Dreams are always better than reality

Ken Korenek and I became acquainted because of the death of a mutual friend. I was asked to be a Pall bearer at the funeral of John Williamson. John died while on a trip here in May of 2008. He crashed his plane at an airstrip near here.

I have not owned a suit since I was 16 years old. Don't need one, don't want one. The funeral was in Arlington Texas, and the logistical aspect of this was fairly daunting. Ken and his family took me in, took care of me, rented a suit for me, bought a pair of shoes for me to wear, gave me a place to stay, made sure that I got to the right place. He and I liked each other at first contact. I of course told him of the Rock House and Oregon, and he read my blog. I invited him here to see the area, and this year he decided to fly up and visit JW's crash site, and join the fly-in. He had two goals- to fish in the river and to go hawking.

The Hawking was easy and can be read in an earlier post. After we got back from Hawking, we loaded up the Quads with the fishing poles and headed out. John Hauck took Boyd Young on his Quad while Ken and I got on mine to hit my favorite fishing hole.

It is seven miles on a two track road down into the Owyhee Canyon on the Quads. It is a bit late in the year for really good fishing, but Ken said that he would be happy just to stand in the river and not hear civilization.

Well we could do better than that. The Small Mouth Bass are small, but they are tasty.

Ken has little chance or experience fishing, and got hung up on some rocks with the lure. I showed him how to get it free, and in jest, told him he was on his own. He took me seriously and the next time he got snagged, he tried to get it off. He wisely gave me his camera and watch just in case. It was a very good thing.

Once I decided that he wasn't going to drown, I remembered his camera.

Unfortunately he hit something sharp on his way out and cut his shin pretty good, as well as bruised his shin. Of course we rassed him a lot more than we should, but he was a good sport and took it well.

We caught enough fish to feed eight people a very good meal.

Today he flew for two and half hours and got to see some scenery different from Texas. Tomorrow he has to go home and back to work. Perhaps he will get a chance to spend enough time to perfect his wading technique.