The story began . . .

So what would be your first thought if your boating buddy, who forgot his lead rope and instead runs the anchor rope through the prow eye before I shove the boat off the trailer, and the boat slithers to the center of the Nestucca, oars shipped and ready to go, and my boating buddy is standing there with the end of the anchor rope he forgot to tie off in his hand?

The rest of the story for those who missed it Saturday . . .

My almost-50-year-boating buddy is 80, and I’m not that far behind. Being longer in the tooth than most we left for the river at 9 to drop the boat in for a mid-day run to try for one or more of those big late-March run Nestucca steelies. We decided on his boat. I hauled it. When we got to Hebo it was raining a bit. We looked at each other and decided that an early lunch at the Pelican Pub in Pacific City is in order. This shower will pass. We did, and being 5:00 somewhere we sipped an IPA over lunch. So Lawrence, Jack Daniels had nothing to do with it.

We left the pub about 12:30 and on our return to the Nestucca noticed that Terry Learned was in his shop. Terry is the Pacific/Cape dory builder, someone my buddy had not met. So we stopped in and enjoyed an hour’s conversation around dory building, his source for quality marine grade fir, and a number of other boat topics. It was hard to break away, but we had fish to catch. It was now 1:30 and we knew the bite would be on in another half-hour.

We decided to launch at First-Bridge and make an afternoon run to Farmer’s Creek. It was there that my almost-50-year-boating buddy ran his anchor rope through the prow eye, I shoved the boat off the trailer, and the boat slithered to the center of the Nestucca as my buddy pulled the unattached anchor line through the eye. The 40 plus year old McKenzie, an old classic, turned and presented her profile as she began to drift downstream. My buddy’s first thought? Let me finish this story first.

We paralleled the errant boat. About 150 yards downstream a log jutted into the river and we reasoned that the boat might come close enough to rope it. After all, my buddy had 40-feet of anchor rope in his hand. Instead, casting all caution to the wind, he decided instead to leap for the boat as it passed by, which he did, landing half in and half out of the boat. Soaking wet, and not too worse the wear, he pulled the boat in. Wet and cold, I offered to take the boat to the Rock Hole landing, just a mile downstream. My buddy drove my rig around, and we met up there. He had suggested I take my fly rod along but that only meant he wouldn’t see me again until dark. In the meantime, he had changed into dry clothes. It is now 3:30.

It’s embarrassing to go fishing and not wet a line, so we decided to drive down to the confluence of Three Rivers and the Nestucca, drop the boat and fish the cusp of the eddy. We pulled into the landing area. A pick-up follows us in, horn honking. It’s Hebo’s Rick Finnell. He had spotted my rig. With Rick, God love him, you don’t have to worry about holding up your end of the conversation. We talked boats for the next hour, and my buddy’s body language told me that fishing was no longer a priority. Rick’s phone rang. It was his wife. That ended that conversation. As Rick drove off, my buddy and I looked at each other, got in the rig, and returned home.

If you fish the Nestucca and are skunked, we have a saying: Nucked by the Festucca. We kinda nucked ourselves that day. For as long as we have boated together we have, to our recollection, never done anything really dumb. The day reminded that there are indeed two kinds of drift boaters; those who have done something dumb, and those who are gonna.

My buddy’s first thought? A couple of days later, I asked my buddy: What was your first thought when we launched your boat, and you were standing there with the line in your hand? The truth, he asked? The truth, I said. “I looked out at the boat in profile, oars nicely shipped, and I thought: that is one beautiful boat.”