates for creating it?

I get the new chip and head over Crater Lake Hwy to Hwy 97, cuz I want to fish Wickiup Reservoir at dawn the next morn. I went there one evening recently and caught 2 nice 20” brown trout. At 3 PM I am on the road to Wickiup when I hit a roadblock. Highway repairs. Turns out that the guy ahead of me was going to exactly the same place, but his van died at the roadblock. So I drive him up to Wickiup, drop him off at his friends campground, and launch my boat;

This is volcanoland, where recent lave flows have altered hydrology. Water may disappear at one spot and magically come gushing out of the ground miles away. At Sheep Bridge, my target, two big springs come gushing out of the earth about 100 feet apart. (should have taken my camera along!) Although both are much larger in terms of flow than Bear Creek in Ashland, they must be 2 of the shortest watersheds in the state - one is about 50 ft long and the other about 75 ft.

This morning I am skunked. Although there are many fish swirling in the upper Deschutes River channel flowing into Wickiup, probably kokanee waiting to spawn, I catch no browns. So I load up and head off. Not a good omen. Maybe I will make this huge trip and never catch a fish, or even get a bite?


Aug 3                                                                                                            

I have no cubicle to report to on Monday morning, so I am not in a hurry. I have decided to avoid the big freeways, miss out on all the Wal Marts and superstores, and travel along 2 lane roads wherever I can. I want to see the heart of America, where things are a little different, instead of seeing where everything is the same. I head back to Hwy 97, north up to La Pine, and then turn east on Hwy 31, where I have never been before. I say goodbye to the Cascades - represented here by the 3 Sisters - and to the ponderosa pine forest, and head east across the rolling sagebrush.

This is basin & range country, which John McFee loves to write about. Where the earth's crust was stretched and torn apart, and big blocks of the landscape sunk down along fault lines. The sunken areas later filled with runoff, and became huge lakes. As ice dams and lava dams collapsed over the ages, the lakes drained out in rapid, catastrphhic floods, scouring the landscape. In short, the powers that be have kicked the crap out of this landscape over and over again. I will head east on Hwy 31, and then turn off to Fort Rock, which sounds interesting.

Fort Rock is an ancient volcanic core that sticks up above today's sagebrush desert.

It is amazingly out of character with its surroundings, like an elephant in a ballet. There is an old scour line around the base of the rock, about 60 ft above the level of the desert (= the old lake bed). This was a giant lake that drained suddenly. There may have been bass in this lake years ago? And they may have died and become fossilized? I throw a buzzbait around the old lake shore. Maybe one of the fossil fish will explode out of the rocks and jump on it? After all, they have not eaten in millions of years, so they must be hungry. But, again, I get no bites.

There is an old cemetery at the base of Fort Rock. it is kind of a lonely place to be buried. But if you are dead does it really matter that much? I expect these people probably went thru a lot together, and they are probably glad to be buried together.

I head east again, into the empty wasteland of central Oregon, where there is little or no surface water. West of Fort Rock is Hole in the Ground. The people here did not put a lot of effort into names. Maybe if they had more imaginative names they would have more tourists today. I seem to be the only one. This is another old volcanic crater. I try to drive in, but had to turn back due to washboard gravel road. I need to get this boat across the continent in one piece, can't wreck the first day out! There are also some interesting dune areas and fossil beds around here. I did not stop to drive in.

Then I come to the Christmas Valley, where they mine groundwater to grow hay. Suddenly the earth is green again, and clouds of yellow sulfur butterflies cavort among the alfalfa fields. How long will this fossil water last, and what will happen when it runs out?

Here is an image from Google Earth. You can see the circular rim of Fort Rock to the W. The bright green circles are irrigated hay fields watered from wells that feed center pivot irrigation. The dark areas are lava flows of black basalt that occurred so recently that no vegetation has been able to grow on them yet.

East of Xmas Valley the lines of power poles stretch off into near infinity, feeding less and less customers until they run out entirely. And there is nothing left but desert, and the sweet, acid smell of sage. This is a great place to live, if you happen to be in the sagebrush family. Not so attractive to humans.

Now I experience another catastrophe. When I left Ashland I had to clean out my fridge. Put the non-perishables into my storage, and gave away most of the rest. But I took along a package of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, which I used to love as a kid. They had been hiding in the back of my freezer for a long time. I have no oven to bake them in. Don't want to throw them out, so I am eating the dough rolls raw, one by one, chased with iced strawberry/kiwi juice. This is working well until I notice a fatal flaw – Cat II. The roll of icing has expanded in the searing heat of the front seat. Like an explosion of magma from a cascade volcano, it has erupted into a lava flow of white icing, flowing along the face of my Oregon state map until it hits the escarpment of my laptop. The whole front of the computer is covered in hot white goo. I have no paper towels, so I must wipe the laptop clean as possible with clumps of sagebrush. Moral of the story: always carry paper towels, you never know what might happen!

My car has no air conditioner. I need to ingest cold fluid constantly to survive. I buy a big bag of ice cubes in Fort Rock and put it in my cooler, along with ½ gallon bottles of fruit juice. I have a giant styro cup left from the grape slushie I bought leaving Medford yesterday, and I keep filling it with cubes and fruit juice, sipping as I drive along thru the sage desert. The pioneers made this trip in wagons, probably without slurpies. I could not survive a day of that.

The 2 lane county hwy I am on tees into Hwy 395, which heads NE to Burns.

Most watersheds drain to the ocean, but eastern Oregon does not. The little water that falls around drains out into the desert, where it dries up or seeps into the ground long before it reaches the sea. At the bottom of this inland basin lies Malheur Lake, a huge national wildlife area south of Burns. At the narrows where the highway crosses, the lake is mostly a sea of grass, but in wet years it can expand much larger.
 

After crossing the narrows I will take Sodhouse Lane, a dirt road, east to New Princeton.

The wildlife reserve is a madhouse of birds, many of which I have never seen before. Some look like they have bent and silly cartoon bills.
 

I head east as the sun sets on my first day on the road.
 

At New Princeton I am back on pavement, Hwy 78 to Burns Junction, and then Hwy 85 towards the Owyhee River. The first sailing ships to visit the west coast of N America would winter in Hawaii, and they brought islanders back along with them to help explore the continent. Two islanders were sent up to explore this tributary to the Snake River. They were killed by natives, so their commander immortalized them with bad spelling. The Owyheen Islands?

I am out of the Great Basin now, and into the Snake Watershed. I miss seeing the Owyhee Canyon in the dark. East of the river I pull over and lay my foamy out on a plywood sheet in my boat. A refreshing and wonderful sleep on the high desert.
 
Aug 4                                                                                                                   

At dawn I stop for gas & coffee in Jordan Valley, a pleasant little community where they somehow find enough water to grow hay. This used to be mining county, and there is a neat little mining museum (closed) with a story in the window about Joseph Smith, a miner who was killed by the arrow shot by a native American. “He followed no creed. The world was his stage. His only motive was to do good.” Sounds like a great motto. I wouldn't mind using it myself, if it was not already taken.
Coming down out of Jordan Valley is a steep canyon leading down to the Snake River – the Great River of the West. Incomprehensibly huge lava flows from what is now central Idaho forced the river channel into a great arc to the south. Huge lakes dammed up behind lava flows and ice dams (during the Ice Age) would burst out periodically sending massive floods scouring down to the Columbia. Hundreds of thousands of emigrants migrated along the Oregon Trail which followed the Snake across Idaho. What used to be a ribbon of water flowing across a parched and desolate desert is now a series of giant reservoirs that divert the river's waters into pipes and canals back over the landscape. It is stunning to see the green agricultural panorama spreading out below, as if someone had taken the state of Iowa and moved it into the western desert. I am out of Oregon now. No turning back.

Prior to reaching the river I come to an intersection where signs tell motorists that all vehicles towing boats must stop for inspection. The guy at the inspection booth, who is all business and wears a US Marines T-shirt, is concerned about invasive species. It is people like me, who trailer boats from one watershed to another, that are the biggest threat. In a civilization that depends entirely on piped irrigation, like the Snake Valley across S Idaho, zebra or quagga mussels would mean basically the end of the world, he says. If they get introduced they will clog the pipes, and there is no solution but to dig up the pipes and replace them. I tell him I do not plan to fish or even launch my boat in Idaho, so he installs a coded wire between my bow and trailer – a kind of chastity belt for boats. If this wire is not intact when I exit the state I am in big trouble. He also tells me that zebra mussels have recently been found in the Rogue watershed – something I have never heard of. I think he is wrong, and I can find no mention of zebra mussels in the Rogue watershed with a google search. What if? Has the WISE Project considered the implications of zebra mussels?

Hwy 55 crosses the river before heading into Nampa. I stop and talk to locals. They say there is great SM bass fishing in the river, which is too cool for LMs in the main channel. I am tempted to try, but I remember my boats wire tag, and my promise to the marine. I head on across the river and up the bluff into Nampa.

I skirt the southern edge of the booming Boise/Caldwell/Nampa urbanopolis. Way more going on here than I ever imagined. The flat bottomland is laced with irrigation canals. This is Big Ag at its peak – a staggering achievement of technology and hard work, whether you agree with it or not. I avoid the madness and hustle of I-84, and head down the S bank of the river along 2 lane Hwy 78. The ragged cliffs along the N bank are capped with a layer of lava that poured out of the N, and forced the river S. Miles and miles of cropland spread along the valley floor, all nurtured by the dams on the river.

I have not had any major catastrophes for a couple days, but this morning I narrowly avoid utter disaster. I am traveling along the Oregon Trail, where hundreds of thousands of euro immigrants traveled thru a land that was not theirs. Not surprisingly, the original nhabitants were not always amused. Near this location in 1860, a wagon trail led by the Utter family was attacked by native Americans, resulting in the greatest loss of life in the history of the trail.

http://www.idahoocta.org/Utter_Summary.html

They should have driven in Volvos, which are safe.

I come across a neat museum of old farm equipment in the middle of nowhere. I would like to stop and look, but I am on a mission to catch every bass east of the Mississippi, so I must head back to the highway.

The juxtaposition between irrigated and non-irrigated is amazing. Corn in Idaho?
 

I see an abandoned mobile home. A real fixer-upper. I back in to take a pic, and I hear a crunching sound. I have backed the trailer right over a big roll of barbed wire! Amazing I did not get a flat. People who say I always have bad luck do not realize the disasters I escape from. Must be more careful. This would be a bad place to ruin a tire.

In this part of the world they have Sinclair gas stations, one of which used to be down the block from where I grew up. I thought they were extinct, like their brontosaurus logo.

