Late this afternoon my friend Kevin calls me up and talks me into going with him to the Pere Marquette River. It’s always an adventure when he and I get together, because when I’m around disasters always seem to happen. We never quite know what will unfold.

Things started out fairly quiet. We got into a great hatch and each landed several nice trout. Kevin, as always, out-fished me and landed one more trout than I did.. I saw a deer run along the riverbank where I was fishing- was gorgeous! The mosquitos were awful, and I still REEK of bug spray. Then things got interesting..

Around 10 we started heading back upstream about 20 yards apart, fishing as we went. We paused for a moment and I swore I heard something in the woods. Something big. Let me set the stage here.. We are WAY out in the middle of nowhere. It is dark out. Very dark. Here we are both standing in the middle of the river and I kid you not, whatever is in the woods is seriously walking directly toward me. I look over at Kevin, and I can barely see him standing there, frozen, staring in the direction of the sound..

“oh my gosh, a bear is walking toward me and I have nothing to defend myself with other than my flyrod.. I’m going to get eaten..”

Then we hear a growl. Not like a dog growl mind you, this was a very low repetitive growl mixed with almost a huffing sound. I’m sitting there thinking “oh my gosh, a bear is walking toward me and I have nothing to defend myself with other than my flyrod, I’m going to get eaten..” Then I hear almost a squealing sound- Bear cubs!! The growling and squealing went on for several minutes as they walked closer. We estimate they must have walked up to within 15 yards from us, grunting, growling, and squealing to each other the whole time. Being out there with a bear is not cool. Being out there with a bear that will gladly kill me defending her cubs is just totally NOT cool. Its about the most uncool thing i can think of.. Needless to say we were slightly concerned. They walked along the river toward Kevin, and crossed the river 20 yards or so upstream of him - right toward the trail that we now have to walk back on… Great..

The trail back to the truck goes through the woods about a half mile. Lets just say we were slightly concerned about walking it back, especially since the bears appeared to be going in that direction. We didn’t exactly know what else to do, so we took our chances. Armed with our flyrods and Kevin’s small flashlight (I forgot mine), we walked as loudly and quickly as possible. We made our way back to the truck without incident, very happy to have remained uneaten..

What an adventure! Now I’m off to take a shower and wash off this awful bug spray!

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