"Tim J." wrote in message
...

"JR" wrote...
rw wrote:
JR wrote:
.... I'd waded myself into a bit of a spot, in
heavy water, rib-cage high, with my right (downstream) foot wedged
between
two rocks--done more or less on purpose as an "anchor" of sorts
against
the current.

Bad idea. Very bad. You could have not merely hurt your knee -- you
could have drowned if you'd fallen over. I avoid any chance of wedging
my foot while wading, as best I can. Sometimes it happens by accident,
and then I sort of freak out. I've started using a wading staff in
tough
currents and it's working well, albeit a PITA when I'm fishing and not
wading.

Yeah, you're right. "More or less on purpose" meant I'd been wading
along and found my foot had sort of slipped down the side of a rock into
the crevice. The smart thing to do then would be to get it out at once,
then fish. What *I* did was to say, well, it's not really wedged, as in
WEDGED wedged, you know, as in stuck... see I can move it... no problem.
Then I fished my cast out. And after the minute or two that took, with
shifts in weight from one foot to the other and the thrust of the
current,
by the time I DID want to move it, by gosh by golly by gum it WAS
wedged. As I said, something folks might want to keep in mind.

You're also right about the wading staff. I've only used one once, and
it
was indeed a PITA, but if I want to keep fishing big moving water a
staff
is surely in my future. You ever read James Babb's "My Rod and My
Staff"? Skates a tad close to the edge of the maudlin, maybe, but still
one of his better efforts I think.

I carry one of those collapsible staffs in a pouch that attach to my
wading
belt. Even when I'm not wading particularly fast water, I've found it
comes in
handy for many other things. Getting up a steep bank, for example. You
could
also attach a protest sign to it.

I don't find it a PITA to carry at all, and it certainly can't be more of
a PITA
than a bad knee. Good luck with the recovery - bad knees are no fun.

Bad anythings are no fun. I was just commenting to Vaughan last week that,
as a fisherman, I seem to be breaking all the sacrosinct rules that I
learned as a boatman about working in moving water. For example, as a
boatman we learned the following (often through the school of experience):

a) never stand up in moving water deeper than your knees. The length from
foot to knee is equivalent to the distance from hand to shoulder. If you get
a foot trapped between some rocks and the current pushes you over, if the
water is less than knee-deep, you can hold your head above water to avoid
drowning. Many, MANY river drownings occur when people who have come out of
boats try to stand up in waist-deep water, then get pushed over by the
current. As a fisherman, I almost never wade in water that shallow.
b) never work in moving water without a life jacket. Yuh, right. What about
a 15 pound fishing vest, with hooks, monofilament and tons of little pockets
and loops to get hung up on while trying to swim?
c) Always try to cross moving water well upstream of rapids. As a fisherman,
when I wade across a river, I often am doing it at the shallowest (but
almost the fastest) part, right near the middle of the rapid. I try to work
my way along just downstream of the big rocks to avoid foot entrapment,
however there is often a deeper pool there so I find my self stepping into
the fastest current to avoid the deep spot. As a boatman, I wouldn't even be
IN there.
d) Always have someone downstream with a throwbag (rope) in case of
disaster. As a fisherman, I cannot imagine how many times I have been wading
in potentially dangerous situations, with no one around. Often, my fishing
partners don't even know where I am, as I have moved around since we last
had contact.

I spend a lot of time wondering about these compromises in safety, and a
wading staff, PITA or not, is on my short list of things to get. Possibly so
is one of those inflatable horsecollars. This week, I have also promised
myself to test out swimming in my waders by hopping into the school pool.
Does anyone know if chlorine can do any damage to waders?

--riverman