1. The Henrys, who live near Stout’s and the place where the wire popped up have nothing to do with the wire or cattle. Their combative reactions to our communications relate more to their health problems.

2. The guy who does put up the wire, and leases the land for 75 head of cattle came to my house yesterday and we had a long talk. His name is Ken Wooten, and he does work for the soil and water conservation district. I have his phone number.

3. He claims that he has been putting barbed wire across the creek for 15 years and that when the creek floods it takes his fence down. He has to replace it 3-4 times per year. Also he has to use the creek to water his cows in the summer.

4. I told him I had been kayaking Stouts for 25 years and had never seen a wire, and that as far as I knew no one else had seen any wire until the incident with Cody. He seemed very reluctant to accept this. He kept insisting I walk with him to see a tree where he had multiple old wires nailed (by my calculations that would be about 60 wires. I told him I couldn’t make the hike but that if it becomes major important that we could find someone in the club willing to do so.

5. He has talked to Brian Parker, county prosecutor, and said Brian indicated that it was a slam dunk for him having the right to put barbed wire across. (I sent Brian several case studies which indicated just the opposite, and Bob Tucker may also have communicated this to him.) Hmmmmm)

6. I suggested several solutions, all of which he rejected. For reasons unknown he was adamant that we should call him every time we are going to do Stouts….which I have no idea what that accomplishes, and I explained to him that he would be lucky to get any calls at all as it’s usually an on the spot decision, and many out-of-staters do this run.

7. I kept emphasizing that since we’d only had 1 incident in 25 years, it must be rare for the fence to be up on the day we would be kayaking the river. I suggested we play it by ear and continue just as we have done with the caveat for Kayakers to be aware there COULD be a fence obstacle, especially if doing the river at minimum floatable levels.. Again he was less than happy with this, but did give us permission to land our kayaks and go thru his fence on land. Is this acceptable to the boating community?

8. Bottom line. Mr Wooten is very well respected in Iron County, but that doesn’t guarantee we are getting the whole story. Without going into details there were several gaping holes in his story that he did a fair job of sidestepping. So I’d say we continue as is, the proof will be in what happens. The last people I talked to who’d done Stouts reported no fence. If we have a sudden increase in fence encounters then we may have to take action. If we have one incident every 25 years, that seems acceptable?

• This topic was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by McChuck. Reason: Diplomacy isthe art of having someone else have your way.-Vare'