rw wrote:

Another thing to be careful about is securing your raft when you beach
it. That may seem obvious, and the raft might seem securely beached, but
if the wind comes up or the water rises overnight you could lose it.
Last year one of Steve's parties called in on the sat phone that they'd
lost both of their rafts. Steve's response was, "You mean that you lost
both of MY rafts."

I think I know those guys. LOL! It rained pretty much the whole trip.
The river rose overnight, and sure enough, BOTH rafts were gone. They
did find both rafts quite a bit downstream. Some had left their rods
rigged in the raft. They were one big, tangled mess.

In the meantime they were stranded in the wilderness. I don't know how
it played out. I'm going to ask Steve in August.

They finished the float, and had some great stories to tell. BTW, I know
for a fact at least one shotgun, and one 44 mag was along on the float.
It's a good possibility more guns were along.

FWIW, I had a bear encounter worth mentioning. We were lined up on
gravel bar fishing for silvers. A bear comes out of the brush behind us,
and the only one that saw it was my buddy next to me. He said nothing,
and continued fishing. A few minutes later I hear somebody say, "bear".
I turn complete around and see it about 150 yards off to my left. It's
just standing there looking around. We all start the "hey bear" chatter.
It looks right at me and starts coming directly towards me(I'm the last
guy in the lineup). I get louder, as do the guides, but the bear keeps
coming at a very casual pace. I look over at the guides, and fully
expect them to get between me and the bear............yeah right! The
guides are now nervous, and they are asking each other if they have the
shotgun. Neither took it with them that morning. If I wasn't nervous
before that tid bit of info, I AM NOW! Anyway, the bear keeps coming,
and the commotion gets louder, and the guides are doing their best to
shoo the bear away. It finally veers off to it's left, and disappears
into the bush....but not after it grabbed a salmon carcass and carried
it into the bush. You could hear the bones cracking as it ate the fish.
I could only think how loud my bones would've been.

Was I in any danger. I thought so. The bear was about 75 yards before it
veered off. The guides were shook up, and one said, "I didn't like that
bear. It was acting squirrely". I got the distinct impression that if
they had a gun, they would've used it. Maybe not to kill the bear, but
to chase it off. Not all the guides carried a gun. I think a little over
1/2 did, and the ones that did, were the guides who were there for the
whole season. We stayed at a riverside camp(tents, electricity, hot
showers ect...). No lodge for this cheapskate.

b