It seems like every May I vow that this is the year I am going to buy a fishing license and get back to my favorite kind of fishing: floating any number of regional rivers in my beat up aluminum canoe, casting for small mouth bass with surfaace plugs using ultralight tackle.
Granted, the last two summers, it was really beyond my physical endurance to canoe down river with a leg that was still recovering from two surgeries. But I had dropped out of the fishing scene long before the motorcycle accident happened, and frankly, even though I didn't go, I always missed it and yearned to be out there.
To me, there is nothing that brings me closer to the supreme being than being in the great cathedral of nature. Cruising down river, I have encountered beaver, deer, hawks, turtles, ducks, and once even a huge eagle lunching on a fish he had caught. that is the closest I have ever been to that magnificent species. I was no more than ten yards away.
If you are going to do a float trip right, you have to recruit a fishing buddy with a vehicle, have him follow you to the "take out" point, where his vehicle is left over night, and then drive upstream in your own vehicle, canoe riding atop it. I have the necessary equipment to camp overnight somewhere about half way to the take out point: waterproof two man tent, sleeping bags, air mattresses, cooler stocked with fresh eggs, bacon, coffee, beverages, and sandwiches in case you get "skunked" on the first half of the trip and have no fish to fry up for supper. I don't think I have ever experienced a better tasting breakfast than the ones I have prepared over the left over coals of the night before. There is just somethng about taking in all that fresh river air that makes every bite of food incredibly delicious.
I have such great memories of pitched tent, camp fire, the sounds of the river and the night birds mingling with the soft chords of my "river guitar", a huge moon above us lighting the ceiling of nature's cathedral. Catching fish really becomes secondary to the journey itself. I have had great river trips where we didn't raise a fish all day.
I have fished the Yellow river near Cadott, the Jump River above Sheldon, the Chippewa River in several stretches, the Red Cedar below my childhood stomping grounds only a few miles below "Deer Trail Farm" where I was raised, drifting between Menomonie and Downsville and sometimes all the way down to Durand, the Nemakogan River with my late friend Gerald Fitzgerald, the Brule, also with Gerald, and the Black River near Black River Falls as well as below Niellsville. Just typing these river names brings back a rush of sweet memories.
So this summer, no more just thinking about it! I am going to hit the Chippewa River at Cornell with my pal Steve "Roy" (not backwards!) Rogers, and I am going to introduce that hillbilly from North Carolina to some river fishing which is totally different than giggin' for frogs in Dismal Swamp, Jay Moore!
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