Friday, the last day of my vacation was approaching fast. I asked the wife is she cared if I went fishing. She said no problem just try to make it a shorter trip. Well all I heard was her saying “no problem”. Somebody that I know from another board but never have met said he wanted to go. I let him know where and when to meet me as he was coming from a different direction.

After making great time I realized that I still had an hour before I said to meet. Oh well time to go get some breakfast then. After I was done I hit the road and headed up the canyon. I made it to the turnout and still had twenty minutes to go. Fuck it time to get the waders and boots on.




Once he showed we headed down the canyon to the river. Once on the pavement ended the road was pretty much a sheet of ice and mud. I thought to myself “Hope the car makes it out in the afternoon”. A short time later we were at the first run. A few casts later I had my first fish on.

As the fish got closer I wasn’t quite sure what it was at first. It wasn’t a bow and it had a completely wrong shape for a whitefish. Once it was close I knew exactly what it was.

Unfortunately as I was walking I took a bad step and fell in. I felt the chilly water come over the top of my waders and run down my legs. Now my first thought was do I still have the fish. Not remembering the camera that was hanging around my neck and tucked into said waders.

I got up and I still had the fish! I removed the hook, snapped a pic and sent him on his way. Now as he swam away, my friend said to me “did you see all that water come out of your lens. I didn’t even think there was an issue as the viewfinder was clear and the camera worked. I removed the lens and sure enough there was still water in it. I looked at the camera body and it seemed ok.



Now I am sitting there completely soaked, it is still quite cold out but I just got there. Normally I bring extra clothes and socks; today I had opted not to for whatever reason. So I told my friend that I was going to go get warmed up in the car. He said “are you sure you don’t want to go?” There was no way in hell I was about to leave. Yes being cold and wet sucks but I wanted to fish dammit.

After some time in the car I was starting to warm back up. The only other lens I had with me was a 55-200 lens. Not the lens I wanted to be using at all for on the water pics. I got back out of the car and went back down to the river.

We fished the run for a little while longer only managing to get several whitefish between us. I was starting to get really cold again and suggested we go check out another run. Once we were at the next run I noticed some fog inside my viewfinder. Hmmm I snapped a quick pic and it seemed ok.



We started fishing the run when I hooked this nice little guy. Now trying to get a pic with a foggy viewfinder and a lens that I would rather not be using was challenging.




This pic ended up being the last pic of the day. When I landed the next fish I went to take a pic and noticed an error message on the LCD screen (which was also foggy at this time). I popped out the battery, memory card, popped the lens off and put the camera back in the car.

Back down at the water my friend hooked and LDRed a couple fish that looked like they were nice. He noticed some fish rising so we decided to fish some dries. We each caught some nice fish on dries. As the sun went behind the mountains I started to get really cold again. I asked him what time it was and said that I think that I am going to call it. On the way out of the canyon, all that nice ice had melted a bit. Man the road was quite fun to drive on.

I dunked a Nikon D40 this past fall. Dumped a lot of water out of it. But I got the battery out almost the instant it cleared the water. Turned it on a week later and it was fine. Had to pull the lens apart to get all the water spots off the internal elements––but that's why I take a $40 manual lens (almost disposable) when I go fishing.

Took the camera out of the rice and all signs of water were gone from the body. The lens still had water in it so I, threw on a different lens, put the battery back in, put the memory card in and took some pics...



Well it worked!!! Now I just need to get the water out of the other lens.

Nice! Good luck with the lens.