Dances With People, Places & Equipment GSJ

Dawn to Dusk (page 20)

Sammy Chang hunted Osceola turkeys in late March on a private Okeechobee County ranch in southcentral Florida with outdoorsman and fellow photographer Ryan Sparks (www.flywatermedley.com).

Pure Osceolas are found only in south Florida, as they often breed with Eastern wild turkeys in the northern part of their range. The Florida natives typically have longer spurs than their larger, more widelydistributed cousins.

Mousing for Dorado (page 38)

Barry and Cathy Beck fished the headwaters of Iberá Marsh near Corrientes, Argentina in January, typically a low water month ideal for bringing dorado to the surface. Fish average 6-to-12 pounds, but fish up to 20 pounds are not unusual. The Becks suggest 7- and 8-weight graphite rods spooled with RIO Outbound Short floating lines. Booking information can be found at www.frontierstravel.com.

Freedom. Resurrection.Recovery.

(page 56)

Over the course of the summer, Mark Fryt explored the Yaak River in Montana, along with Sullivan Creek, North Fork Calispell Creek, and the Spokane River in Washington. Of particular note is the middle section of Sullivan Creek, where a dam removal project has returned it to good health. In addition to its excellent fishing for redband, rainbow, and cutthroat trout, he recommends the area for its camping, rock collecting and berrypicking opportunities.

Gordon Allen

An artist from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Gordon has been contributing to Gray’s for years. His line art is scattered throughout this issue. You can see more of Gordon’s work at www.gordonallenart.com e pilot took one look and started mumbling and cussing in Spanish, with much invocation of the term for horizontal relations. e last man in line was a giant, a rolling jiggling blob, 350 if he was an ounce. e fat man got in rst, grunted his way into a far rear seat. With no one else aboard, the plane squatted, tail on the ground, front wheel eight feet o the ground. Much more lingo, this time adding motherhood to the equation. e fat man was extracted and the plane slowly came to rest on the nose wheel as he labored uphill. e pilot whistled up help, a teenage boy fetched a strut from the weeds behind the terminal. It was a goodly length of two-by-six, carpet on one end, a scrap of tire on the other. Chocked beneath the tail of the aircraft, it kept all three wheels on the ground as the fat man reboarded. Seemed the logical thing to do. e boy came back with four jerry-cans of fuel, but the pilot waved him away. Fat man already ate up the weight limit. Wasn’t room for me either, excepting the co-pilot’s seat. God was my co-pilot on this ight, and He could sit on my lap if He needed. e Britten needs 1,300 feet to get o the ground, a little over a quarter mile, a wonderment. But that considers easy rolling and no trees at the far end. e pilot taxied to the end of the strip, yea, beyond the end of the strip, way out onto the grass. He turned us around, locked up the brakes and advanced both engines to full throttle. Such a whamming and bamming and framming you never heard, liked to shook the llings from my back teeth. e pilot released the brakes and we started to roll, ip, op and come on baby, let’s y, please y! e gear came up as we cleared the gravel and I don’t know if we would have cleared the palms any other way. Heavy laden as we were, there was no way to y over the mountains, so we ew the passes instead, jagged snow-capped peaks to the left and right. ere were big holes in the dash where the navigational aids should have been. e pilot ew by a hand-held GPS duct-taped to the center of the steering wheel instead. e fuel tanks were in the wings and the fuel gauges were right in front of me. irty gallons in each, soon 20 and the pilot got on the radio and hailed San Jose. His Spanish was rapid re stress, but I caught one word, emergencia. Clear the runway, clear the airspace, we’re coming in!

Continued from page 36 mostly, and the safety equipment was seat-belts, windshield wipers and rearview mirrors. But Daimler-Benz or Hung-Chow Industries it don’t matter when the air gets thin at 10,000 feet, we talking bout the Andes now. A turbo force-feeds the engine enough air to keep it going, in second gear, at least.

“Olvidalo.” Never mind.

I’d own some sketchy aircraft in my day, Argentina, Africa and oat planes way up in the Canadian bush where the wrecks of the less air-worthy littered the muskeg below, so the Puerto Jimenez community graveyard at the end of the runway didn’t bother me much, at least at rst.

I crawled aboard and strapped in, minus my sh. But instead of east, the pilot bore north to another jungle airstrip, more shermen heading for San Jose. ey led from the terminal, a glori ed tin-roof chicken coop with a Coke machine, bottled beer and rum.

We all disembarked. All our luggage went onto the gravel and was crammed into an empty compartment in the nose.

We landed with 30 gallons to spare, 15 in each tank. I hailed a cab idling at the terminal door. “Llevame a la catedra, por favor.”

I wasn’t raised Catholic, but right then, that didn’t matter. S

Roger Pinckney lives and writes on Daufuskie Island, S.C. He is pleased to still be among the living, at this writing, at least.