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Below are some fishing photos, and you can see they had a good time. The grayling were good-sized, and the fight was good. What else could a fisherman want? Well, a reasonable one, anyway. I know they all always want larger fish, and it would be nice to get to eat one or two of them, but I guess you can't have everything.
Want proof? Now isn't that a cute grin??? Now this grin is a true grin, and looks like it. However, they do not always look that way.
In fact, here is another from this trip, below. This is a grin. That is not a grimace, he is having a great time. It could be misconstrued by some as a grimace, or a quizzical look, or several other things, I imagine. It still looks cute to me, but then I have been known to be a bit prejudiced where he is concerned.
Such a smile...
The
airboat that provided transportation for them is a very big one named The boys were shocked to hear what had happened, and spent much of the day reading newspaper accounts and watching reports on television. A
very large airboat like this is good in many respects, as it is more
stable, and it can carry more people and equipment; but there are also
some things that are more of a problem on this river. Here are photos to illustrate. In this first photo on the right you can see large logs lying on the gravel bars - gravel bars are very prevalent in the river, and in addition to large logs like this, large tree roots and limbs of every size are also thrown up on the bars. Because the river has so many curves, and does not travel a straight distance for more than a few feet, they do not flow out at the end, nor do they have anywhere else to go; they are simply thrown up on gravel everywhere, or lying right in the riverbed where the water is very shallow. The problem is that
these large logs, when breakup In fact, I know exactly where this log jam is... I recognize it from two or three years ago. Jim had to actually climb out onto it (toward the left of the photo) and cut out a bunch of wood on the way upriver - this is the log jam that shifted and caught the chainsaw blade inside a log he was cutting. We had to use the come-along to get it out and finish cutting. Then when we came back down the river the approach was different, and he had to cut out a lot more wood to get through. Four years ago, flooding diverted the entire path of the river right through a heavily wooded area, due to log jams, and now that area is also creating increasingly large log jams as the banks give way each spring during breakup. In addition to the log jams, "sweepers" are encountered each year. Trees right on the edge of the bank whose roots are disturbed during breakup, that lean over the river, some actually near the water surface, or even just barely below. For safety, they all need to be cut away. So... for this a small airboat would be easier. However, that is not the only consideration, and in Ron's case, as in Jim's, a large airboat is needed more than the smaller, lightweight ones, so that is what they bought. One last photo... when they checked the gravel bar the final morning in camp, they found they'd had a "night visitor." Fortunately he was quiet, and he did not bother anything. Jim has never seen this grizzly bear, but he has been there for many years. He sees the tracks, bits of hair left on things, and that's about it. The bear seems to just check to make sure he approves - or at least does not object to anything being done, and then goes his own way. He appears to be very large from the deep impression in the mud that his track left. There has been no rain for more than a week, but it is deeeeep!
Copyright 2001, Alaska Internet
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By the way, that is a
grin on Don's face. For some reason, both of them have a
stern look when their faces are at rest. When I first met Jim I had
a terrible time trying to figure out when he was frowning or upset,
because there is little difference in his face than when he is not.
Now there are two like that! And, because of that, sometimes a grin
looks more like a grimace. But they were really having a great
time. 
the "Mothership."
As it arrived to take them home, in honor of the victims of the terrorist
attack, it rounded the bend
of the river below Jim's camp sporting a large American flag fluttering in the
wind. 
comes,
end up in a situation such as you see in this second photo - a very large
log jam. In this case, you can see that the larger the boat, the more wood
that must be cut from a log jam. And, this might not be so important
except that this certainly is not the only large log jam on this section
of river, nor is it the largest. 
