Wading and the MENISCUS

"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.
--
TL,
Tim
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http://css.sbcma.com/timj