“One must be out-of-doors enough to get the experience of wholesome reality, as a blast of thought and sentiment. Health requires relaxation, this aimless life.” - Henry David Thoreau
The other night I got a call from an old friend I hadn’t heard from in multiple decades. We hunted and fished years ago when we were both working on the electrification of the rural southwest in Arizona.
We had both migrated back to the South over the next few fleeting years, and in that slow moving migration back home, we had somehow managed to lose track and connection.
Our long conversation caught us up, and at the same time, took us both to an earlier time.
It was this drift back in time that made me recollect one of the more memorable fishing trips we endured.
There had been many trips in search of doves and quail and other denizens of the desert, but when Chris asked if I remembered the trip into Apache country, this one particular trip, came back like a bolt of lightning.
Talking up hunting and fishing trips was something we spent a considerable amount of time on. Planning future trips was a therapeutic kind of thing when the daily summer heat eclipsed 112 degrees. We discussed upcoming trips to escape to the high country constantly. It was our main diversion to prepare us mentally to survive the brutal heat of the desert summer. They say it’s a dry heat, but it’s a brutal, killing heat when you can see the high country off in the shimmering mirage where the mountains meet the desert in the far distance.
One day Chris’s best friend Steve, showed up to one of our work related “expedition therapy” sessions. He was carrying a five year old copy of a Field and Stream magazine that touted Arizona’s Black River as the premier smallmouth bass fishery in all of the Southwest. The author called the Black; “one of the last of the few unspoiled streams in the whole state”. That in itself was enough for us to start a hard core session of “talking up” an expedition.
We rapidly escalated to scouring available maps, looking for an access to this mystery of a river and found that the Apache Indian Nation had adroitly, many years hence, negotiated almost total control of this wild river. After many years of “manifest destiny” and war with the Apache, a very serious and dedicated band of Apache braves had fought the US Calvary and General Bear Coat Miles to a standstill for good reason.
Apache country, and what appeared on our available maps to be greater than 60 miles of dirt roads, were the only enticement we needed to fall into further furious planning. Our maps appeared to indicate that we were a mere six or seven hours west of this pristine river abundant with five pound smallmouth bass. That’s about all it took for us to slip into “road trip” mode.
Without hesitation, we abandon our young families and loaded gear sailing east for Apache Reservation permits and a decent map rendered by locals. Before entering the Reservation we stopped briefly in the cooper mining town of Globe for a family sized plastic gallon jug of tequila and feeling properly provisioned, we entered Apache lands, following some geographical style , but a little hazy, directions from a friendly Apache Agent.
We tooled onto what was conservatively 70 miles of badly rutted, cow infested, dusty, sign-less red road. One gallon of tequila somehow seemed appropriate gear when entering Apache country.
Armed with a new map, the prospect of getting lost in this new country didn’t seem to be much of an issue as darkness fell. With a scorching hot sunset setting behind our navigator, he estimated we had another 20 or so miles before we reached our base camp.
Somewhere around eleven o’clock we decided we were in the right location. We rolled out a tarp on a mesa that we figured might give us access to the steep river’s canyon trail at daylight.
One other group of campers was nestled nearby under the scrub pines, on the edge of the high canyon wall overlooking the river, so we ambled over to their fire and asked if we were close to the Black.
They said we had hit the nail on the head, but they nervously advised us that they had spent the previous part of the evening, below on the rivers’ edge. That part of the evening had seen them rousted by a large she bear and her two yearling cubs. The “old sow” had chased them up the trail to the top of the mesa after ravaging their camp. This rout allowed these campers to salvage only a few sleeping bags, flashlights and other odds and ends and they appeared to be more than very relieved to see us. They said they hadn’t seen anyone in days, just bears.
We immediately administered large amounts of tequila from our big plastic container in order to soothe what was left of their shattered nerves.
It was a hot July night, and the coyotes howled in the dark wilderness as we settled in for the potential of a bear filled and fitful slumber under a full Apache moon. We silently wondered to ourselves if a 357 would actually stop the angry mother bear in the wilds of the White Mountain Apache Reservation.
