Skip to main content

Home Waters: South Tyger River

As you read the entries in this blog, you will notice that a recurring theme in my writing is water-- particularly rivers.

I have fished for trout in the most pristine waters of the Blue Ridge, and fished for striped bass and largemouth in some of the best known impoundments in the southeast. I have paddled the black water swamps and fished tidal creeks along the coast. But no matter where I go, no matter what body of water I find myself on, in my subconscious mind, I'm somewhere in the South Tyger watershed.  The namesake of this blog, Wildcat Creek, flows into it. It was on these waters that I found my place in the outdoors.

A river is often used as a metaphor for life, and I understand why. It is hard for me to be in or around moving water and not wax poetic. In fact, I have written poems about rivers, and when I dream, it is often about rivers. I had a man tell me one time that if for some reason he can't get out on the river and paddle his kayak, he'll just sit on the toilet and flush it,  so that he can feel the water moving underneath him.

In A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean says, "I am haunted by waters." I personally find that statement to be true in my life. Waters haunt me. Rivers haunt me. As the waters flow, so does the passage of time.

The South Tyger is no Blackfoot, but my memory takes me back there time and time again. Memories of my Dad taking me fishing on the river there. My brother and I bushwhacking our way through the swamp and wading out waist deep to fish for bass that nobody else on earth was crazy enough to go after. My son's first bass, a five pounder he caught on a Spiderman rod and reel in Lake Robinson.

I have watched the water rise and fall, open water turn into land. I have seen houses spring up all around Lake Robinson and Cunningham, turning it into a suburbia. The photo with this post was taken from J. Verne Smith Park, at Lake Robinson dam, and today when I took it, the place was crawling with people from all walks of life. There was more boats than I thought I would ever see on that lake. But amidst all of that, there was the waters, and beyond it, the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This is my home water.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Point Through Time

Occasionally, the Earth will give up some of her secrets. If one should be so lucky as to stumble across one of those secrets, it can have a lasting impact on how that individual sees himself, and the world around him. History is not just the past, but our past. On my way to a hunting stand one morning, my headlamp caught a glint of white, protruding from the red clay on the bank that I was crossing. I laid my recurve bow on the ground and took great care digging the point out of the mud, then wiped it off on my shirt tail. The serrated edge was as sharp as the day it was made, long before Europeans set foot in North America. Over the years, I have found several points, each unique, bearing the mark of the one who made it. The smaller ones being bird-points, or true arrowheads, the larger were no doubt spear points, used with an atlatl, a device used to hurl the spear at game, or enemy in time of war. They turn up in field edges after heavy rains, or on old logging roads. Sometimes

River Walk

Through clear water you see the first leaves of early fall lying scattered on the smooth river stones on the bottom. The slick rock reflect glints of sunlight in the shallows. Everything takes on the hues of russet and amber and somewhere in there are flecks of gold and flashes of silver swirling in the eddies and riffles, gliding down into the deep pockets along steep banks rife with ferns and alder trees and jewelweed. As far as you can see up the river, trees form a canopy over the water, all bending toward the other side, all lacing their branches together to form a tunnel for an occasional cool breeze to flow through, loosening dead leaves and pieces of dried branches that fall into the current and end up gathering around your legs as you make your way upstream. A river birch growing right on the bank is canted over at an angle across your path, it's root ball pulling out of the soil and rock near the water. At the base of this tree, the river has deposited fallen limbs and

A Kindred Spirit

That morning, I paddled the cove, searching around fallen timber and boat docks for bass. The first one I hung into pulled my kayak around like a bathtub toy, even though he was no more than two pounds. I took a good look at the fish, then flipped him back into the tangled mass of brush that I'd pulled him out of. When I paddled back out away from the bank, I saw a man in a red kayak, working the shoreline toward me, although his only fishing rod was upright in the rod holder, and his hands were prodding the rocks, as if he was searching for something. I just watched him, wondering what he was looking for, and then when he pulled up a wad of mono with a Carolina rig attached to it, I knew he was a treasure hunter. He looked to be around 70-- slender and tall with a white goatee and ponytail, earrings and tattoos, a stubby pipe puffing smoke as he paddled on around the bend to find another jewel. When he looked up, I threw up my hand. He took the pipe from his teeth and said, &quo