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Day 2
My sleeping pad had a hole in it, so I slept on the ground with a rock just above my tailbone, AND I had to pee most the night, but I was too lazy to climb over Mt. Paul. Needless to say, I was excited to be up. Jerrin already had a fire going, and I cooked myself some oatmeal. We had 15 miles to float on day two through some of the most epic sections of the Smith, so we skipped making an elaborate breakfast and got going. The fishing started off great … great streamer fishing all the way down to the Tenderfoot. At the Tenderfoot, Jerrin and I walked up and fished a few of the first pools. It was incredible, and someday I’ d like to stay at this spot for an entire day. Streamer fishing got crazy after that; we caught fish on Montana intruders, stinging smolts, JJ’ s and Smoke-n-Mirrors. We were making much better time with the added flows off the Tenderfoot, so we stopped to make the breakfast we’ d passed on earlier. I found the bananas back in my boat. We passed pictographs at mile 16 and then got caught in a thunderstorm followed by a total down pour for about 30 minutes. We huddled under a few pine trees and had refreshments. The evening was beautiful, and we floated to Vic Anderson’ s Heaven on Earth ranch. Once there, we met up with friends and family, who had been hunting, and had dinner. Ribeye, shower, face first into a bed with no holes in it.
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