At dawn, we descended into the bear filled, river canyon with the shaken backpackers and surveyed the disaster that had once been their comfortable riverside campsite. The camp was totally trashed.
We left them to nervously salvage their badly mauled leftovers and drifted downstream cautiously to discover the Black Rivers’ phenomenal smallmouth fishing. We never saw another soul.
The “Black” was, and still probably is, one of the finest examples of pristine aquatic environments I’ve ever experienced. The water was crystal clear and absolutely full of life. The smooth rocks were blanketed with aquatic life. Stoneflies, caddisflies, hellgrammites and black flies flourished in every riffle. The clear surface of the river was dimpled with rising hatches and feeding fish of all sizes. Bass were visible in every pool and run.
Flocks of crayfish scuttled about our feet like ants. With every rock we turned over the stream became a veritable buffet of bass food. Bear tracks were on the sandbars as if the river was some backwoods bruin highway. No human foot print had been down this river since the last rainstorm. We had the river to ourselves, as long as the bears deemed it agreeable.
Chris’s trip planning always included new gear. He seemed to be some sort of high level gadget collector and an avid impulse buyer when it came to most hunting and fishing trips.
This trip he had proudly adorned himself with what he called his “High Dollar Fishing Vest.” This vest consisted of 42 plus pockets and one of those little breast pocket patches of sheep fur where a dude could stick multiple little fishing flies at the ready.
Chris had stuffed this little patch of sheep fur full of spinning lures adorned with treble hooks designed to capture smallmouth bass. With every bass he caught, he proclaimed the veritable magic of the “High Dollar Vest”.
We rapidly discovered that crayfish were the food of the day for the bass on the Black. Collecting these crustaceans was a simple as chasing one under a rock. Grabbing them was as simple as bending over and kicking them out like waterborne locusts.
We fished downriver slowly. During lunch we compared five pound bass as culls. The three of us caught and released hundreds of quality bass, many times hooking three bass simultaneously in the same pool. We ate a shore lunch of filets while lounging on a wide sand bar covered in numerous footprints of heavy bears.
Following lunch, Steve and I fished slightly ahead of Chris, and after an hour or so had transpired, we looked up to see Chris stumbling towards us with a look that registered as a considerable amount of pain.
We could see something had definitely gone wrong with his left arm since he was holding it at a rather awkward angle. When we inquired what happened, he told us that he had been setting the hook on a monster bass and in setting the hook, he had driven the fleshy side of his forearm into his furry patch of treble hooks on the “High Dollar Fishing Vest.”
He had managed to sink one particular lure’s hook deep into his arm and it was buried almost out of sight. He couldn’t get his arm loose from the patch of fur, or the lure. Sweat was pouring from his brow like a small rain storm and his arm was bleeding rather profusely, all down the front of the “High Dollar Vest”.
Steve and I quickly surveyed the situation and carefully decided that this little incident with the “Vest” called straight away for some “nerve medicine” and a session of “close order, physician style consultation”.
We dug the half empty jug of tequila out of my pack and worked on Chris’s nerves. The lure was sliced out of the patch of fur with as much finesse as possible. But, it was clear that steady hands were going to be needed before we moved forward.
With the lure now dangling from his bleeding forearm, free of the vest, we returned to the “jug” for a short while. Steve and I debated our next options, carefully and methodically.
The most plausible option appeared to be just simply cutting the hook off at the bend, leaving the point with the barb in the arm. Then we would simply hike back to the truck and drive to the nearest emergency room for some professional hook extraction.
The fishing was just too good for this option, and in a rousing 2 to 1 vote we vetoed option number 1 with no sidebars needed. With this decisive veto out of the way, we immediately returned to the jug and another option.
Option number 2; Was to wrap the bend of the hook with some stout nylon cord and just yank the hook out of the arm using a liberal amount of brute force. Steve and I liked this option pretty well. It seemed quick enough and relatively easy and we could all get right back to the bass fishing, right after we stopped the massive arterial bleeding. We decided we’d just lash Chris to a tree and then we’d just get a good grip on the cord and just yank the hook free. Nothing to it.
