Up really early today, left the cabins at 7:05AM, 38 degrees. AM’s trip odometer shows 1340.8 miles thus far, JR’s shows 1312.8 miles.

GK, MS, JR & AM have drift trips set up with Linehan’s Oufitters today. The plan today was to drift fish the upper Kootenai River from the dam downstream. GK/MS have a whole day scheduled and JR/AM have a ½-day trip scheduled. Turning south off the Yaak River Road, we take the So. Fork Yaak River road this morning from Yaak to Libby. (We subsequently nickname this road "Deer Alley") The road is blacktopped, narrow, mountainous and no center white line. It’s approximately 40 miles from Yaak to Libby and we’d allowed 45 minutes for the trip….ha!

Within the first few minutes of the trip we had a half dozen deer run in front of our vehicle, then we spotted an elk. AB was on the CB warning JR, following in the Jeep about the next group of deer about to assault our vehicle. These weren’t like your regular "around the house" deer, they were kamikaze deer, they flew at you from all directions, constantly.

We only saw one or two vehicles coming from the opposite direction, but one was memorable. An older white GMC pickup in the oncoming lane, pretty normal, until a 2-point buck jumped directly in front of the truck….20 yards ahead of us…. The truck driver couldn’t avoid the deer and hit it directly in the center of his grill. The deer bounced, ran and jumped into the brush on the far side of the road. The truck?….it had steam coming out of the grill.

Well…. Going slow just went to crawling down the road.   AB decided to tell the deer where we would be returning so he marked the road area to keep them away - maybe it will work?

We avoided a few more deer when we finally saw the Hwy. 37 junction ahead. You could hear the relief in the car….Whew…..that was one of the hairiest rides any of us had ever been on!!

Pulling into Mac’s Market, an hour & a half later the guys met MS/GK’s guide, Steve Shaw for a full day float. MS & GK were first to leave with their guide, with AM & JR planning to leave an hour later for their half-day float. A few minutes after MS left, JR realized he’d left his keys in the Jeep and Mike had taken off after he, Mike, had locked the Jeep. @#%$&*! AM suggested we could catch MS before they launched & we took off to catch up with them. On the way we drove around another dead deer in the middle of the road. Just as Steve was about to launch the boat we pulled up honking. JR got his keys and we raced back to Mac’s to meet AM/JR’s guide, Sean McAfee . AM/JR loaded up, uneventfully and they were off.

Each group took a radio to communicate with AB who was going to go upriver later and explore the accesses to the Fisher River.

While the gang was out on the river, AB took the van to Libby and had some more of those great Wild Huckleberry Pancakes at the Libby Café. Then a quick stop at the Libby Sports Shop for a new fly line. The previous 10 days fishing had destroyed his old 5 wt line. Back at Mac’s AB installed the new fly line, cleaned all the used flies out of his fishing vest pockets then took off to explore the Fisher River.

About halfway to the Fisher on Hwy. 37 along the Kootenai AB spotted a 2-point buck standing just outside the guard rail about a half block ahead. I slowed from 45 to 20 mph. As I approached the buck, he looked right at me. I didn’t trust him so I slowed to 10mph. Just as I approached the deer he jumped over the guard rail 10’ in front of the vehicle, then stopped, turned and ran full speed between the van and the guard rail! These deer are NUTS!

I finally reached the Fisher River, made a few calls on the radio, no response from either boat. I drove up the Fisher and found several good-looking sections of water. I was also interested in the confluence of the Fisher and the Kootenai, that area looked really good. After a bit of looking around I found an old abandoned RR track that appeared to go in a direction that would get me to the river. I walked the rusted tracks thru an area of high rock cliffs…..thinking….this area looks pretty snakey! Eventually I came to a RR bridge over the Fisher that had a fisherman’s trail underneath that lead to the river confluences. It was about a ¼ mile away. I checked my watch and realized I didn’t have time to walk back to the van for my gear and get back to the river with much time to fish, so I headed back to Mac’s Market to meet up with the guys.

AM & JR had another great drift trip on the Kootenai. JR had hooked a 4lb. monster Rainbow! Sean, their guide, was a middle school teacher (8th grade science and math)in Libby. He grew up in Troy, Montana State at Bozeman, and came back to teach in Libby. He did guiding during the summer and weekends. Felt the kids needed responsible role models. There is a meth problem in Libby and Troy and it apparently is growing. The fishing was great as usual – I think JR did very well on the fish – AM was OK on the rises but had the yips when it comes to solid hook-ups. Sean did a great job for us, putting us over a lot of fish!! We were tired going into the day so a ½ day trip was just about right for JR and AM.

Off to the Libby Café for lunch where JR ordered the "Big Foot", a 1 pound hamburger on a foot long bun….it was HUGE! And he ate it! Met up with MS/GK a couple hours later. MS had caught over 20 fish & GK over 15 nice Rainbows. (Greg, Mike add some words about your trip here.) (Guide tells old man in an aluminum boat not to leave wakes!! Starts a verbal sparing match)

GK/MS had dinner at the Treasure Mountain Casino while AB & AM worked to strangle a profit out of the poker machines. AM is way up and decides he’s on a roll…busted! AB follows…busted!

Left Libby and decided not to take "Deer Alley" back to Yaak. Instead we’d take the "safer" Hwy. 37 to Troy and the Yaak River Road back to Yaak. There were scads of deer on this road also. We hadn’t seen a deer in 10 minutes and AM speculated that the aliens had landed and took them all, one minute later 5 deer ran in front of the car! So much for aliens.

8:10PM, AM is driving in an area where the side of the road dropped quickly down a steep grassy bank. AB is glued on the road ahead looking for deer when suddenly AB looks out the passenger side window to be staring directly into the eyes of a 3-point buck. The buck had ran up the hill, crested the hilltop and damn near ran right into the van!!! The buck turned at the last second, 12" from AB’s nose and ran down the side of the van. JR said as he tried to cut around the back corner of the van he hit his back leg and sprawled in the middle of the road…..then jumped up and ran into the woods.

We stopped for a photo of Sylvan School, a one room schoolhouse established in 1897.

8;15PM when we reach Yaak Cabins, temperature 61 degrees, we’re relieved that we survived the deer attacks.