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What is the weirdest thing you've seen on a river trip?

12K views 71 replies 40 participants last post by  Tanaman 
#1 ·
Bonus points for photo evidence.

Yup... that's a severed pigs head.

Weird.
Water Boat Vehicle Sky Cloud
 
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#13 ·
Once, on Brown’s Canyon, below Zoom, I rounded the corner the see these two stunningly attractive blonde folks (one male one female) who looked like they were clipped out of a Polo catalog knee deep in the water, butt naked, fly fishing.
Personally, when I’m in the nude is the last time I need small metal hooks flying through the air.
 
#18 ·
Pulled into a very tight eddy in a kayak, only to see a rattlesnake on a rocky ledge close by my right elbow. It had a fish lodged longways in its mouth. The fish was too fat to go past the joint of the snake's jaws, and the slant of the snake's teeth evidently wouldn't let it let go.

Sat there for a surprised few moments, watching the snake shake its head violently back and forth trying to dislodge the fish. Promptly peeled out not wanting to be anywhere near an angry pit viper if it managed to dislodge the fish.

Rich Phillips
 
#19 ·
Pulled into a very tight eddy in a kayak, only to see a rattlesnake on a rocky ledge close by my right elbow. It had a fish lodged longways in its mouth. The fish was too fat to go past the joint of the snake's jaws, and the slant of the snake's teeth evidently wouldn't let it let go.

Sat there for a surprised few moments, watching the snake shake its head violently back and forth trying to dislodge the fish. Promptly peeled out not wanting to be anywhere near an angry pit viper if it managed to dislodge the fish.

Rich Phillips
I call bullshit, they don't make kayaks big enuf for your shall we say, large frame lol
 
#23 ·
Several years ago we were fly fishing on the Willamette upstream from Eugene/Springfield. Rounded a bend and saw a fellow hitting golf balls across the river with his buddy cheering him on. No big deal but kinda upset about littering the river with his balls. Then we look across the river/toward his target and we see a buck naked couple doing a very public 6-9. Looked like tweekers and they didn't seem to care about golf balls ricocheting around the rock ledge. Didn't phase them when we rowed right past them either. Ewh!
 
#26 ·
My brother and I were sea kayaking about 20 years ago on the Bitterroot from Lolo to Missoula. Hit the outskirts of Missoula and there was a couple in midstream, and she was bobbing up and down.
Sea kayaks are quiet.
We passed about 10 yards away from them when she let out a yelp! We paddled forward without craning our necks back. I assume they finished.

Something erotic about rivers, apparently!
 
#29 ·
I was working on a commercial trip on the Grand Canyon and we had a one boat motorized kayak support trip but one client who wanted to kayak the big water and two crew that wanted to join. We all left Havasu together in the afternoon and the S-rig went ahead to try and find the first available camp and our plan was to kayak and meet them there since the rest of the passengers were competent private butters and willing to help set up camp but doing a bucket list trip for the kayakers 50th birthday. We paddled and paddled and we passed camp after camp but did not find our group.

We were floating in towards Fern Glen in the twilight and resting as the current drug us towards the rapid and in the eddie above were two gorgeous river beauties knee-deep naked in the water bathing and they never saw us in till we were not more than 10 or 15 feet away. They were surprised and we all waved said hello and they went about their business but unfortunately they were not part of our group either. We kept paddling and finally found our group at the camp on the left just above the anvil above lava and got there about 730 or a bit after just as dusk was closing in. After a 20 mile afternoon paddle we were pretty spent and happy to be at camp as was the other crew member to have some help:)

I’m not going to win any awards on this thread but for the weirdest but it is a good river memory and some thing I don’t normally see every day.
 
#32 ·
Guiding a Lower Kern trip in So Cal back in the late 1980's, I had a family with kids in my paddle boat. As we got close to Delohnega Hot Springs I could see it was full of a bunch of dudes. The hot springs was often full of bikers and kind of rough groups from Bakersfield since it was accessible from the highway, so we were used to staying on the far side of the river and distracting our crews so they wouldn't pay attention to the people in the hot springs. I spotted one dude with a ball gag in his mouth and then as we floated past him he stood up and waved his naked ass at us, proudly showing off the big old butt plug he had up there. The family didn't see him, but the other guides and I did. We all called for a hard forward to distract the crews and get the hell out of if there. I was pretty young and had never even heard about stuff like that but after freaking out a bit we laughed about that all summer long. None of us ever visited the hot springs.
 
#34 ·
Not so much weird as amazing.

We were sitting in camp one night in GC and we watched a mature ram come down across the river. He went up to a blooming agave and started battering it with his head. When he got to the point where the stalk was weakened enough, he hooked one of his horns over it, pulled it down horizontal, and proceeded to eat the blooms.

This was in the pre-digital era; I sure wish I could have recorded that.

Rich Phillips
 
#36 ·
I had a big black bear swim right in front of my boat about 2 miles down from Sand Wash many years ago.

Another big black bear just sitting in an eddy river right about 2 miles down from Sand Island last August. I had assured a newbie that she didnt need to bring her gun because there were no bears on the San Juan. We had to float within 30 feet of the thing. I still get shit for that one.

On the Ark there is a local couple that likes (or used to) to run zoom flume naked. They typically run at off times to avoid crowds and I guess they like to give the photographer a show. We were taking a bunch of outward bound kids (10-12 year olds) and had stopped for an early lunch at Zoom Flume Beach before the typicall all day lunch rush. We would typically point out boats running the rapid to customers so they could see others run the rapid. Well one of us saw the first boat over the horizon and told all the kids to watch. Of course it was the nudists and the kids were petrefied and the counselors scrambling to distract them.
 
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