But Sinclair stations are alive and well in Idaho, where prehistoric reptiles still roam the landscape, not to mention the halls of politics. I come around a bend and suddenly the hugest and ugliest reptile that ever lived comes charging out of the trees. It is the fearsome cheneysaurus, a vicious cold blooded killer responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of helpless people. It snaps at the Volvo just as I stomp on the gas pedal. Just missed – a narrow escape!

The hissing sauropod snarls its infamous warning “Go f**k yourself!” at me as I drive away.

You can clearly see the difference between the irrigated and non-irrigated lands in these pics.

The dark layer on top of the bluffs is lava. Giant lava flows poured down from N Idaho until they totally covered the landscape. This is what forced the Snake R to the S, where it now flows along the edge of the soldified ocean of ancient lava.

I come across an abandoned stockyard. How many cattle were sent to market from here?
 

(Note – from this point on the pics get real blurry, I think because of my own sweat that fell upon the lens. I did not download the pix for days later, and did not realize what was happening.)

I head east along the Snake, thru Glenns Ferry, and old river town.

A large brushfire has scarred the hills.

Near Bliss, the river is suddenly a river again. No dams, no reservoirs here. This is rafting country, and it sure looks like fun on a smoking hot day.

Onward to Thousand Springs, where huge gushers of underground water channeled by lava tubes burst out of the N bank desert into the Snake. This makes the springs on the upper Deschutes look like a trickle in comparison.

We are getting into some dryland farming here.

Then into more canals and more ag land, generated by the Milner Dam. This is where it all started in 1904 – the conversion of S Idaho from desert to industrial agriculture.
 

I see what appears to be a giant grain terminal, but it turns out to be a Coors brewery.

As evening falls I pass by an area that is not developed for ag. Maybe this is what the landscape looked like before the river was dammed for irrigation?
 

In this area I must take the freeway, cuz there is no other road. As darkness falls I pull into a rest stop. 100 feet from my luxurious botel are grooves worn in the earth by the wagons of the Oregon Trail. Around ½ million emigrants climbed this very hill in wagons, horses or on foot. It is so much faster and easier in a Volvo. It is a shame they did not think of that. Time for another refreshing, invigorating sleep in the botel, in the cool breezes of the high desert.

Aug 5                                                                                                                  

In the morning I reach gigantic American Falls Reservoir, which is so big it stretches over the horizon.

This site was one of the first hydro-electric projects in the US, begun in 1901. I go down to the new powerhouse, below which is the relic of the old one. A bit of history here.

The Snake is curving north here, around the rim of the giant lava flows that pushed its channel south. Further up the valley is Pocatello, where they carve mountains away to make fertilizer. When I first saw this scene in the morning sun I assumed it had to be a coal strip mine, but in fact they are digging up an entire mountain and grinding it into fertilizer at the massive Simplot plant. Then shipping it off in rail cars.

What would Lewis and that other guy think if they had seen this?

2 redtail hawks were watching me, an one kept calling and even flew a loop over my head

Pocatello is the site of the historic Fort Hall. When the wagons on the Oregon Trail made it over the Rockies they headed straight for the Snake River, where they faced desert heat and fierce resistance from natives. Beaten by the trail and often starving and desperate, Fort Hall on the Snake was a haven where they could rest, restock supplies and get critical blacksmithing done on their iron, especially wagon wheel rims. A replica of the original Fort Hall (the original was washed away by floods) has been rebuilt, and I went to visit it.

The Oregon Trail continued W from here down the Snake R. The California Trail branched off to the SW from Fort Hall into what is now Nevada. The Applegate Trail, which also lead to Oregon, followed the California Trail across Nevada before heading N again into Oregon.



The commanders quarters did not look too bad – better than my apartment in Ashland.

North of Pocatello is Idaho Falls, the end of the great arc of ag cities that stretches across S Idaho. The foothills of the Rockies are encroaching from the east, and the lava flows from the west. It is the end of the Snake River Plain that was once a desert but now feeds millions. Huge canals suck water out of the main river and deliver it to fields below. Above Idaho Falls there is only one more dam, and the river flows wild and free for about 50 miles. I decide that I want to follow it to its source high in the Rockies – the Great River of the West. The river actually splits in 2 here, the south fork flowing out of the Tetons retaining the name of Snake, and the north or Henrys Fork flowing out of Yellowstone. The south fork begins a great bend to the east, and as I pass over it it LOOKS like a trout stream again, and a good one.

I take a pic from a rail bridge, and down below I see numbers of lunker 20 inch + trout ranging in and out around the bridge footing. I am tempted to throw a spinner in, even tho I have no license. But it turns out there is a guy already fishing from the bank directly below me. He says they are rainbows, and they won't bite.

Continuing east, the great river that I have been following thru a plain covering thousands of square miles is finally confined to a tiny canyon. The Rockies are closing in. The river flows along the base of the mountains to the north. To the south are huge rolling hills farmed in wheat. In the distance is something I have not seen since I left La Pine and the Cascades – forests.

I have been living in the same shorts and shirt for days, sweating like a pig, no shower. I find a secluded spot and jump in the river for a swim. Heaven! And not too cold.

There is a small side channel below the road. Looks very fishy, so I go down to have a look. Sure enough, there are nice trout hanging under the lip of the cliff. I might want to come back here and fish some day!

Now the mountains open out, and the river winds thru the picturesque Swan Valley. There is some serious trout fishing going one here. Many drift boats, and even the sound of jet boats.

Well into the mountains now, we come to Palisades - the last dam on the upper Snake. Palisades Reservoir controls flow down the Snake the way Lost Creek does in the Rogue. I jump in for a swim.

Above the reservoir I cross over into Wyoming. No invasive species checkpoints here. The Bullship's chastity belt is intact, and I am proud. Not to say I wasn't tempted...

The river turns north and heads up to its source in Jackson Hole in the Grand Tetons, climbing rapidly now and picking up velocity. Swarms of rafters are floating down. The river has become a theme park for thrill seeking geek tourists.

Walking back to take a pic I see dead butterflies beside the hwy - roadkill. They include a Weidemeyers admiral, a butterfly I have never seen before. They only live in the Rockies. A very bold looking butterfly, that resembles the Lorquins admiral which is common in Oregon and BC. In the brush-footed family (Nymphalidae). Close cousin of the red-spotted purple, perhaps the most spectacularly colored butterfly in N America.

I had planned to follow the great Snake River up to its source, but I am turned off by the frantic rafting scene in the river. Plus, if I pay to get into the Grand Teton National Park I will feel obligated to use all of my 3-day pass, and explore Yellowstone too. I have never been to either park, but I don't know that I want to see them in August with goofy tourists swarming everywhere. And they will probably not let me sleep in the botel beside the road. They will make me pay extra to stop and sleep. So, just before I reach the park, I turn off to the right up Hwy 191 which follows the Hoback River over the crest of the Rockies.

I stop first and walk onto the bridge over the Snake, to capture one more image of the great river as it exits from Jackson Hole. It is time for another crisis, and this is it. Cat III. The long telephoto lens on my old faithful camera is pointing at an angle instead of straight ahead., and the camera will not work. I must have sat on the camera, or bashed it against something. A hopeless situation. I try to force the lens back into place, but it won't move. The camera is toast. I miss my last shot of the Snake.

Dejected, I start up the Hoback as the sun goes down. The river is named after John Hoback, one of 60 members of a party funded by John Jacob Astor in 1811, sent to examine the area explored by Lewis and Clyde a few years earlier. Upon reaching the Pacific Ocean they founded the town of Astoria.

The scenery is getting prettier, and I regret missing the pics. Finally I reach a brilliant red rock canyon, and I can't stand it any more. What have I got to lose? I grab the tele lens and reef hard, and it snaps back to where it is pointing before - straight ahead. Probably not recommended procedure. But the camera still grinds hopelessly when I try to turn it on. So I push on the lens and it pops back towards the camera. I figure it must be totally ruined now, but I turn it on and it works fine. When I get done catching all the fish east of the Mississppi I have a new career waiting for me – camera repair man! Now, if I can just hire a lens cleaner guy...

I am hoping to reach the summit before dark, but as I approach the continental divide I face a new problem. The little hwy is being torn up for repairs, and I must haul the Bullship over 20 miles of washboard gravel. Gak. But this is what I spent a month prepping for – building up the boat and trailer so I can tow over some rough stuff. Along the way I see the first bunch of pronghorn antelope.

I did not think they grazed at this high elevation. It is getting dark when I finally reach the summit. The old Volvo has pulled the Bullship to the crest of the Rockies. Instead of what I expected – towering rocky crags – the divide is a huge grassy meadow. The Astor party – seeking a new route over the mountains south of the one pioneered by Lewis and Chuck - camped here for 5 days in 1811, cuz there was water and big herds of bison and other game.

The crests of the towering Wind River Range rise to the north. On the east side of the Rockies there is no steep descent. Only a gentle grade down over grassland. This would have been an easy climb for horses and wagons. Or for Lewis and Mark. The Oregon Trail route over the Rockies is to the south. Oddly, there is no longer any road along the route they took. I am in the Green River watershed now, which flows down to the Colorado and to the Sea of Cortez – or more likely to water some golf course in S Cal or cotton fields in Ariz. The Green is about 50 feet wide where I cross it, but it is too dark to take pix.

I roll easily down the east slope of the mountains now, staying on Hwy 191 thru Pinedale. I cross the track of the Oregon Trail again. The emigrants would have been desperate for water here. Why didn't they wait another 150 years until there were convenience stores along the way, selling coffee and slurpies? Always in a rush. Not me, who is retired and in no hurry. At Farson I turn back NE on Hwy 26, staying as close to the trail as I can. I pull over in the dark and make my bed in the botel. Refreshed by a couple of swims, I let the cool breezes of the high plains drift me off into sleep. Hey – I can understand how the cowboys got so sentimental about all this.

Aug 6                                                                                                 

I awake to a glorious sunrise. The mountains, which I have conquered, are far behind me to the west.

Rolling grassland everywhere.

I come upon and marker for the “Parting of Ways”, where the trail split into different routes – one to Oregon and the other to the southern route to California.

Shortly after, I come to another sign marking the continental divide between the Green River (Colorado watershed) and the Sweetwater (Mississippi watershed). Once again I am back in the watershed where I was born. There is no visible crest or height of land here, just a sign marking the divide.

The emigrants had followed the Sweetwater across central Wyoming since it split off from the Platte River. Sweet water indeed! They would have been passing here in late June or early July, when the river was running cool and clear with snowmelt, and the prairies were lush with grass and flowers. They had no experience with what they were getting into. Once they left the Sweetwater they would have to cross many miles of parched grassland, long treks between infrequent waterholes, followed by a wicked descent down the west flank of the mountains to Fort Hall. Did they linger here before leaving this pretty little stream?

Nobody lives here nowadays. The E edge of the Wind River Range sprawls out onto the plain in great masses of jumbled rock.

