I find if I camp for any length of time on the river I begin to see just how little we know about how things really are. Safe at home, it's easy to make broad statements and know it all. Things like. "Well there's crayfish in the river and smallmouth eat crayfish so fish crayfish imitations". But in real life, out in the real world, I find my mind filled with unanswered questions. What are those bugs hovering over the stream in a cloud? What are those dimples midstream? Are they chubs or shiners or something else? And those tiny mud colored commas, are they tadpoles? Camped along the river I find first a dozen things that might affect the fishing. Then a hundred, then my mind reels under the realization there might be thousands.
If camping on the river shows us how little we know it also inserts into that world, at least for a while. For a few days our little fire ring becomes a capital for our new found kingdom. Camp is our Pequod from which we lower away each day to chase our own personal white whales. Every morning we sally forth to new adventure and retreat to the safety of firelight every night. Each morning we sally forth to new adventure and retreat to the safety of firelight every night.
But the longer I stay at a place the less strange the night. As I fish thru twilight into darkness the landscape becomes less imposing and more familiar after a few days. Indeed after a couple days of spending all day every day at one camp and one stretch of river, it becomes at least temporarily a home of sorts. Then the night, so daunting just a day or so before becomes a new adventure. Big fish stir. Shallow pools, vacant of life during the day, fill with life. I jump, scared silly, as huge fish spook out of the shallows at my approach.
I begin to know the river in a way the day fisherman never will. The small tent, the fire ring, the log that serves as both table and chair, all stake a more serious claim to the river. Till finally, stinking
of mud and fish, I stagger home sunburned, happy, and bugbit. Only to find my own bed feel a little strange at first.
Camped, I begin to realize this one place is many. Like any beautiful woman the river is full of mystery and changes moment to moment. The lovely clarity of morning light gives way to the glaring mid day sun. Which in turn then softens into the sensual forgiving light of a long evening. All to then be covered by the blanket of night. Sound, like the light, changes. The refrain of bird noise that greets the sunrise ends mid morning without our somehow noticing. Till we hear the first calls of evening followed by the trills of frogs as the shadows of night come slipping thru the trees.
If I'm there. On the river a while, more than a day, I find myself doing what the other animals do, spending a lot of time sitting and watching. Seeing things as they really are before we change them simply by blundering thru oblivious.
Then after catching a fine fish this way somehow it means more. You have insinuated yourself at least partially into the environment. And then having caught something using wit and reason rather than just pounding the fish into submission with cast after cast. Or at least I like to think so. After catching a couple good fish you begin to feel you are a crafty bastard. Sometimes it's even true.
I do not often keep fish. But once or twice a year while camped on the river I will. Evening will be approaching and the fish god will offer a channel catfish or a good saugeye. Fishing is at it's essense a predatory act. Only recently have we had the luxury of turning fish loose. Those few fish baked by the fire make the circle of life a reality and not just an intellectual exercise. I find myself looking into the darkness and unselfconsciously thanking the river.
Camped, I find the earliest religions, the Druids and the Native Americans concept of us all being part of a greater whole in nature makes sense. Out here more than our modern religions. I once described a section of a small river I like to a friend. And then added that about a half mile wade upstream is where God lives. I was only half kidding.