Chris looked somewhat shaken as we explained option number 2. He quickly rooted around in the “High Dollar Vest” and produced a snub nosed 38.
We immediately moved on to option number 3. Steve and I visited the jug once more and thought things over while Chris eyed us nervously, fondling the 38.
We soon settled on cutting the hook at the bend and then decided that pushing the hook through the skin might be our best option. Then we would just grab the barb with some handy forceps from the vest and pull the hook out with little to no damage.
We all agreed that this option would actually work and after cutting the hook at the bend and watching the beads of sweat explode from Chris’s face, we decided to sterilize the wound and the forceps using the rapidly dwindling supply of cactus juice.
Pushing the hook point through the fleshy part of the forearm sounded easy until we actually started this highly technical procedure. The hook just wasn’t sharp enough to easily penetrate the skin with any appreciable amount of authority. Steve and I had to apply tremendous amounts of pressure with the forceps, to no avail.
After about the third failed attempt, Chris was moaning and turning white as a sheet. Steve and I quietly conferred and we decided that about two more tries and old Chris would just pass out any way. And, then we’d just rip the damn thing out and get back to fishing. We immediately applied more anesthesia.
Another failed attempt to drive the hook through and we just about had the boy weak kneed and delirious. Chris then decided that we would have to cut. He would hold the forceps and Steve was elected to take our sharpest knife, slice the skin so the point of the hook was exposed. Then, we’d take the forceps and grab the hook by the sharp end and just rip it on out.
Steve selected our sharpest blade, stropped it on a gun belt, and we all hit the jug one good “three fingered bubble”. Then we sterilized the filet knife and the forceps and wiped the river of sweat from our faces.
Chris was sweating bullets as I pushed down on the forceps around the point of the deeply imbedded hook and Steve sliced the quivering forearm. Chris had taken a good bite on a belt and we worked like a team of Mayo Clinic specialists. Chris expounded at length with a much different opinion of our newfound skills, as he ground his teeth through the gun belt like a pit bull crunching down on a stray alley cat.
After a rather unusual amount of sawing with the knife, we finally spotted the hook point and barb. We applied tequila to both the wound and the victim. We weren’t sure if the glassy look in his eyes were from pain, or the liberal amount of anesthesia, but we plunged the forceps into the bleeding hole and yanked the hook free much to everyone’s relief.
We washed up in the river and wrapped the bottom half of Chris’s T-shirt around the bleeding forearm with duct tape, poured on some more cactus juice, and let the heeling fluid take it’s course.
Steve and I congratulated ourselves concerning our newly found surgical skills like we were both young Dr. Frankenstein. It hadn’t exactly been open heart surgery, but we figured with a few more pulls on the big jug we could handle any thing short of simple lobotomies, or maybe a knee replacement.
We fished a couple of more miles of the river before canyon light waned and the fishing was tremendous. Negotiating the river became somewhat of a challenge after the liberal amount of anesthesia we had used during surgery, but we managed to get back to camp without a near miss from any blood trailing bears.
Chris healed rapidly. We attributed this dramatic recovery to the medicinal properties of the tequila and the deft hands of the new surgeons. The huge she bear that terrorized the back packers on the banks of the Black never materialized in our camp.
In the warped retrospect of the years that have sped by, we probably should have opted for an emergency room, or maybe at least, an Apache Shaman.
But that is the kind of river the Black is. That’s the kind of logic we used back when we could catch a smallmouth bass on almost every cast. Especially when you’re using tequila and a dull filet knife for cutting on somebody else’s forearm, deep in Apache country.
A WOMR note; One positive reader commented that some of these stories are heavy on the past. I guess that’s got some truth to it, but it’s not something that I feel necessary to run from. A version of this same story was posted in the Chattanoogan some 20 plus years ago. It’s a retread of sorts, but turkey season has started and I’ve been too busy to be anything other than a little lazy lately.
The other day I ran across this quote on the Writers Almanac that somehow touched a nerve; “I want to live other lives. I’ve never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” - Anne Tyler
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“We hunt and fish because we can. Don’t lose that thought.”