I pass an abandoned molybdenum mine.

Notice the interesting stone work here. The Druids, after fleeing England to avoid religious persecution, sailed across the ocean in little boats made of sealskin and styrofoam, and rebuilt their culture here in the shadow of the Rockies many centuries ago.

I come upon the spectacular Red Rock Canyon, which heads back west towards the mountains.

While am taking pix of the canyon I see a parnassus butterfly – only found at high elevations.

And I see a type of fritillary which I have never seen in my life before. So I grab my butterfly net to try to catch it and to get a photo. But it politely alights on the gravel and lets me take its picture. Could it be a silver washed fritillary?

The hwy passes some cool looking rocks.

I head up to Lander to get gas. All of a sudden the emptiness of the prairies is replaced by cattle ranches and hay fields. This is a pretty big town. I even find a Radio Shack where I buy a mouse for my computer. I ask the guy at the gas station why so many people live around here, but nobody lives anywhere else. He says, “That's just the way it is in Wyoming.”

I head back down to Hwy 287, and follow it SE along the Sweetwater. It might almost be fun to ride along here in a covered wagon.

I come upon Ice Slough, where the emigrants could refresh with strawberry/kiwi slurpies, or something like that.

The Rockies fade into the plain, with only isolated ridge tops sticking up above the grassland. The Sweetwater flows along the base of the Rattlesnake range, which has a prominent notch in its crest. This is called Split Rock.

The Rockies are struggling to keep their heads above the grass now.

Antelope here.

The mountains throw up one final wall of rock in an attempt to corral the river, but the Sweetwater cuts thru it like a hot knife thru butter. (Geological butter that is, which takes hundreds of millions of years to cut.) The emigrants called this the Devil's Gate. The whole surrounding area is owned by the Mormon church now. They made the devil an offer he couldn't refuse. It is operated as a working cattle ranch and living museum. I wanted to climb the rocks and go for swim, which is exactly what the emigrants did, but I don't have time.

In most places the great wagon trains spread out in multiple paths across the plain, but in some spots the all followed the same track. This is one. The devil charged $2.50 per head to pass thru the gate, so everybody just went around to the south thru Rattlesnake Pass. This was a natural bottleneck, that forced all the wagons into a single path. Hundreds of thousands of Americans seeking a new and better life passed thru this spot during a 20 year period in the mid 1800s. Now it is only marked by the the grave of an emigrant child who died here. His parents waited at the Gate until he died.

East of Devil's Gate the mountains finally give up. There is nothing left to confine the river as if wanders over the rolling grass. Great formations of cumulus clouds march across the sky. The emigrants would never see anything like them again. In Oregon, they do not have weather in summer, they have climate. Every day is the same as the last and the next in Ashland. Sunny and hot, calm in the morning and light N wind in afternoon and evening. Not so in the east, where the weather can change any moment, and the gentle cumulus can morph into towering cumulonimbus at any moment, spawning lightning, torrential rain and tornadoes.

The highway criss crosses the river and trail. One place I want to see is Independence Rock, a big landmark for the emigrants, the first place along their route where the rock of the Rockies burst forth out of the earth. Independence Rock was visible from many miles to the east, Devil's Gate was visible from Independence Rock, Split Rock was visible from Devil's Gate, and the high plains of the pass into Green River were visible from Split Rock. I want to stop at Independence Rock, but I see a cool looking rock before I get there, so I stop to take a pic from the hwy. Later on I realize that this WAS Independence Rock. I wish I had parked and explored it on foot.

East of here the Sweetwater merges into its parent stream, the North Platte River. The junction, along with the section of the trail that ran beside it, is now buried under Pathfinder Reservoir, constructed during the Great Depression when so many US rivers were dammed to help save capitalism from self destruction. This is the end of the Sweetwater as a free flowing river.

Immediately downstream of Pathfinder is Alcova dam and reservoir, built at the same time.

From here on down, the N Platte is a series of big dams and lakes, with free flowing stretches in between. In earlier days, the Platte was a braided stream that wandered through the deposits of its own bedload. Emigrants described it as “600 feet wide and 6 inches deep”, and so muddy that you could stand a spoon up in it. Now the river runs cold and clear and deep from the tailraces of the big dams. The flow is constant and steady, released from the dams to feed irrigation works. Remarkably, it has become a world renowned trout fishing river, where no trout ever existed before. I am tempted to launch the Bullship, but I do not.

The river and the Oregon Trail will be much disturbed and modified from here on down. Plus, I am heading NE towards Wisconsin, not SE towards Oklahoma. So I bid adieu to the Oregon trail at Casper, Wy, and head north thru the oddly named suburb of Bar Nunn, up 2 lane state hwys towards Gillette.

Once you get away from the oilfields nobody lives here either.

At a rest stop there is a Saturn V rocket booster, or is this a big cannon?

The sun is setting.

At Gillette I hop onto the freeway, and sleep in the botel. Another relaxing rest, even tho I could not find a place to swim.

Aug 7                                                                                                                

I awake invigorated. Almost out of Wyoming now. I follow the freeway east, seeking gas and coffee. I find both in Spearfish, South Dakota, gateway to the Black Hills. I have often wanted to visit the Black Hills – sacred heart of the Sioux Nation. They are carving a mountain into a statue of my hero, Crazy Horse. There is also supposed to be another mountain with the heads of 4 white guys carved into it. Politicians of some kind. I decide to go check it out.

It is odd to pull into a gas station with 8 pumps, and find every one occupied by a Harley Davidson.

What is going on here? It is the 70th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. I learn later that they are expecting approximately 800,000 people to attend, which is roughly equal to the entire population of the state of SD.

I see signs pointing to a historic fish hatchery. The town is called Spearfish because the natives used to spear fish for food. What kind of fish? Not trout. The streams of the Black Hills are cold and clear – ideal trout habitat. But historically they never had any trout in them, because the streams drain out of the hills into dry sagebrush plains and disappear. There was never any way for trout to get up into the streams from anywhere else. All that changed when they made the hills into a national park. The park service decided that they had some nice streams in the park so they wanted to add trout, and they built one of the first trout hatcheries in the nation – the D.C. Booth hatchery constructed in 1896. Although nowadays commercial and ag development upstream from the hatchery have polluted the water to the point that fish will no longer spawn in it, the hatchery still rears fish hatched in other places.

There are lots of trout hanging around in the hatchery ponds.

You can buy bags of pellets to feed them for $1.50. The big trout push the ducks out of the way to grab pellets, and the ducks peck at the trout. Everybody wants that free lunch.

They have a historic rail car used to transport fish for stocking across the country. I was probably a car like this that brought SM bass across Canada into British Columbia in 1902.

In the parking lot my car is surrounded by Harleys.

In the city park there are more Harleys.

The road to the Black Hills goes up Spearfish Creek Canyon, which is rumbling with Harleys.

I am dripping with sweat, so I stop and wash my hair in the creek. While I am drying off by the car I see and interesting veined white butterfly, which lands on the side of the road. I want to take a picture, but before I can focus roaring packs of Harleys come swarming around the corner from both directions. Part of me hopes the butterfly will sit still long enough for me to get a shot off, and another part hopes it will fly away before the packs of bikes come roaring thru. The butterfly bolts with the passing shadow of the first bike. I try to send a telepathic message: “Fly away from the road!” But it does not listen. Flies right out into the traffic, narrowly misses getting whapped by the uphill traffic and flies right into the downhill lane. It gets hit by the face of a driver, flutters helplessly to the side for a moment, and then gets hit by the headlite of the next bike. It fall to the pavement, dead.

Further up the canyon, more Harleys.

The Black Hills are a scam. First off, they are not black, they are green. Second, they are not hills, they are mountains. The Sioux Nation received title to this land as a reservation, their sacred heartland. Then a lieutenant named George Custer and his troops found gold in a stream here. He returned with an army and chased the indians out. A mad gold rush ensued, totally in violation of any laws. Wild Bill Hickok was murdered here. The native people are an ancient memory now, and over $800 million in gold has been extracted, and they are still digging. But the millions in gold are pocket change compared to the millions now being extracted from the pockets of tourist who come up to pay for fake history and cheesy knick knacks. The Black Hills have become a ginormous tourist trap – Tofino BC on steroids. Are those really mountains, or just scaffolding painted green to fool the tourists? Like the trout in the streams, everything is planted to generate interest from tourists who will spend money. And spend they do. There ain't much else to do in SD, so they all come here where the roads are curvy, and – Hey what are those green things...TREES!

Imagine small bits of Las Vegas scattered around a small cluster of mountains, where any tacky sleazy excuse to separate tourists from their money is valid. And this weekend, swarmed by uncountable hordes of bikers.

At the top of the mountain is the town of Lead, where they still mine from the big pit.

But you are not supposed to look into the pit without paying the tourist trapper. (I stuck my camera around the fence and stole a pic anyway.)

Individually the bikers are pretty cool, but there are just too many of them. At first it seemed like a lark, but now it is getting on my nerves. Nowhere to park, nowhere to stop, cycle daddies and their mamas everywhere. But I must persevere, cuz I want to visit my friend Mr Horse.

For some strange reason, I seem to be the only Oregonian towing a bass boat thru this circus. I am a frazzled nervous wreck by the time I reach the turnoff to the mountain where they are carving the monument to one C. Horse. Nobody wears helmets, except for the roman centurion motif that seems to be a fad this year. With one swerve of my Volvo I could take out 30 of these bikers. Must stay focused and stay in my lane. Already there were 3 bikers killed yesterday during the first day of the rally. (Oddly enough, all mamas who died while their daddy'os survived.) In the town of Custer I get lost, disoriented, almost turn back.

I cannot bail out now. Must persevere, and visit my hero C Horse. Then I have a horrible premonition. What if they charge money to see Mr Horse? Then suddenly there is a stoplite, with and arrow pointing to Crazy Horse Monument. I turn left and I am suddenly into a lineup leading to a 4 lane toll booth, nowhere to turn around. I have made a vow that I will not pay money to see my hero. I explain this to the guys in the booth, who appear to be native Americans, and they politely let me drive, turn around, and leave. There is one spot along the highway where you can see the mountain. I pull over, even tho I am not supposed to, run across the road, and snap off a couple shots. Not only have they stolen the sacred heartland from the Sioux, stripped the gold from it and loaded it off to their white mans banks, they have also taken my hero Crazy Horse and turned him into a Disneyland theme park.

There are butterflies here I cannot identify, maybe some kind of ringlet? They are so intent on sipping nectar that they will let you push them around with your fingers without flying away.

