Three summers ago, when the South Fork was running too high for wading, I was walking a high bank throwing grasshopper patterns. It was a beautiful day, only an occasional drift boat to share the water with, lots of hoppers in the wild grasses and bushes in the lightly wooded area, and a light SW breeze to help the hoppers find the cutts and browns. The fishing was slow, but my hopper patterns were getting some looks and some hits. Don't recall actually catching anything, but was having a good time.

I had to veer away from the bank to go around some heavy undergrowth at the waters edge, and ended up walking through some downed trees. I stepped over a branch with my right foot, and as I swung my left foot to clear it, I misjudged and caught the branch with my foot. The branch slammed into my right calf. Felt like someone had hit me with a baseball bat.

I had something of a cut, a bit of bleeding, and quite a bit of pain. But I kept fishing, walking another mile or so downstream, fishing where I could, before heading back to the truck. Within a few days the cut healed and the pain subsided, but I did have a bit of a bump on the calf. I pretty much went about my normal summer and early fall routine of hiking and wade fishing. About two months later, I started to have some redness and pain on touching the area.

My doctor, after examining the wound area, suggested that he dig around a bit to see what was going on. A quick stroke of the scalpel, some poking around with a tweezers - and out comes a one and a quarter inch by quarter inch piece of tree branch !!