About 23 years ago, my good friend and fishing partner and I went to the Portland Boat Show. While we were there, he bought a new jet sled. We decided to break it in the next week on a sturgeon fishing trip. We usually fished on the Colombia River below Bonneville Dam, but we decided to go on the Willamette River in Portland. We invited two other friends and launched from a boat ramp under the St John’s Bridge. About an hour after launching, a Coast Guard boat approached us, and I passed that information on to my friend. He said, “Oh, that is because I don’t have my hull numbers on the boat, they haven’t come in the mail yet; I have my temporary registration, though. Shortly after that, a Coast Guard guy on the boat coming toward us called to us with a bullhorn. He yelled, “Would everyone on the boat please come to the back with your hands up in the air.” I said, “Those guys take no hull numbers on a boat pretty seriously!” The Coast Guard boat came alongside ours, and four guys with guns came on board and ordered us to get on our knees, put our hands behind our heads, and cross our ankles. It isn’t easy to cross your ankles while on your knees; try it, and I couldn’t, so I asked one of the Coast Guard guys to help me. They towed us into the Coast Guard station and kept us in a room in the station while they inspected the boat on the inside and under the boat with divers.

The problem was that we were about a year removed from 9/11 and a week before the Portland Rose Festival, and they had brought in some Navy ships for the festival. We had never fished in this area and had a nice new fish finder on the boat, so we were cruising along slowly, back and forth, looking for fish. In the process, we got closer to the navy ships than we were supposed to, and they thought we were terrorists. Channel 12 news was there filming us, and we were on the news that night as a terrorist scare.

It was some time before they told us what this was all about. The guns, the hands on our heads, the solemn looks of the Coast Guard guys, the divers, and being kept in a room with a guard all made me nervous. So, I prayed and asked God for peace, joy, and strength. Shortly after that, we were released with an explanation for our arrest. I said to the main guy in charge, “Do we look like terrorists?” He said, “No, you look like four dumb fishermen, but we must be careful.” I said to one of the Coast Guard guys, I know you know where the best place to fish is, and you have used up three hours of our fishing time; how about telling us where to fish. He did, and we caught a bunch of sturgeon that day. After we got out and started fishing, talking among ourselves about what had just happened to us, we decided that they knew from the start that we were just fishing but decided to use us as a training session. Oh, well, it was an adventure, we caught fish, and I was reminded that events like this can be a fun adventure if we pray and ask God for His peace, joy, and strength.