I am sickened by the tackiness and heartless greed that surrounds me. This place is a national monument to Bad Taste. This kind of crap is what the basstravaganza is trying to avoid. This is why I am taking 2 lane hwys. All I want to do is get out of the Black Hills. The quickest way out seems to be Hwy 16 to Rapid City, which also passes by Mt Rushmore. Why should I rush more? I am retired, and I want to rush less! There are some interesting rock formations.

And a little lake where I go swimming. What a relief. On the other shore is a cliff where tourist kids are goading each other to jump off into the lake. The kids are chickenshit, and I have to wait forever until one finally gets the nerve to jump.

From the hwy you can see the faces of 4 stern looking white men for about 2 seconds as you drive by Mt Rushmore. Nowhere to park of pull over. Unless you pay. I do not pay. Much better to see this in a National Geographic special on TV. Past the tolls booths I find a place to pull over and look back, so I snap off a pic.

Immediately past the mountain is a blitzkreig of cheesy tourist crap.

Then a quick descent into Rapid City, SD.

Finally I get to Rapid City and I am done with the madness. I see a sign for a Cabelas store, so I stop by. Not all that impressive. I buy a new fishing reel and some pepperoni. They clerk asks if I have been to the Black Hills, and I tell him if I never go to the Black Hills again it will be too soon.

I want out of SD ASAP! I burn off down the freeway at 65 mph, although I am the slowest car on the road. Past the town of Wall, where they have Sinclair gas and a monument to their logosaurus.

Past the badlands, which look interesting. No tourist resorts here I bet! But I am in no mood to stop.

I pull off the freeway for gas at Kodaka.

Although in general I am opposed to nuclear war, I keep barreling on thru the nite, thinking that a large thermonuclear device might reduce the entire Black Hills and their miasma of tourist schlock to level ground. Or trigger huge basin & range faults that might subduct and swallow the entire NW part of the state of SD, and melt it back into magma – a great benefit to humanity!

I pass over the Missouri River in the dark. Nothing to see here, I have been here before. East of the Mo R the air changes. It is becoming moist, full of earthy smells, manure, hay, plowed earth. I have escaped the dry rangeland and made it into the agricultural heartland of America. Later I have to stop again for gas. The place is swarming with bugs. Zillions of little beetles buzzing around the lights.

Some bigger bugs, which I think are maybe katydids. The pavement is swarming with little crickets. Not a lot to do on Saturday nite in SD, so they all go down to the bright lights at the gas station and hang out.

All the time I am filling up a huge beetle rolls around frantically on its back on top of the pump. It can't turn over.

This was a design flaw in Version 1.2 of this beetle. A bug if you will. Now fixed if you upgrade to V 2.0. I help the beetle get back on its feet. While I stop to take a few pix I make the big mistake of leaving the car door open. When I get back in there are crickets hopping around everywhere, and little beetles keep crawling up my leg. For the next hour I squash the little bugs and throw the bigger ones out the window. Late at nite when I finally pull into a rest stop to sleep I hear a faint buzzing. Another uninvited guest from the gas station. First ones I have seen do far. It is the first appearance of the State Bird of Wisconsin.

I lay the front seat back and open the driver door, cuz it is too hot to sleep with the door closed.

Aug 8                                                                                                       

I wake up late with a hot sun burning. On the rest stop lawn alfalfa butterflies are everywhere. These are the common butterflies of my youth. Seldom seen out west. Don't know why. Now I know I am getting close to home.

I have escaped SD now, into Minnesota. Even if I missed the hwy sign I would know, cuz on the AM radio the request song is “If Yeeesus Vas a Norveeeegian”. (If you vant to say “amen” he vouldn't letcha. You'd had to say “Ya sure, youbetcha!”) The air is saturated with moisture. No combination of this amount of heat and humidity has ever occurred in Oregon.

I pull off the freeway looking for a 2 lane heading east. Yes, this smells like home, looks like home. Turn any direction and there is corn as far as the eye can see.

It is Sunday morning in Anytown, midwestern USA. The streets are empty.

I can't find a good hwy going my way, so I get back of the freeway. When I stop for gas there are dead alfalfa butterflies lying on the pavement, fallen off the cars that killed them. There will be many thousands killed today. Oh, the horror!

The humidity is intense, and I am sweating buckets. I see a little lake in a small town and jump in. The water is surisingly muddy, and a guy in the local park says, “Well, it won't kill you, I guess.” They have water quality issues from ag and leaking sewage. But anything is better than sweating in the car.

I have decided to head to Trempeleau, Wisconsin, which is directly across from Winona, Minn. Used to fish there with my dad as a kid. And since this trip is about revisiting my past lifetimes this is a good place to start.

Heading in to Winona I stop to take a scenery pic, and I see a red admiral butterfly. The house I grew up in faced exactly N-S, so in the late evening in summer the sun would shine of the north wall just before setting. Then, and only then, the red admirals would perch on our house.

Winona is a historic old river town. The sign says 27,000 population ( a bit larger than Ashland, OR), but it must have once been a much bigger city. I stop at a cemetery that looks out to the bluffs along the big river.

The downtown business section is 5 times the size of Ashland's.

There was once huge competition here to see which church could built the tallest steeple.

I am driving around, looking around in the industrial district. I see a locomotive with a Canadian Pacific logo that has a combined Canadian/US flag. I have not been listening to the news – have the 2 countries merged since I left Oregon? I try to wave my Canadian flag, but the train is already gone by.

I see boat trailers, parked near an earthen wall.

I know that on the other side of that levee must be the mighty Mississippi, the mainstem of the watershed of my birth. If the Black Hills were Crazy Horse's heartland, this is mine. I park, walk up to the top, and the river is there.

I head over the river into Wisconsin. Now I am in my hometland, where I have fished before. I go straight to the river and jump in. I got a 15 year old girl in a bikini to take my picture.

I leave the river hot and sweaty, but wonderfully refreshed. Drive up to Fountain City to buy a fishing license. My dad and my Uncle Lou used to take me fishing around Trempeleau, so I will head over there to begin the business end of this expedition. Time to torment the wily bass. We used to come in from the south (Chicago), but today I come in from the north. Thru the Trempeleau National Wildlife Refuge. The river has carved steep bluffs and sharp pointy hills out of the native bedrock. In the western US the bedrock is mostly volcanic. In Wisconsin the bedrock is sandstone. I drive thru Perrot State Park. The big tribs to the river from the Wisconsin side carry enormous amounts of sand, and where they join the Mississippi they dump this bedload. backing up the river and creating a maze of islands, channels and sloughs. There iss a conical sandstone rock outcrop 388 ft high that Perrot referred to as a mountain. (In Wis a rock 388' tall is a mountain, but in SD a rock 7,000' high is a Black Hill. Go figure.) It was totally surrrounded by water, so Perrot called it Trempeleau - the mountain the tramples its feet in the water.

The main river channel is dredged to maintain a 9 foot minimum depth, which is enough for tugs to push big strings of barges up and down the river. There are locks at every dam to allow barge passage.

But there are countless sloughs and backwaters between the dams. A wilderness in the heart of middle America.

On the way to Trempeleau I stop at Perrot State Park. I learn that, like the Black Hills, this was also Sioux territory before the arrival of US troops. So it was also a part of Crazy Horse's ancestral territory. In fact, it turns out that Mr C. Horse was also quite a bass fisherman. Won the Upper Mississippi Invitational in 1862 (throwing a buzzbait and purple gitzit), and was runner up as bass fisherman of the year in 1863. This was before he left the area and headed west to fight arch-rival Mr G. Custer and his 7th Cavalry. He even invented his own lure, Crazy Horse's Crawler, which was pirated and marketed by a large eastern lure company as the Heddon Crazy Crawler.

It is incredibly hot and muggy. But I cannot stand in one place for more than a few minutes, or the state birds will find me. We used to fish at nite off the end of the wingwall on the locks, and there are still people fishing there tonite. Nothing has changed in over 40 years since I have been here last.

I have to put my windbreaker on to keep the mosquitos from eating my arms off, but as soon as I do that I am dripping sweat everywhere. It is dark now, but here the temperature only drops 1/10 of a degree for each hour after dark. There is so much water vapor in the air that it cannot cool down.

I can't sleep in the botel, cuz I will get eaten alive by mosquitos. Can't sleep in the car, or even close the windows, cuz it is like a sauna. I have 2 super size super hi test beers that I brought with me all the way from Oregon. A tug with barges is coming up thru the locks, so I drink beer while taking photos.

The big river now is totally dammed, all the way from Minneapolis down thru Illinois. Each dam has a lock to allow passage for massive strings of barges which are pushed up and down the river by towboats. (This is what they are called, even tho they push their cargo along instead of pulling it. Go figure.)

It is dark now, but horridly, stiflingly hot. Not a breath of wind. I am in a dangerous situation. No air conditioning. Cannot close the car windows, cuz I will die of heat. Cannot leave them open or I will die from mosquitos. Must get out and walk around. Cannot stop walking. Cannot wear T shirt, or my arms will be chewed off by bugs. Must put on my windbreaker. But when I do rivers of sweat pour off me. There is a towboat & barges approaching from the S. I have nothing better to do, cannot sleep, so I watch and take pics.

The barge string is too big for the locks, so they must split it in half, and send one half thru at a time. When the 2nd string comes thru the captain comes out on deck and tries to chat with me. Lightning is flashing on the Minn side. He tells me there is a storm approaching, and I will need an umbrella. Even tho he is only 100 ft away we have to shout to be heard over the hum of 6,000 idling diesel horsepower. I try to tell him how much I respect the people who do this job. Surely one of the most challenging occupations on the planet.

He has to split the barge string, which is too long to fit thru the locks in one piece. This is one of the most highly skilled jobs I can imagine. I have towed log log booms off the west coast of Vancouver Island, which is a hard job. But pushing these giant strings of barges around a river only 9 ft deep, thru huge currents, eddies, sandbars, and snags, past other barge strings in narrow channels, in bad weather, at nite... It is mind boggling to me. The slightest mistake could result in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars damage. Absolutely NO margin for error. Like a baseball pitcher who must throw a no-hitter every game.

I ask the crew what they are hauling, and they say they are not allowed to tell me. I ask who tells them they can't tell me, and they say “The government”. I do not trust the government. If Dept of Homeland Security is involved these could be barge loads of toxic waste or drugs, for all I know.

There are a few drops of rain. The US flags begin to ruffle. The air cools by 1/10 of a degree. The mosquitos are gone! What a relief. I can stop walking, sit down, stop swatting. I lay my little foamy out on the steel observation bench and lay out in the rain, in shorts and T shirt. I am not sweating! Begins with just a sprinkle. After ½ hour it has still not gotten the pavement totally wet. I lay on the bench for an hour in the rain. What a relief. After an hour I finally must go back to the car or I will get totally soaked. I sleep in the car with the windows open. But there are mosquitos that find me before dawn.

