Skip to main content

Familiar Waters



Among my earliest recollections are those of Saturday mornings, fishing the small farm pond across the road with my father. We didn't have any money, so he'd pack some food in a brown sack and we'd walk the dirt road in early morning darkness. We'd sometimes fish all day, returning with a stringer or two of catfish, bass, and bluegill before supper. 


 Dad woke my brother and me one morning to fish the pond near my aunt's cabin in the mountains of Tennessee. It was still dark when Dad hooked into something akin to a naval submarine. He fought the fish as us boys looked on in excitement. But when he pulled the giant catfish through the ring of neon green slime to the bank, we were horrified at the slimy monster, and both ran up the steep bank thinking Dad had landed The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Dad laughed about that for years. 


When my son was old enough to hold a fishing rod, I would take him often to farm ponds and creek banks and tried to teach him everything my father had taught me. In the process, he became quite the fisherman. He now fishes tournaments and is finding sponsors who are impressed with his ability. And to think it all started with him fishing with a Spiderman rod and reel in a farm pond, now fifteen years ago. 


I bet my dad would be proud of him. I know I sure am.


The best part: I can relive all those times with a flick of the wrist, casting into familiar waters, and pulling those precious memories to shore. 


Comments

Post a Comment

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