I’d spent three days on the lower part of the river and the next two days were to be fishing the upper portion.
Day 5: Click on the first photo to open the gallery
The first day on the Upper, day four on the river saw us leaving a truck at Billy’s cabin and then heading up the tote road as far as Birch Run; it’s an easier place to put in at than pull out from.
The landscape is steeper up this far, and typically there are fewer bears; often we see none when I am along. Today we saw five. I saw one stand up in the bushes across the river from Billy’s cabin when I slammed the truck door and startled it. It stared at me for a moment and then dropped down and disappeared. We also saw a sow and her three cubs, but it was at the end of the day and on the way out in the trucks.
The fishing was better than expected; typically the upper seems harder to get fish and there are fewer per net set than on the lower….but the fish are so few this year in the lower that the upper seemed easier by comparison. We did well, well enough that we kept doing sets right until the lowest set spots here we might have otherwise not.
I think today’s amusing moment was when we drove out from the site after pulling all the tubes up the bank and into the transport tank. Still a fair ways in, we came around a corner to see about six people standing in the bushes at the side of the road. They shot us some dirty looks….presumably they were annoyed at the noise because they were looking for bears. They did not have a guide with them, and two or three of them were seniors. It seemed a bit brave to be wandering up here…their Escalade (not really a good truck for the road conditions…) was a good kilometre back. Personally I wouldn’t be that far from my truck, without a guide….
The amusing part was that just a few hundred feet and just across the river from where their truck was….where they were nowhere near…were four bears – Mama and her three cubs.
Blair stopped the truck and I hopped out to snap a couple of photos through the trees. Mama didn’t like our presence and climbed over a log with two of her cubs trailing behind. The third cub was too engrossed in eating a fish and didn’t notice his family vacate the area. When he looked up and realized he was alone he ran back and forth on the gravel bawling for Mum before eventually figuring out which way they went and clambered over the log in the right direction.