I am bitten, itchy, frazzled from the big journey. Need a shower. The sun is not up yet, but I am pouring sweat. I rent a room in the historic Trempeleau Hotel ($40/nite, $49 with electricity)

The building is air conditioned, and there is a separate small air conditioner in my room. But it is still sweaty hot. I move the little desk over into the fan of the air conditioner. Take a shower and begin blogging. My legs and feet itch from bug bites. Should not scratch, but do.

 

Aug 9                                                                                                    

the convenince store in Trempeleau has gone broke. Another victim of the "current economic situation". I drive 4 miles to Centerville to get a coffee. I complain about the mosquitos. The lady at the gas station repeats the Wisconsin Official State Motto. “Ya... they are really bad this year...all the rain...” This is the same thing they told me when I was 10 years old. They teach kids in Wis to repeat this by age 3. It is on the State Seal of Wisconsin.

I launch at dawn.

I have never been out on this river. It is pitch fog, and stifling hot. Swarms of bug around the launch. On the water it is a few degrees cooler, and there are no mosquitos. I lay back in the boat and drift down with the current. What a relief! Don't care about fishing, as long as there are no bugs. But I must locate the wily bass. There are big islands, little islands, channels running into the main channel. Must download Google Earth onto my laptop, so I can find my way around here.

I am looking for LMs, so I want to find backwaters with little or no current.

I keep heading up little channels in the fog, and grounding out on sandbars. I can hear the sand getting sucked up into my OB motor. Not good. Everything is flowing. Cannot find any slack water. I try buzzbait, frog and Yum worm. No bites. Finally I find a bigger channel leading into a maze of islands and sloughs. Very bassy looking spot. I get one bite on a worm, and catch a 12” LM. Micropterus salmoides. How any scientist could have thought that the LM was like a salmon eludes me. They both have fins I guess. Why not Micropterus bigmoutheus?

Victory! I have journeyed across the US and caught my first bass out of the mighty Mississippi.

I head back to the hotel, take a shower, sit by the air conditioner, drink ice and fruit juice and work on my blog.

Aug 10                                                                                                     

It is thick overcast. Great morn for fishing. I get to the boat laumch at 5:30 AM, but I am already late. And already dripping sweat. My feet & legs itch terribly. There are blisters of pus on my legs. What is this? I decide to skip fishing and work on the blog.

I have worn the same shorts and T shirt all across the country, during the dog days of August. Never took a shower or washed my clothes. Just jumped into the nearest lake or river whenever I needed to cool off or wash off. I decide it is time to try some new clothes, so I send my old ones to the garbage. Farewell, you have served me well.

Aug 11                                                                                                                 

I head out at dawn. Thick fog again. I have looked at Google Earth.

The Black River, where I used to fish as a kid, joins the Mississippi just downstream from here. There are channels from here that lead right up into the Black River, if you could ever find your way thru them.

I head up into a weedy backwater.

I believe the Modoc tribe in S Oregon called the water lilly "wocus". The bulbs were a staple food supply, harvested by the ton from Klamath and Tule Lakes. Here in the land of corn and soybeans nobody eats wocus. There are enormous swaths of it here - the biggest I have ever seen. Some of the flowers are a foot wide.

It is all mixed in with slop and floating duckweed. A bass paradise, but and hopeless challenge for a fisherman. Where to start?

Fish are swirling everywhere. The bite is on. I get one hit on a frog, and one weak hit on a rapala. Miss both.

The bite ends as the fog burns off, and I go back to the hotel. Rent one more nite there. Cannot live here forever, but it is too hot, and too many bugs, to stay in the Volvo Hotel. I shower and look at my legs. This is carnage.

Open sores on my legs, and pus blisters on my legs and hands. This is not from mosquitos. This is Cat IV. This is the result of an encounter with the Official State Flower of Wisconsin.

Aug 12                                                                                                                

I check out of the T Hotel. My verizon chip does not work in Trempeleau, and the radio/CD player in my car has gone into Protect Mode. I drive over to Winona and find a Verizon store. They are great. My chip works fine. There is just a black hole in the coverage around Trempeleau. And they show me how to find the reset button on my radio/stereo. All for free!

The Red Cross has issued health warnings. The heat index (temp + humidity) is 110. They have opened emergency shelters for people without air conditioning. That means me. My solution: go the the park on the Wisconsin side, where I spend the afternoon sorting out and organizing my stuff, and jumping in the river every 10-15 minutes to cool off in the soothing 84 F water. Cannot stay out of the water longer, or the no-seeums and flies start chewing on the raw flesh of my poison ivy sores. Should stay out of the water and let the wounds dry, but cannot cuz the bugs will eat me alive, and I will die from heat stroke.

I bought a tent for $29 this spring. I set it up for the first time in the park. Way cool. I like this. I will camp out on one of the sandbar islands in the river tonite. I head back to Trempeleau and launch. You can launch for free, and camp for free on the islands. And ice is only $1.50 per bag. A far cry from the 47 per bag in the Black Hills! I find a beautiful sandy campsite on a big island about 2 miles downriver.

A tug is pushing a tow downriver.

Another string of barges is pushing upstream. How these pilots can steer a thousand semi truckoads of metal and cargo up and down a 9 foot deep channel in flood without hitting each other continues to amaze me. Again, I feel that this must be one of the most challenging jobs in the world.

I walked all around here the day before, and there was only 1 mosquito. It is hot, but I can jump in the river any time. I set up the tent and make a campfire. I bought 3 ears of corn from a roadside stand in Winona, so I throw them on the coals. They are tiny corns, but idescribably delicious. Taste so good I cannot wait for them to cool down, so I get a blister on my upper lip. The sun sets, and I hear a rustling. It is another creature we do not have in Oregon, coming around to check out my camp. The Official State Mammal of Wisconsin.

The creature is totally fearless. It smells the pepperoni I have with me. Paces back and forth, coming closer and closer. 20 ft away. What to do? Throw a stick at it? NO! 15 ft away. I pick up a pinch of sand and toss it at the skunk. It pays no attention. 10 ft away. Must take the pepperoni and hang it from a tree branch. The skunk leaves. In my terror I forget to take its picture. Just at dark the mosquitos come out in hordes. I go out in the boat, but they follow me into the river. Must idle around slowly in the dark for 45 minutes till they settle down. Then I return to land, drag the boat up and tie it off, and make a dash for the tent which is already set up. It is a miracle. I manage to get inside without any mosquitos getting in with me. Nirvana! Able to enjoy the great outdoors and not get bit. The tent has a screen front and back, and screen top. I am surrounded by hordes of bugs – my enemies – but they cannot get in. I laugh at them. Camping is great! Too hot to be in a sleeping bag, or even have clothes on. But I am wonderful and refreshed if I lay naked and look up at the stars. And the frustrated bugs that sit on the screens, drooling. Eat your heart out bugs, cuz you won't get mine.

I have spent a goodp art of my life sleeping outside of cities and buildings, but I have never slept in a tent before. Looking at the stars reminds me that there is another part of the tent I did not bring along – the "fly" that goes over the top to keep the rain out. Not a problem. It has only rained once since I left OR, and if there is a shower tonite I will deal with it. Tomorrow I will fish.

Aug 13                                                                                                            

I want to go out at first light, but it is too windy. Poison ivy sores & blisters are spreading. A storm is threatening, but it seems to pass by. I am almost ready to head down to the boat when it suddenly gets very dark. What is happening. Solar eclipse? Did somebody turn out the lights? The tent is shaking in the wind. It starts to rain. There is only a screen top on my tent. It rains harder. I pull the foamy up over my head and huddle under it. It rains harder. And harder. I cannot believe how hard it is raining. I have been thru storms on Vancouver Island where it rained 8 inches in one day. But that was nothing compared to this. It cannot be raining this hard. After ½ hour I begin to fear for my boat. The bow is tied to the beach, but if it rains enough the water may run to the back and push the transom under, along with the motors. Cannot let this happen. If it keeps raining I must go out and check. The only clothes I have with me are my blue jeans and T shirt. Cannot let them get wetter than they already are. Must take off my clothes and run out in the rain to check the boat. So I strip down and run out naked to where I can see the boat. It is already so full of water it is grounded on the bottom. Cannot sink any more. The boat is OK. I turn and run back to the tent. I have run only 50 feet each way fast as I can, but I am totally soaked. A tsunami of rain is falling from the sky. Cannot put my clothes back on cuz I am too wet. I spend the next 45 minutes huddled naked under my foamy as avalanche of rain pounds my tent. New watersheds, new rivers and lakes, appear on the tent floor. My laptop is in the driest corner of the tent. Should have had it in a plastic bag.

After about an hour and a half it is over. According to the local paper, the nearest rain gauge measured 4.18 inches of rain. In 90 minutes. As King Lewis XVI famously said, shortly before he was deposed in the French Revolution and fled to America to lead the famous Lewis & Clara Expedition across the great plains, “Apres moi le deluge!”

The water is nearly overflowing the transom of my boat. Would have sunk for sure if it had not been on the beach. My tackle boxes are under water. My sounder is under water. My computer has gotten wet. Will not even turn on. The plastic storage box near my campfire is overflowing. My little alarm clock that I have had for 15 or 20 years is under water. My camera, which I have had for 8 years, is in its plastic peanut butter jar, but the lid was not sealed tight enough, and water has gotten in. Water is dripping out of one end of the camera when I take it out. I try to blow the water out and take some pics. It is not a happy camera. Only one of the pics I tried to take turns out.

I bail out the boat and head to Trempeleau, then load it on the trailer and drive over to Winona. The poison ivy is getting worse. I find a computer shop. The guy spends 2 hours working on my computer and finally gets it running again. A miracle. And he only charges me $25. People are great here.

I head back up to my island campsite. This evening I will fish. But in the evening another storm rolls in. Last summer was a drought, and river levels were the lowest in hsitory. That was the time to be fishing! This year they are going to break the all-time record rainfall for August. But at least I have remebered to bring the rain fly. I spend a comfortable nite in the tent. No bugs, and it is cool enough to sleep. Tomorrow I will fish.

