$1500.00 Worth of Gear Stolen

This past Friday, a friend of mine from ABQ made the suicide trip up to my home river the San Juan. He doesn?t get to fish often, so I decided to meet him at one of the popular holdes to fish with him. We had a fantastic day of fishing at 3,000cfs. When it was time to head out around 3pm, we took apart our gear, my ABQ friend left, and another friend of mine, Paul and I went down to the handicapped piers to try and find a friend Drew (NM Angler) in the Thole. I left my wader bag, fly box, and my Sage Rods on the windshield, and didn?t think twice about their safe keeping, ( In 5 years of fishing the river A LOT, I?ve never had anything happen to my gear ). Paul and I found Drew, we watched him fish to a couple of hogs, and Paul headed home while I stayed talking to Drew. After 5 minutes, I decided to launch my boat and row Drew out to a good spot in the Thole to fish with him. I put the boat in, grabbed my rods, and my boat bag, and Drew and I fished for a few hours. (Drew caught some nice fish on worm patterns).

Well, that?s when the hell started. When I walked back to the truck to take the boat out, I ran into a nice couple from Scottsdale, AZ who were passing through town. They asked me about the river, fishing etc?, so I gave them the tour, and told them how great the San Juan River was, and that they had to come back sometime. Then, when I reached down for my wallet to give them a few business cards, I couldn?t find it in my bag. I thought it was weird, but assumed it was there somewhere. Well, things just started to get worse when I looked in the back of the truck and found my 400.00 Simms Waders, 169.00 Simms Guide Boots, Simms Gravel Guards, wading belt, and my precious San Juan fly box with 750 flies in it gone. I FRANTICALLY checked all around, but found nothing. I stopped at the fly shops, called the State Parks, and no one had reported anything. Someone had just stolen $1500.00 worth of gear from my truck!! I was sick to my stomach and felt like an idiot for ever trusting anyone enough to leave my gear in the back of my truck just 100 yards away from me! So, here I am on a 2 week stint of trips with only my boat box, a pair of Simms Waders with a 3 inch hole in them at the waist, and an old pair of Chota boots to try and work with. I feel unbelievably hopeless, and can?t believe this happened.

I still say 95% of fly fishers are GOOD people, but I will remain forever skeptical about people stealing fly fishing gear. It?s sad to think I moved from the big city to get away from crime only to have over a thousand dollars worth of gear stolen

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Jude
Late to bed,
Early to Rise,
Guide all day,
Tie more flies!
www.customflys.com

Thats really stinks...

I hope you find who took the stuff
and all gets retuned in good order..

Good luck & take care!

Steve Molcsan

I won't assume anything. Did you report it to the police?

We can post it stolen here, and alert people who may see it 'for sale'
If the gear is spotted, do you have a contact number/name for the police?

Know it is awful for you, let's see if we can help.


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LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL

My home owners policy covers equipment stolen from my locked vechicle. The fly box tore my gut out. So sorry ole man.

I used to leave my truck unlocked when just a short distance from it at the river. Then one day I caught a guy trying to steal my $400 camera. I won't go into details about what happened in the next couple minutes but I can tell you I no longer leave my truck unlocked even if I am only 50 feet away from it.

Riverdancer I hope you can recover at least some of what you lost. Who ever got it may just show up right back there on the river bank.

Rocky

LF made a great suggestion. Post an itemized list with description here. There are many of us on board who frequent E bay, so we just may run across it. It certainly can't hurt.
Please also post on the main board that items were stolen & there is a listing on the STOLEN forum.
Sorry for the theft. My daughter had her car burglarized in our drive, AFTER I had advised her to ALWAYS lock her car. She does now.
Good luck getting your stuff back.
Mike

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You can call me Mike & you can call me Mikey..Just remember that this site's about sharing!

Riverdancer,
Sorry to hear about your loss! Hope you catch the guy and break everybone in his hands so he can't feed himself and he starves to death!
Now,,, contact the Game Wardens that work that area. I KNOW they sit hidden with spotting scopes and they also may stop some guy that looks out of place and find your stuff.
Mark everything you own with a sharpie, including name, address,phone, and e mail address. Don't tape a business card or a piece of paper, they just remove it and sell your stuff for drug money. That many hand tied flies will get them a lot of meth and crack. Check dumpsters in all the campgrounds,ie. Cottonwood and all the other pull offs, and the Navajo Lake Campground. They probably will take your stuff there to have some time to go through it. Check pawn shops in nearby towns and the flyshops who may sell stuff for people on consignment.
Hope you find your stuff and I hope you find the thief and most of all, I hope that thief doesn't reproduce "cause we got enough of them.
Good luck,
Andy

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all types of fishermen must pull together for the good of all!!!

So sorry Jude. That's the pits when we are sp trusting of most folk! that's really miserable.

Now the experience will never be the same. Lock 'er up from now on.

I had a similar experience with my son who went back to the car for some stuff out of his gear bag. He didn't relock the car and a couple hrs later...bingo!

Scumbags!

Jeremy.....who's never swiped even a stick of gum!

Thank you all for your concern, and for your great suggestions. Andy, I hadn't thought of a lot of stuff you talked about, but you were right on the money. Thanks! Here's the list. If you all have any suspiscions about gear, please let me know. I appreciate you all!! FAOL's are always so supportive and kind with each other! Thanks to those who e-mailed me as well.

Simms Guide Weight Stockingfoot Waders size XXL

Simms Guide Boots Studded Aquastealth size 12

Simms Guide Gravel Guards

Simms Black Neoprene Belt

Beige Wader Bag

Brown bi-fold wallet with driver's license, credit cards (already cancelled) business cards, Blockbuster Card, and my lucky 2.00 bill

Here's the heart ache. Light Gray C&F System Box with swing leaf and 7-rows on each side filled with about 500 size 20-24 midges.

Ah, Jude, I am really sorry to hear about this! One of life's painful lessons that changes the way we feel about the world, for the worse.

I'd love to hear that you recover some or all of it. Only consolation I can think of is thatit could have been worse.

We had a similar experience a few years ago when a couple of female druggies got into our garage in Memphis and stole all of the golf, tennis and fishing stuff from it.

We reported it to the police, but they did nothing. Heck, it was minor issue in a long list of issues for them. My wife, however, hit all of the pawn and used sports equipment stores in town and found our stuff. The store had recorded the drivers license info from the thief who sold it to them and she was arrested. We got most of our stuff back.

Riverdancer,

I sure am sorry to hear about your stuff disappearing. I would like to think that it was some doped-up meth freak and not a fellow fly fisherman who was responsible. Unfortunately, parking areas used by fishermen, hunters, backpackers and other outdoors people have become regular "shopping areas" for some pretty miserable bast*rds. I hope that your search turns up your beloved fly box. Good luck! 8T

Big regrets over your incident. Thank you for posting it. I'm not taking this lightly. I will now be much more careful with my gear, which I leave unguarded all the time. Thanks for the lesson Jude.

Gem

RD, I am sorry for you loss of gear; but mostly your loss of some of the relaxation and peace of mind while fishing. I grew up in a tough town and learned to lock things up and hide stuff early, but I feel like a victim anyway because it affects the way I prepare for a trip- you have to factor in what you bring vs what you can carry with you for instance. Doesn't it tick you off when you could've used another rod or a nicer camera but were going somewhere where you had to worry about that? Good luck to you, Jim

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"Knowledge is knowing, wisdom is understanding"