We had been to Humpback Lake before, but this time we left the kids home and tackled the famous Ketchikan favorite after Bob Pickrell told us they had a new cabin on the famed home of giant cutthroat trout, and maybe we could even hook the world's largest Dolly Varden that he named Old Methuselah.

So the whole gang from the newspaper booked three days of poker and scaring grizzlies.

The day we arrived I could hardly wait while the other guys, Al Sneed, Reid Hale, Bert Clark, Bruce McKnight and Bob were unpacking, and I grabbed my rod and went down on the dock and made a couple of casts with a Doc Spratley.

I soon hooked a beauty and brought him ashore, and I was whacking him when our host, Bob Pickrell, appeared beside me. He was also beside himself.

" Oh, no!" he shouted." You have killed Old Methuselah. "

I felt really guilty, but Bob had never warned us it was a pet and had become part of the lake legend.

I made him feel better when I told him I was sorry.

The lake proved a big disappointment but Bob did all right using a frozen herring. That was all the trout were feeding on. He never told us that before hand. We never did see any trout except in Bob's boat.

When we complained, he suggested we stop bellyaching and run down to the other end of the lake and fish the river.

"It should be great. But don't try to walk the river bank as it too brushy."

Instead, he told us to go through the woods and take a rifle and a pop can and fill it with small rocks, and we would not be bothered by grizzly bears.

"Just keep shaking the can of rocks and the bears will run away," he said.

Then he stayed in the cabin and was sipping Johnny Walker as we headed for our boats.

What a great guide.

We found the mouth of the river but ignored it and set off working our way through the nearby forest of devil's clubs and nettles, while shaking the rocks (that worked; we never saw a bear) and slipping and sliding through ditches and mud holes and after an hour got to the river, completely done in.

What a bust. The river was about 6 inches deep. Nothing bigger than a goldfish could live in it.

Worse than that, there was no brush and we walked back upstream in about fifteen minutes, cursing Bob for his faulty advice.

So much hooey about the bears.

And I was carrying Bob's 20-pound thirtyoughtsix deer rifle he had urged us to take along in case the can of rocks failed.