Aug 14                                                                                                                    

Overcast, no rain. I leave at first light, head down to a wingdam to try for SM. But the mighty river is rising. The wingdam is way under water and unfishable. Huge amounts of weed, duckweed and pondweed, are washing downstream. Hundreds of acres of green slop, washed loose by the flood. No way to fish in the main channel with all this slop floating down. I find a backwater behind and island, Start throwing the buzz frog into pockets around the weed. Slurp! I hook a nice 2 lb LM. It gets off before I can land it. The buzz frog works, but it keeps sliding back along the hook and floating upside down. I pull a rubber strand off the hula skirt of another lure and tie it as a stopper on the frog hook. This works – temporarily. Another bass boat arrives. He is pre-fishing for the tournament tomorrow. Says he is thinking about using this slough as his first spot tomorrow. Good for my confidence that I – a newbie tourist – have been able to locate and select a good zone. He catches a small LM on a Spro frog. Says he has never seen so much weed floating down the river. Unprecedented. I leave him to his spot and go looking for another. I get nothing along a flowing channel. Then find a backwater smothered in duckweed. I throw the frog onto the weed. Slurp. A nice fish, but it gets off. Throw it out to another spot. Slurp. A nice fish, but it gets off. Throw it out to another spot. Slurp. A nice fish, but it gets off. Throw it out to another spot. Slurp. A nice fish, but it gets off. 4 casts, 4 hits. This frog is hot! I have found a honey hole. Throw it out to another spot. Slurp. This one I catch. A beauty 2 ½ lbr. Too bad the camera is not working.

5 casts, 5 fish. But the last one tore off my rubber keeper, so the frog wants to sit upside down now. I try to tie on another. But give up. I have found fish, and a pattern to fool them. I will be back this evening, and teach them a lesson they won't forget. Must go into town and send some emails, so I head back to the launch. At the Trempeleau dam the Jacob Michael Epstein is pushing a huge string of barges down thru the locks.

The river turns to the right here, so the current is trying to push his tow against the W bank. The towboats all have Kort nozzles around their props, which swivel 360 degrees so they can thrust in any direction. Even at the distance of a football field away, you do not want to get caught in the propwash of the Jacob Michael Epstien. This is a really big tow.

He works the tow around the lock wall and backs up to the dam, and then heads downstream, fighting to make a right turn before he hits the channel marker bouys and grounds out in the shallows.

But the big river is high and rising. He cannot make the turn in time. He must back up and try again, while I am loading the Bullship out.

Over and over he tries to make the turn, but the current keeps pushing him closer and closer against the shore.

I am not the only one having trouble with the flooding river. He just can't get the tow turned enough to miss the channel bouys.

After an hour of struggle in which he keeps getting closer and closer to shore I leave. Must go over to Winona to get some Zanfel cream for my poison ivy. The itching is driving me crazy. Cannot scratch or it will get worse. But I cannot stop scratching. Besides, what if the captain blows it, and huge barge loads of nuclear waste and Afghani heroin burst open on the rocks. I don't want to be around!

I drive over to Winona, get Zanfil. I have been jumping into the river all the time to stay cool. But my open sores need to dry out in order to heal.

I spend the afternoon sitting in my car under the coolest tree, listening to the baseball game, tieing up frog hooks that will keep the frog rightside up. I will let myself heal this afternoon. Then go out and pound on the wily bass this evening.

In the evening I feel refreshed, invigorated. The open sores on my legs have started to scab over. If I can just keep them out of the water this evening...

I head off back downriver. The mighty Mississippi is approaching flood stage. But I am onto the wily bass. I zigzag downstream, trying to avoid the bigger clots of weed. But as I approach my hotspot my motor begins to overheat. Must shut it down. I am drifting down to New Orleans, fast. Cannot fight upstream against the current with the electric motor, especially thru all the weed. I wave my arms and flag down a passing boat. 4 young guys in a big ski boat. They come over agree to tow me back to Tremepeleau. 3 miles, against the current. People are great here. And stop by my island on the way so I can pick up my tent and gear. I race up to gather my stuff. Notice that under the tree where I have been hanging my stuff to dry is a big patch of poison ivy. The Official State Flower of Wisconsin. My sleeping bag and blue jeans have fallen into this patch a number of times. No time to dawdle, so I just carry the tent right into the boat without disassembling it. It fits. The Botel, V3! They tow me back to the boat launch. I offer them $50 but they won't accept a penny. People are great here.

(The downside is that just as we were leaving the island a big houseboat loaded with about a dozen young girls in bikinis landed at the next camping spot, about 100 yards down. Would have been more fun to get rescued by them.)

The botel, V3, is rather a spectacle when we get to the launch. The river is so high now that there is 10 feet of water between the launch and shore. After I pull the boat out a guy who looks like John Goodman comes over. Tells me I will get hassled by the cops if I stay overnite at the boat launch. But he has a brother who has a cabin just down the road. The brother is away, but I can park in his driveway for the nite. He drives me down, shows me the brother's cabin, and a nearby mechanic who can help with my OB motor problems tomorrow, and a tavern across the road where I can get a beer and really good burger. And tells me his secret spot in front of the boat launch where he has been catching 4-6 lb SMs, fishing from shore. AND gives me a sample of his secret hot lure. People are great here.

But I am a mess. My possessions are a pile of chaos. I drive downtown, from where I can here music. In a town where you cannot even get a cup of coffee before 11 AM, the Trempeleau Hotel has live outdoor music on Saturday nite. The hotel wall is full of signed pics of people who have played here, including Edgar Winter and Lyle Lovett. A rocking good band is playing – lady singer, drum, 2 electric guitars, trumpet, sax & trombone. I put the plywood into the boat and set the tent up on it. Botel V3.1. Need to put up the rain fly, cuz another storm is approaching. I go over to the hotel, have a beer, listen to a couple songs. “We are going to keep playing until 4:30!” Little chance. The band is under a canopy, but the dancing is on the grass. Lightning flashes and it starts to rain. I head back to my car. The inside of the tent and my sleeping bag are already wet from rain blowing in thru the screened ends. I drive over to the brother's cabin, and sleep in the front seat of my car.

Aug 15                                                                                                         

A cold front has blown in. Death for the bass bite, but hallelujah for me. For the first day since I got to Wisconsin I do not wake up sweating. Strong and steady north wind feels great!

I will need parts for the Yamaha, so I head up to Eau Claire. The mighty Mississippi is in flood anyway, so the fishing is probably poor. Would have been interesting to be out there during a tournament tho.

In Eau Claire, the Chippewa River (which is 1,000 feet wide here) is way up over its banks. The big trees along the river are standing 6 ft deep in water. In August! Unheard of.

I go over to visit John H. Reminisce about old times, watch a movie and stay over nite. My poison ivy is getting worse. Bumps and blisters on my hands and arms now. How can I get rid of this stuff? If I amputate both arms and legs it will stop the itching. But it would be very hard to fish after that.

Aug 16                                                                                                            

I spend the morning writing up my blog, sorting out the car & boat, shower and tend to my wounds. The weather is great. What a change! No bugs to chew on my open wounds. Spend the afternoon shopping and checking out Eau Claire. Sleep on air mattress @ John H.

Aug 17                                                                                                               

The old camera is just too flaky. I have decided that I will not waste any more repair time on it. I have done all the technical stuff – drained out the water, blown out most of the sand, dried it out on my dashboard. But it refuses to take any more pics. So I spend $100 and buy a new camera. Should have done this long ago. The new camera is 1/8 the price of the old one, 1/8 the size, bigger zoom. And it has a lens cap. And it takes movies.

Busy day. Work on the boat. Replace rear trailer roller, which has disintegrated again. Replace water pump impeller on 15 hp. Test run the motor and it sounds good. Fix the speaker in my rear car door, which is shorting out my CD player. I am wearing shorts, in order to let the sores on my legs dry out. Around noon the big open wound has dried up and started to scab over. The maniacal itching is subsiding. I know I am finally winning the battle against poison ivy.

I lie down for an hour in the pleasant afternoon sun. I fantasize that the poison ivy is the 7th Cavalry, led by the foolish long haired hippy G. Custer. My white blood cells are Soiux warriors, swarming down out of the hills above the Little Bighorn, led by Mr C. Horse and S. Bull. Time to think about getting back out on the water again.

I say goodbye to John H when he gets back from work after midnite. Wonderful opportunity to re-organize and recuperate. People are great here. Like my earlier trip to BC, this one begins with serious medical problems which require time to fix. My trip to BC got better after that. Hope this one does too. I need to return to Winona, where I left my Verizon chip behind at the computer shop. Also want another crack at the bass hotspot I left on the Mississippi. As I leave I see that my boat trailer lites are suddennly not working, but I leave anyway, taking small 2 lane hwys back to Trempeleau. Hope the cops don't stop me. In Independence Wis I suddenly see red flashing lites. I know this one by heart. $200 fine, cannot move the trailer an inch until it is fixed. But when I tell the cop my story, including that I am trying to make the dawn bite at my secret spot, he says go ahead. Drive slow and safe. And he radios the other cops up ahead to let my go by. People are great here.

Aug 18                                                                                                             

Arrive at Trempeleau dam before dawn. It is delightfully cool. And NO bugs!

The mighty river is even higher than it was when I left, as it drains all the stormwater that feel on Wisconsin & Minnesota last week. There is 20 ft of water between the boat launch docks and the pavement. There were 30 empty boat trailers in the lot when I was here last. This morning, I am the only person on the river.

I head down to my previous fishing spots. The 15 hp is running good. Catastrophe averted. Good thing I shut it down when it was overheating. I have re-rigged the buzz frog, so it stays upright more often. When you retrieve it starts kicking its little legs. Sexier than a boatload of Wisconsin girls in bikinis. But the bite is off. The river is way high. At the first place I stop I can now go another ¼ mile up into the slough past where I was blocked by shallow water before.

Perfect morning. Looks great. But I only get one weak bite on the buzz frog. None on the rage toad. I give up and head back to the car. I see that they have opened the floodgates on the Trempeleau dam. Looks like I could drive the Bullship right on thru.

I load out and head over to Winona. Get my Verizon chip back. I had mostly planned to target rivers in Wisconsin on this trip, but the rivers are all in flood. I decide to head over to Lawrence Lake, where my dad and Uncle Lou and I used to fish when I was a kid. On the way I cross over the Black River, where we also fished. As always, it looks very fishy, but is too high to fish today.

Monarch butterflies are much more common here than out west. One lands on the Bullship.

I head SE to Hwy 16 and Tomah.

After crossing the Wisconsin River I am back in nostalgia land. It is over 40 years since I have been here. The twin towns of Adams/Friendship. County Hwy E. And then I am at the dam that creates Lawrence Lake.

Just a big shallow pond really, but my dad loved to fish here. Had one legendary evening when he caught 4 nice bass, including a 4 lbr, on rapala.

I find a public launch and am on the water an hour before sundown.

I try buzz frog and rapala – no bites. Then I try a black yum worm. I get a bite! I catch a nice little 1 lb LM. Huge waves of nostalgia roll over me. There is a lady camping on shore, so I get here to take my pic.

Then I head up to The Tamarack. The top end of Lawrence Lake is a flooded forest, which the locals used to call The Tamarack.

