On June 9, 2008, Lou Verdugo, Caddis Shop employee, and a few of his friends were on the Deschutes River. They put in at Trout Creek and took out at Harpham Flat on June 13, 2008. The trip began around noon on Monday. In about 15 minutes the fishing was on! Fish were seen rising below Trout Creek Rapids and several nice fish were taken on Norm Woods Specials and Kaufmann stimulator’s. Eddy fishing was at it’s best on the Deschutes for the entire week. Caddis emergers, crippled caddis, PMD’s, and stimulators were all working well.
On June 11, 2008 Lou’s trip was dealing with survivors and rescuing gear of a boat wreck on OS rock on Whitehorse rapids. The good news; no one was injured, however, a dog that was aboard survived and was still at large on the reservation side of the river. Lou’s group was also witness to a something that not many folks get to observe: a boat salvage operation by Mark Angel. The pictures below do not depict the danger of Mark Angel’s work.
From a profile on Angel from Outside magazine:
Over 35 years, the 63-year-old Angel, who plies his trade on the rivers of the Northwest, has seen boulders three feet thick float over his head, snapped the 14,000-pound-test ropes he uses when salvaging boats, and rarely come up empty-handed. He uses scuba gear from the sixties and seventies, he says, because newer equipment isn’t right for the task, and, so he can always move freely, he never uses a safety line. “A normal scuba diver would be killed in the first few seconds,” says Angel, who’s been diving rivers since he was seven. “I was in my thirties before I realized no one else really did this.”
There is also a YouTube video of the wreck:
we wrecked on whitehorse it is really scary. i hope you all were safe and pulled out in time and there were no serious injuries