My switch to Alaska citizen is complete. I have an Alaska voting card. I’m paying Alaska property taxes. My vehicle has an Alaska brown bear license plate where Indiana vanity plate Moby Van once resided.
But most important, I qualified with Alaska DNR (at my advanced age) for an Alaska fishing, hunting, and trapping license. I’ll be on the lakes near Chena Hot Springs as soon as the ice thaws. I already have rented two cabins for fishing from the State of Alaska.
With my mind on fishing, I wanted to relate a tale about a big one I caught.
The year was 1983. The place was the Chattooga River in northeastern Georgia in scenery you might have admired in the movie Deliverance.
My companions were a Clemson instructor named Ron Rash and my son Chris..
Ron was having a good day taking trout, several under a cutbank in shallower water. Ron always had a good day fishing. Had to be luck. He probably caught those fish right before they planned to take my hook.
I had struck out this day once again until–whoa–my line went rigid, and the rod practically flew out of my hands.
My shout of joy mildly raised the interest of Rash and Chris. I went into the water nearly to my belt as I tried to land what had to be a monster trout.
About that time, my quarry rose like the shark in Jaws, and I saw its big clacking jaws.
I might have thrown down the rod; I’m not sure.
But I’m sure all that giant snapping turtle saw was my feet and butt as I churned the water to get back to shore.
If you think my fishing companions offered commiseration you’d be badly mistaken. Chris was on the bank holding his stomach laughing, and Ron was a close second in the bemused category.
I might just finally forgive them one day. Nah, nah. Ain’t gonna happen.
Later that year, poet James Dickey was at Clemson University on a visit. I persuaded him to go on my local radio program, “Just Passin’ Through.” Ron advised me that he thought certain cadences of Dickey’s reminded him of Dylan Thomas’ poems.
When I asked Dickey on the air, he almost needed to be. bleeped. Basically, he said if HE saw echoes of the Welsh poet’s words in his stuff he’d rip up, tear up, claw out every word and line.
Stunned and shocked, all I could do was blurt, “Can you tell listeners how you really feel, Mr. Dickey?”
. . . . .
Another bad but true fishing story was the time I took my son trout fishing in the remote Humboldt Forest region of eastern Nevada.
Knowing that we’d be far from anything resembling a sporting good store, I instructed my son to bring two of everything in the way of fishing gear.
It was a clear case of do as Dad says, not as Dad does.
On my very first cast, my line zipped over a deep bend in the river, and I buried the lure in a tree limb.
No problem, I thought, as I cut the lines.
Which was when I found that I hadn’t brought fishing line, and there wasn’t enough line left on my reel to catch a fish in a barrel.
I couldn’t deprive the boy a fishing opportunity, so I spent the day organizing my tackle box. I had time enough to arrange that outfit about 79 times.
I loved fishing in Indiana on the White River. As often as not, a great blue heron alighted nearby, and owls would provide a concert, although I rarely caught sight of them. There’s no more satisfying sight than rounding a river bend and seeing a doe and fawn alight for a moment.
The downside was that too many folks like to think the White River is their own private landfill. I once surprised a mother and two boys dumping a bunch of trash bags near a bank. They glared at me with impudence and drove off when I asked them to pick it up. I ended up carting two smelly bags home to put in my trash container.
Once while canoeing I saw a white Chevy hood blocking a shallow part of the river one dry season.
“What we need is an otter,” the owner of the canoe rental operation told me.
“Why’s that.”
“He `otter’ eat up all this trash,” he joked.