My Uncle Lou claimed that bass were attracted to the juice from the roots of tamarack trees. Most of this lake is surrounded by cabins, but not the top end. To me as a kid growing up in Chicago, The Tamarack was the ultimate wilderness. I catch another small bass on buzz frog.

I find the little cove where dad caught his big one so many years ago. The cove is still there, but the log he cast over has rotted and collapsed over the years.

I catch another bass nearby, on rapala, in honor of my dad.

The Lawrence Lake trifecta! One each on worm, frog and rapala. Never accomplished anything like this as a kid.

I return to the launch, and tie on a jitterbug. There is a bright moon, and I will go back out for the nite bite. But first I must rest a bit, and listen to the ball game on the radio. Here I can get baseball games from Cleveland, Cinncinnati, Philadelphia, St Louis, Chicago. But I fall asleep, and by the time I wake up the moon is down. I need the sleep. The bass will get a break tonite.

Aug 19                                                                                                 

I launch at dawn. Could have got on the water a ½ hr earlier, but slept in. Too bad. There is a hot topwater bite on the frog. I get 4 hits before I even leave the cove at the boat launch. I go across the lake and down towards the dam, where I have never been. We always rented rowboats when I was a kid, and it was too far to row that way. I get a few more hits on the frog. There is a deer with fawn on a cottage lawn.

And I hear sandhill cranes in the trees on an island - surely one of the loudest birds in N America. A couple fly off and land on another lawn. I try to take pics, but cannot get close. I hear these birds a lot here and at Trout Lake in N Cal. But I never get close enough to get a good pic. This is the best I could do today.

There are tons of big snails on the bottom of the lake.

I get a few more LMs on yum worm. The genus Lepomis makes its appearance on camera. I catch a small bluegill. Lepomis macrochirus.

I expect an encounter with the genus Esox. Lots of small pike in this lake. But I only catch LMs.

Nothing special in terms of legendary fishing days of my life, but this would have been my best day ever here as a kid. It is rewarding to know that I can come to this lake in the middle of August after being away over 40 years, and catch fish that would have eluded me (and my dad) long ago. I have grown as a fisherman, and an observer of aquatic ecosystems. And, more important, I have a helluva lot better boat now.

A small blue butterfly lands on the back seat.

I stop on a little island and take some pics of Tall Pines Resort, where we stayed in the 1960s.

Then cruise by for some nostalgia pix.

Then load the boat out. Off to another adventure. First I drive up to Lawrence Creek, which is dammed to create Lawrence Lake (only 15 ft deep). I remember that the creek above the lake, which is largely undeveloped in an agricultural and forested landscape, was a study area for brook trout when I was a kid. It still is "internationally famous for research on brook trout ecology, life history, and management."

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/sna/index.asp?SNA=70

http://books.google.com/books?id=Oehc6KeHUEQC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=Lawrence+Creek,+Wis,+trout+research+area&source=bl&ots=a2utyFFqs_&sig=xAnGNm6pokkIlFhqpUKdroLdRUs&hl=en&ei=6pJzTIy1FoPlnAf3tP2KCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Lawrence%20Creek%2C%20Wis%2C%20trout%20research%20area&f=false

The pioneering studies done here by Robert Hunt were referred to in the watershed restoration work I later participated in at Kootwis Creek on  Vancouver Island.

"Perhaps no Wisconsin stream is more iportant from a fisheries management standpoint than Lawrence Creek"

http://books.google.com/booksid=Oehc6KeHUEQC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=Lawrence+Creek,+Wis,+trout+research+area&source=bl&ots=a2utyFFqs_&sig=xAnGNm6pokkIlFhqpUKdroLdRUs&hl=en&ei=6pJzTIy1FoPlnAf3tP2KCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Lawrence%20Creek%2C%20Wis%2C%20trout%20research%20area&f=false

The brook trout is a native species here, but has mostly been pushed out of Wisconsin due to introduction of more aggressive invasive fish species, and deteriorating water quality resulting from ag and urbanization. Lawrence Creek is still running cold and clear on this hot summer day. I see a small trout dart under the bank here as I am taking pics.

I dip a ½ gallon jug of this cold clear springwater to take with me when I leave.

I drive out thru Westfield, where the big new business is the for-profit state prison. Prisons are big business in the US. Even tho the US accounts for only a tiny (less than 5 percent) fraction of the earth's population, over 25 percent of the earths prisoners are incarcerated in the US. The imprisoned portion of the population is higher in the US than in any other country on the plantge. The Land of the Free.

Driving down a little side street I see a monarch butterfly that has been hit by a car. It is flutterring, can get up about 5 feet in the air, then falls to the ground. I stop. I will pick it up and take it with me. My mascot. Maybe it will recover and fly away. But I have to wait for one more car to pass before I can go out in the street. The car runs right over the monarch and crushes it.

I drive down to Montello for lunch. Montelllo Lake, another dammed flowage, turns into a pile of slop in summer. Too many weeds to fish here.

One Friday nite when I was young my dad, Uncle Lou and I had driven up from Chicago to Lawrence Lake. Got in late, so we went to Montello to find a restaurant. When we walked in there were 2 young punks leaving. One of them said something as they walked by. Neither I nor my dad heard what he said. Uncle Lou quickly spun a short right hook and clipped the guy on the jaw. He shut up and they left. Uncle Lou would never tell us what the guy said. I go to Montello in honor of Uncle Lou, have lunch and a couple of Buds in a tavern, and blog And think up a new plan.

I pass a neat little rural cemetery.

I want to fish the Wisconsin River. I have heard about a stretch around Merrill that is supposed to be free flowing. The Wisconsin is called the world's hardest working river, cuz it has 26 dams along its 430 mile length. I want to find the free flowing pieces between the dams.

I take little 2 lane county roads up to Stevens Point, where I buy some window screen, and then cross the Wisconsin River, which is mostly a series of big lakes here.

Then take a county hwy up the W side of the river till I find a boat launch. I tape screen on to 2 open windows, park in the crosswind of the little breeze off the water, and it is almost cool enough to sleep in the car.

Aug 20                                                                                                                

I get up and drive to Wuasau, where I find a great coffee shop with WIFI connection where I sit and prep many pics for my blog. It is so humid that you cannot see the tops of the smokestacks at the factories.

I also check internet fishing reports about the Wisconsin River, and look at Google Earth. There is a 15 mile stretch from Brokaw up to Merrill that is supposed to be un-dammed, and great fishing for bass, musky and walleye. I need to check it out, and find places to launch the bullship. The internet says this is jet boat water, too dangerous to run a prop boat in.

Then I head off up the river to find Brokaw. It is not really a town, just a pulp mill on the river. From the bridge here the river looks spectacular. Very fishy.

Need to find a boat launch here where I can load the boat out if I hope to float down from Merril. I met someone who told me there is a launch, but I spend 2 hours looking and cannot find it. I try the city office, but it is closed. So I try the post office, where a lady tells me she thinks there is a launch somewhere by the pulp mill. I can't find it. I stop by a tavern, where a guy tells me there is a place I can launch about 2 miles upriver. I locate this spot, but it is a steep gravel bank about 15 feet above the river. There are some neat blue flowers here. What are they?

Cannot launch the Bullship here. I finally give up. No way to load the boat out at this end, so my fantasy trip down the wild section will have to wait for another time.

There is a boat launch at a city park in Merril. It is sweltering again, so I wade out into the river to cool off. There are hordes of crayfish around the launch, in a few inches of water. Great sign. Crayfish are the main food for SM bass. The water here is much cooler than the Mississippi at Winona. The river is surprisingly shallow, must walk way out near the middle till it gets deep enough to swim. Feels great to wash the sweat off. I talk to a local in the park. He says there are so many crayfish because the bass will not eat them. They are an invasive species of crayfish, which have outcompeted and all but eliminated the native species. Bass do not eat the new crayfish. Great. Spend 500 million years of evolution inventing the world's most perfect crayfish predator (SM bass), and then corrupt its habitat by introducing another species it will not eat.

The river looks like a piece of cake here. I can run this no problem. I decide to look for a campsite upstream. On the way I pass wild turkeys beside the road.

I find a pretty little county park. Free camping with a boat launch.

The river looks wide and deep. It is hot and humid. So much moisture in the air things get blurry in the evening. Never see anything like this in Oregon or Van Isle.

I make a few casts from shore with rapala & buzzbait. No bites. I am tempted to go out in the boat, but I chicken out. Do not want to risk coming to grief on the river just before dark. It is a wise decision.

Aug 21                                                                                              

I awake before dawn, exited to get out on the river. At the first grey of light I check the boat. Is it still floating? No. I am amazed. The boat, which was floating and tied off to a tree last nite, is sitting high and dry. In Wisconsin they turn “working” the rivers off at night, when the power from the dams is not needed. The river has dropped over a foot. I will have to drag the boat over rocks and gravel to get it into the water. I go to the outhouse, and have a donut in my car, pondering a plan. By the time I get out of the car the current in the river has increased, and my boat is surrounded by water.

I look upstream over the “deep channel” I was planning to run up in the boat. At lower water I can see it is a minefield of big boulders.

Would have surely smashed a prop here. Downstream from the launch is a big shallows. If I had gotten into this in the boat last nite I would have never been able to make it back up. They did me a favor by shutting off that dam last nite. Forced me to realize that this is jet boat water, not prop water. Only a complete idiot, or a clueless tourist, would even think about launching a prop boat here.

I put on gumboots and wade the bank, heading upstream, casting with a #4 Mepps Spinner. Even in the deepest looking spots I hang up on the bottom. This river is incredibly shallow. I could probably wade all the way across it when the water is drawn down. The waters here are stained a dark orange/brown color, from tannins and iron. You can only see about 15" down. No possible way to see a rock before you hit it with your prop.

I see plants with 3 leaves. I tremble in terror. Used to be fearless, would walk anywhere. Now I am terrified as soon as I walk off pavement. I am more scared of poison ivy than Dick Cheney is of evildoers. There is a trail, so I walk upstream ¼ mile to some big boulders. Thought it might be deep around them, but it is still shallow. I make one cast. Fishing here is hopeless. I feel like I did when I was 14. Spend a month of anticipation and fantasy time preparing for a weekend trip to a lake or river with dad & uncle, only to find that it is hopeless to fish there once we get to it.

The rivers here are very changed from since the days when only native peoples lived here. Great log drives, perhaps the greatest in the history of the world, sent millions of sawlogs down these rivers in the 1800s. They rasped the channels out, like taking a router to a cabinet joint. Ground down the high spots, widened out the narrow spots. It would be fascinating to ponder what the hydrology would have been like here prior to the logging and the dams.

