Andy, Ryan, Mark and myself, had an opportunity to fish some unique water a few weeks ago. We gathered at the prescribed time, geared up and headed out for a bit of hiking on a wet but very well maintained trail. Our destination was a couple of miles away with a little off-trail scrambling into a deep canyon, lots of fun!
We arrived and started to rig up, a bit sweaty in the cool weather, hiking in waders does that, but of course Mark refuses to wear waders on small streams, water was crazy cold.
We all started to spank the water relentlessly! The water was gorgeous, clear, cold and fast!
I ended up with a couple of nicely marked ones to hand.
So here is where the story gets good, the flows were higher than I have ever seen them in this particular section and after just LDR’ing a somewhat decent size fish I decided to move over to the bank and give someone else a shot while I changed up my fly. I took a step backwards, lost my footing and started falling to my left, I put my left hand down to break may fall. Both feet ended up going out from under me and I landed full force on my hand and left elbow. When I got up out of the freezing cold water, I checked all my faculties, all seemed in good order I went to check my rod and that is when I noticed that my left pinky was pointing away from my hand at almost 90 degrees, not good! Sorry to disappoint, but I failed to photograph it!
It did not hurt as my hand was numb from the ice cold water, and probably the adrenaline. LOL! I showed it to the guys and asked for some help to straighten it back out as I thought it was only dislocated. NOT, really funny reactions! So I went ahead and pulled on it to straighten it out and reset it myself. I could feel it pop back into place, so I figured I was good to go. I continued on about my business for awhile longer until I realized that my pinky was not doing so well just hanging around. So I broke out my first aid kit and I taped it to the next finger as a splint took a couple of Tylenol and went on to fish the rest of the day.
Interesting shot of some fungus?
Ryan flogging the water.
No, the water is not that deep, Andy is just fishing from a more comfortable position!
As the day progressed my pinky was starting to complain a bit, but I just ignored it, we went on to have a pretty nice day of fishing, nothing spectacular to speak of, other than Bob blurting out some obscenities at a couple of fish that refused to accept his offerings!
All too soon it was time to head out, get some Mexican grub and part ways, all in all, a good day fishing some really nice water with really good people.
By the time I got home, my hand was swollen and black and blue. I just re-taped it up and slept on it.
I went to urgent care on Sunday morning and sure enough it was broken pretty good and the tendons were torn up, but the doc said I did a good job in resetting it. I went to an orthopedic surgeon on Monday and he said that the bone was split from top to bottom but there was nothing left to do but put in a stabilizing splint.
Went back last week, they took more Xrays and said the bone was aligning just fine. They have me exercising it but the pain is terrible when I do. Pain killers fix that quite nicely.
For the Record, this is the first time I have broken bone in my life! But when I consider all the things that CAN happen when you fall, especially in a steam, I consider myself quite lucky.
So, two trips this year, and two major incidents, Don’t go fishing with flybob!
Btw, typing is a B…….ch hence a low profile on the board for the last few weeks,
Hope you all are safe out there, and for the record, I now have a finger splint in my first aid kit….AWESOME!
I think all I need is a portable defibrillator and the kit will be complete!
Bob
That black and blue picture sure looks nasty tho.
