Nice pics,Looks like low water allright.

Wow, you sure are living the dream out there, looks like gods country. Do you guys ever carry spare impellers or other parts on long trips like that?

What a adventure I'm sure you had a great time even if you got caught on sand or gravel bars.
A friend once said to always have a drift sock in the boat with a 100' rope to toss in to help get unstuck so to speak, do you think that would work there ?
The walleye fishing looks like just catching them would be a highlight until you shared the scenic pictures.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Allan

Epic adventure! Thanks for sharing.

Pete

It's definitely a pleasure and in some ways an honour to travel with Floyd, but don't tell him I said that.

We discussed many a strategy while levering those boats off shallow gravel bars. The "drag bag" idea came up and we agreed it might help but you'd need a quick release on it so you could collapse the bag or else get dragged down river. Also thought an air bag you could inflate under a grounded boat would work, or just hauling a good old jack. But in the end our heavy duty maple paddles worked as levers and we inserted poles under the boats as slides. Also key was putting the boat broadside in the current as the force of the water helped push the boat towards deeper water.

I broke down way back upriver. I had two spare fuel pumps but it ended up not being one of them. Boat would fire briefly then shut down. We had to tow the boat at high speed to get out of the shallow root river, took a day. Then had to float down the McKenzie river for one day to extract the boat at Wrigley. Luckily we were travelling in more than one boat and it all turned out but just goes to show you never know. The engine only has 60 hours on it.

The drift sock I have has a nylon strap that attaches to the point so when you want to retrieve it it's fairly easy to get back into the boat.
My thought would be a second smaller diameter rope with a float tied on so when you wanted to bring it in the ropes wouldn't be all tangled up into a real big mess.
They certainly slow down the boat while trolling in the lakes around here, I've not taken the boat over to the Missouri River Breaks to try it out.
That's one heck of a bull buffalo also they are a fun animal to hunt.
Allan

Awesome scenery! Must have been fun!

Great Pics as usual Brian!

Greetings. i've just returned from the lodge and a work bee. As mentioned my bridges and cable cars were blown out in some record waters conditions a few weeks ago. My cable car and ramps got wiped out by a floating tree. The water level raised at least four feet which is incredible on a flood plane.

Another interesting thing is I had my cable car cables attached to two spruce trees on one side of the water, and to my rock crib and poles on the other. My cribbed poles bent over but hung on, even though the tree was snagged on their side, but the two spruce trees were ripped out by their roots.




I'm not saying my job is stronger then Mother Natures...but the facts speak for themselves.

I crossed the river in my argo and we drifted quite a ways in the fast current before grabbing some bottom. Made things interesting.




You could tell from the height of the grass that we hadn't been able to get in for a while. My brother in law cut grass for over 28 hours over three days to get it under control. Used an amazing made in the US trimmer that was a real beast. On three wheels and uses the heaviest whipper snip cable available. Great for knocking down thick wet grass.

Meanwhile I scouted out a location for my new cable car setup. The flood had changed the flow of water and I now had a spot where I could cross that would eliminate crossing one additional channel, so that was good. In fact the creek was narrower but deeper. I started cutting up logs to build the crib that would hold my cables on the lodge side. The argo hauled the timbers around like nothing.



On the other side of the river I had two large poplar trees i could hook my cables on. I decided to not place my support poles in an upward position. Instead I leaned them away from the river. My thoughts were I could then build an additional support, creating a triangle, which is very strong.




I built the crib then placed the uprights inside on an angle. It was a tough job getting them in by myself but I got them up on Argo rack then tipped them in. My brother-in-law broke his back 30 years ago and isn't even supposed to be walking so I avoid asking him to help.

Once the logs were in place I levered them under the base log for support and then nailed a couple cross pieces in to hold them the right distance apart. Then we filled the base in with rocks as high as bottom cross piece before nailing in multiple cross pieces on the rest of the way up. Once the base was full of rocks they bear down on the cross pieces supporting the uprights, rock solid ( forgive the pun)