Bad Vibes on remote waters ?

[dryflyguy]

The Delaware certainly has more than its share of weird happenings for sure!

My worst encounter up there happened on the west branch just below the island and sharp bend on the lower end of the Delaware River club property.
Real nice hole there along the big rock cliff. It needs to be fished from the NY side, which I access from the old methodist camp property. And cross over in the riffle just below it.

There was a nasty old coot who lived in one of the houses on the other side And he harassed me big time, just about every time I fished there for a few years
He'd yell and scream, calling me every name in the book. Telling me to get back over to the PA side of the river, and quit catching NY fish.
This was when we had to display our license, and he knew where I was from.

Then, last time I ran into him there, a drift boat came down. And he started to scream at the guide too, who yelled back, telling him to "Kiss his a$$". And gave him the finger.

That really got the old guy riled up then, and he headed for his house, saying he was coming back with his gun.
That was enough for me, and I beat it out of there.
No fishing worth getting shot at, if I can help it.

Fishing there the following year, I went up near that spot
But was really apprehensive about crossing over again.
Then I looked over, and saw the people in the next house downstream of his, outside working on their deck.
And decided to go over and talk with them first, before trying to fish.

They told me that the old man passed away that winter, and I could fish there in peace now.

 

[wbranch]

Speaking of long eddy, had some bad experiences there. Big shaved head dude on 4 wheeler pulled up right next to my driver side mirror as I backed over the tracks. "What's up p***y?" then turned the 4 wheeler and pelted me with a rooster tail of gravel. When I yelled, other dude on foot stepped out in the yard with a AR slung across his belly. "leave, you're not welcome". Don't know if it was real or airsoft as it was 11pm or so.

If you parked on the gravel by the tracks, they'd have your car towed to impound in Margaretville! If you aren't familiar, it's like parking on Penns and your car is towed to Harrisburg. Think there was an incident where an angler pulled a pistol and troopers responded. Pre-covid, they'd park cars, lawn tractor and other things on the ramp so you could not access ramp. Came to a head when they got a front end loader to put up a highway barrier across the ramp. They stranded several boats that evening. Couple weeks later, I called DEC officer on my 3 hour drive up and he was actually standing on the ramp with the property owner. I heard the officer in the background say..."Do I make myself perfectly f*****g clear. If I come back again, no conversation, straight to jail". Since then, no issues.

Awesome account of a crappy situation! I have friends that won't fish certain places along the Susquehanna unless they are carrying.

 

[cuboodle]

I had a strange evening while trying to camp along Big Pine creek years ago.
It was at a designated state forest camp site located a short distance downstream of Slate Run village.

I prepared my bedding to sleep in the back of my truck as usual, and crawled inside to go to sleep.
Shortly afterward, I felt something scurry across my chest.
Flipping a light on, found that a mouse had gotten inside the back of my truck.

Getting rid of it turned out to be a major chore.
Ended up pretty much pulling everything out of the back of the truck to finally get the little devil out.

Put everything back, and finally got settled back in after midnight.

Just as I was starting to nod off, a weird scraping noise started underneath the truck.
Got up and took a look under neath. Found a porcupine, and his quills were scraping the undercarriage
every time he moved. And it wouldn't leave.

I got a stick and kept prodding it. Finally getting it out from underneath, and shooed it away.
Or so I thought.

Shortly after trying to get back to sleep, the scraping started again.
And sure enough, porky was back.
Guess he either like it under there, or was trying to get into the truck.

It was like 3 AM by now, and I had enough.
After prodding the critter out from underneath again, I got out of there.
And spent what was left of the night at a pull off along slate run road

Gotta watch those porkypines they chewed my buddies transmission line in half we were stuck along the Kinzua for a few extra days.