The dams stop the migration of sediments, which drop out to the bottom of the reservoirs. They moderate flow levels, so the peak floods do not scour deep holes in the river bed. The rivers here are different from the western rivers I am used to. Much shallower. It would have been a disaster to launch here. I would almost certainly have either smashed a prop on a rock ($200), done more serious damage to the OB leg, or gone downstream and not been able to get back at all. It is madness to even think about taking the Bullship out on this river. If only there was a load out at Brokaw, on the stretch I wanted to fish. Easy river to navigate going downstream, impossible upstream.

I sit in the car and write up my blog, listening to the Awful Polka Music Station on the radio. Then load the boat back on the trailer, and leave without even going out on the river at all. Huge disappointment, after such high expectations last nite.

I drive upstream to Grandfather Falls generating station. In this area the Wisconsin River cuts thru steeply tilted bedrock for about a mile. Used to be big boiling rapids and real waterfalls here, but now the main flow is channeled thru dams and penstocks that feed this hydro plant.

When they run the turbines there is lots of water in the river, and when they shut the turbines down my boat goes dry on the shore. Looks like a good spot to fish below the plant, so I walk back to the car to get a rod.

On the way thru the parking lot I see a twisted little tube thing lying in the sun. What is it? Crumpled and discarded slurpee straw? On closer inspection it looks like it may be a tiny snake. Dead. It is hot out, and as always when it is hot I am wearing only flip flops, shorts and T shirt. Out of curiosity I flip the little snake over with my toe. It is not dead. Far from it' As I flip it over it coils up, rears back and lunges at my flip flop. This is a little bitty snake with a big bad attitude. The tip of its tail is vibrating so fast it is a blur, almost invisible. It is the Official State Reptile of Wisconsin.

The bitty snake must be having a bad day. He is probably upset cuz I kicked him. He keeps buzzing his tail, even tho there is no sound. Too tiny to have rattles yet? I place my coffee cup near him so I can have something for scale in the picture, and he tries to bite my hand. When I lean in to try to get a closeup he lunges at the camera. When I am done taking pics I try to retrieve my coffee cup, but he won't let me near it. Keeps snapping and lunging at my hand, and shaking his tail furiously. I leave the cup there. When I get back he is gone, along with his bad attitude, and I get my cup back. I try fishing from shore, but it is very shallow.

My poison ivy is healing. My last pus blister is disappearing today. Nothing left but scabs and scar tissue, and one big open sore on my left leg. It will not heal, because I keep getting it wet swimming or keep scraping the scab off by accident. Cannot get my left leg wet. Must keep let the open flesh dry. But my first cast with the #4 Mepps spinner I bought the other day results in a huge snarl, and the lure sinks in among the rocks. I try to tiptoe out on the rocks to get the lure back, but slip in the water. My open sore gets wet again. I cannot keep doing this. Must find a place where I can relax, and let my body drive the evil ivy poison out of me. On the way back up to the car there is a much larger snake sunning itself in the road. Same color pattern, but about 2.5 feet long and 2” thick. It slithers off into the bushes before I can take a pic or see if it has a rattle or not. I do not feel like chasing it thru the bushes to get a better look.

About a mile above the generating plant is another dam. Here most of the river is forced out of the old main channel that went down the falls. An old side channel has been diked off to form a flowage.

Huge penstocks about 12 ft diameter carry the bulk of the flow down to the generating plant. The pipes are made of wood planks inside steel rings. The state of Wisconsin has gone to huge expense here- dammed up the entire river and fed it down into these pipes - just to install free public showers for travellers like me who cannot afford expensive hotels every nite. They really look after the tourists here. I seem to be the only one using the free showers today. It feels sooooo good to stand under the showers on a 90 degree day when I am dripping sweat.

The flowage above looks reasonably fishy, and peaceful. I go looking for a place to launch a boat on it. I find one a couple miles up. Then drive up to Tomahawk. There is a Hardly Dangerous plant there.

I buy some supplies, head back and launch the Bullship. Head down to the dam, where the main flow is diverted under a bridge into an old side channel. I can barely fit my boat under the bridge. The old side channel is confined by a dike with a road on top. Perfect campsite. And there may even be some fish to be caught. A heron sails in to check me out. I am competition for his fishing spots. Normally a very skittish bird, this one flies right into my camp, checks me out, takes a big crap, and flies away.

I explore the old remant channel, where the entire river used to crash over Grandfather Falls.

By the time I have a swim and get the tent set up the sun is setting. There is some superb shoreline structure nearby. Pocket coves, weeds, reeds and lily pads. I throw the frog all over the place – no bites. The other rod is rigged with an old 4 ½” rapala with rusty hooks. I fish for over on hour over great looking spots – no bites. After the sun sets I start down the shore across from my tent. Suddenly I get hit – a nice bass, SM, on the rap. It gets off. Then I get hit again, and catch my first ever Wisconsin River bass. Micropterus dolomieu.
Was this fish named after Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Dolomieu, the French geologist whose name was used to identify the rock dolomite?

The bass are very dark here, colored deep rusty brown like the water they live in.

Over the next 45 minutes I get 5 more hits, including some bigger fish. All get off. Rusty hooks! But it was a nice evening bite. I head back to camp, make a campfire and drink root beer and whiskey in celebration.

It is still very hot & humid at dark, but the mosquitos are not bad around the campfire. It is nearly a full moon, so I go back out in the dark the throw a jitterbig around for an hour – no bites. I sleep well in the tent.

Aug 22                                                                                      

Wake in the pre-dawn fog. Incredible humidity here. The grass and weeds that were dry the evening before are soaking wet. Every surface is covered in huge drops of water. I tap a depression in the plastic tote bag, 1 ft x 2 ft surface area, and collect nearly a full coffee cup of condensation. I head across to where I was getting bites last nite. There is current along there again and too much weed drifting along with it to retrieve a lure thru. Head back across to the shore I am camping on, and catch a few SMs near the end of the channel.

I go up under the bridge and get a few more small fish. All SM. Just above the bridge is a fishy looking side channel, with a huge hornets nest hanging at the entrance. I get 3 surface hits on the rap from big fish. Miss them all. Need sharper hooks!

Head back to camp when the sun burns thru. 7 hits last nite, 13 hits this morning. Caught 5. I am beginning to figure these fish out. I see why the SM are reluctant to hit on top. At dawn my sounder says the surface water temp is 85F.

I head back into Tomahawk, past an abandoned house. Handyman special.

I have breakfast and send emails from a cafe, and then head back to the boat launch, where I meet a couple who have just returned from a canoe trip down the wild stretch of the river. They tell me there IS a secret boat launch at the bottom end in Brokaw, where I spent hours looking and could not find. They draw me a little map showing how to find it. If I can find this launch, and hire a taxi to drive me down there from Merrill, I could launch in Merrill and float 13 miles down to Brokaw where my car will be waiting. YES!

First thing I do back in camp is jump right in for a swim. A foot under the surface the water is much cooler. Spend the entire afternoon working on my fishing gear, and recovering from the poison ivy. No question now – I am getting well again.

I head back out in the evening. My gear is ready. My hooks are sharp. I am going to try a new area downstream from the boat launch. First I will try trolling a shad rap under the bridge. On the bridge (which is gated off for foot traffic only) a couple have set up white linen table. Dinner and wine in the sunset. This is how they live in Wisconsin.

I get up to my spot. There is another boat about ¼ mile upstream, coming down. May be fishing for bass or for walleyes – I cannot tell. I cruise in to shore and stake out my turf. Make a practice cast with the rap, and then throw it out by some lily pads. I look up to check the other boat, and when I look back the rap is gone in a big swirl. I am hooked into a big bass. After a long fight it gets away in the pads. I make another cast. One twitch and slam! Another surface hit. I catch a nice little SM. I move out to a couple little reedy islets and catch a beauty about 2 ½ lbs. This is very close with the LM I caught on a frog on the Mississippi for the honor of biggest fish of the trip so far. So I quickly speed over to the other boat and get them to take my pic.

7 hits last nite. 13 this morning. Now 3 hits in 10 minutes, and I am just getting into the happy hour when the bite got hot yesterday. The evening is perfect. I am on fire. I have it wired. I have the right lure at the right time, in the right spot, with the right mojo. In the other boat are 3 walleye fishermen. They have been dragging worms on the bottom, and have only caught 1 fish between them. I have pulled in right in front of them and got into 3 nice fish in minutes. I am no longer the goofy tourist. I am THE GUY WHO KNOWS WHERE THE FISH ARE AND HOW TO CATCH THEM. The lowly wormchuckers are amazed at my bass fishing prowess. I am amazed at my bass fishing prowess. I will lay a hurting on the wily bass this evening, and get into some trophy class fish. I can feel it coming.

I fish further down the shore where I started – superb looking bass habitat. Then back out to the reed islets, back to hornets nest slough where I missed 3 big fish this morning, back to the narrows below the bridge. I fish until it is too dark to continue. I never get another bite. Go figure.

In the afternoon I ran all around the flowage, checking depths with my sounder. I am crossing the lake above the dam, at the deepest part of the lake. 30 ft. Idling along when all of a sudden - ka-chonk! ka-chonk! I have hit a rock. Luckily there is only minor damage to my prop.

If I hit a rock like this at high speed I could knock a blade right off. ($200 for a new prop). Or smash the leg on my motor, which would be an expense greater than the total I have spent on this entire trip so far. Must be careful speeding around on these dark waters I am unfamiliar with.

I head back to camp humbled, shamed and defeated. My bass mojo is shattered. Why did I come to this crappy spot anyway? A nice place to camp, but I must get down to the Merril > Brokaw reach where the big fish are lurking.

Aug 23                                                                                                         

I go out early and fish the dawn bite. I try all places where I caught fish before. I do not get a single bite on the rap. One good hit on hula popper. Must get out of here. Go somewhere else and find my mojo.

I break camp.

Just before I leave I finally look at the little sign beside my tent.

This campsite has had wonderful healing effects on my poison ivy.

I will miss it here. A very peaceful spot. My poison ivy scars are healing, and I have no more pus blisters. I drive down to Brokaw, and I find the mystery boat launch. How could I have missed it. Just drive down the industrial road past the semitrailer truck storage, over the RR tracks, past the tank cars down the gravel road till you turn left just before the No Trespassing sign. 

YES! I can and will get out on the river here. I drive back up to Merrill and rent a motel room at Super 8. I will download pics, work on my blog, swim in the pool and shower. And prep for the fishing trip I have been thinking about for a couple years.

I have just completed an all-niter at the motel. This blogging is worse than cramming for exams in college. Have spent 18 hrs straight downloading pics and updating the blog. Only 2 hrs sleep. I have found a taxi who will pick me up in Brokaw. I will launch the Bullship in Merrill, quickly drive the Volvo down to Brokaw, and get the taxi to take me back to the boat. Will have camping and fishing gear along. If the fishing is good I may spend a couple days, or months, on the river before I post again to the blog...