The Thing about the River - Part 2

   

THE THING ABOUT THE RIVER IS, it has held a lifelong fascination for me, whether it be fishing, frog hunting, or just floating along, watching and listening to the wildlife that lives in, on, or along it. The river is a wonderful place. The persuit of several animals that prowl below and near its surface has pushed me to travel to the far corners of Arkansas (wow!) and even beyond. 

Now take the catfish. They reside in almost all significant rivers of  Arkansas, but the concentration in the far southeast corner of Arkansas surpasses all. To my way of thinking, the entire Delta, excluding the people I love who live there, is a bit bland. Until you get near or inside the river levees. Then it becomes transformed into one of the most wonderful places on earth. The concentration of all wildlife is greater. They have been crowded out of the farmed portion of the Delta, and concentrated into these long crooked stretches of natural perfection. The lure of these whiskered monsters of the deep in the river delta has brought about so many of the memorable occasions in my life that this story has to be told.

     Like my three very close approaches to death, all at Wargo. Wargo is simply one of the many oxbow lakes off the lower Arkansas River. I was once camped on a high bluff on Wargo. My parnter in this adventure, as so often was the case in the old days, was Sport Dunnahoe, my father in law. I loved him like a father. An eighty foot tree was leaning far out over the water at the top of the bluff upon our arrival. Soon it would fall into the lake and disappear along with a good portion of the bluff around it. Naturally, we moved our campsite well back from it as a precaution. Our catfish lines were set and baited. We went to sleep. In the middle of the night, we awoke to an earthquake, or so we thought. We peeked out of the tent. The entire bluff, pulled by the falling tree, had caved off, leaving our tent, and us, perched on the very edge of the bluff. The tree had totally disappeared, buried under many tons of river sand.

On another occasion, JD Dunnahoe, my brother in law, and I had just finished baiting our catfish lines on the far side of the lake, when a major thunderstorm struck right at dark. We started back across the lake in our small boat. The thing about the river is, when the waves are pushed by heavy winds, rain, and lots of lightning and thunder, it can transform quickly into a place one does not wish to be. We made it across without incident. I dropped JD off at his truck, then I turned into the teeth of the storm to head for the boat ramp. The thing about a small, light boat, with most of the weight now concentrated in the back is, The front end sticks up high into the howling wind. I had just gotten started when a strong gust of wind picked up the boat – and I was airborne! Time slows down, up in the air. I had time to ask myself, "Where's my life vest?" and "Can I swim a lick with this rain gear on?" Then, I was dropped back to the water, the boat turned 180 degrees. I forgot about the ramp and struggled toward the shore, and for survival.

     The thing about Wargo is – you have two choices: You can fish it and be cold, of you can fish it and be swarmed by hoards of mosquitoes. There is a very small window in between. I often chose the early spring.

     Camped alone, I struggled out of my tent on a cold morning. My fire from the previous night was completely out, or so I thought. I picked up a gallon can of gasoline, stood back, and sloshed a long stream onto the remaining wood.

     The thing about fire is – it can come to life from a single small spark, and run up a long slosh instantly. I found myself standing, with a giant flamethrower in my hand. I slung it – far. It may be a while before I fish Wargo again, but when I do, I will be sure all my affairs are in order first.

     Not all my memorable experiences at Wargo were life threatning. Once Sport and I were asleep in our tent with only a very small hole in our almost-zipped-up doorway. The thing about small holes, though, is - it sorta negates being enclosed in a tent in the first place. In the middle of the night, Sport roused me from my dreams with an elbow to the ribs. "Pat," he said, " We are not alone." I switched on my light. The prettiest, most bushy tailed skunk was sitting on Sport's sleeping bag! We quietly enlarged that hole, and slid outside in our whitey-tighties, and waited, shivering. Fifteen minutes later, the skunk strolled out and off, never having left his calling card.

     The thing about a family chock full of pretty daughters, like the Dunnahoes, is – sooner or later a whold herd of son-in-laws will fill that old home place on hollidays, especially Verla Mae Dunnahoe's house. She seldom spoke, but when she did, it was law. We were all there for Christmas. The thing about men, especially young men, is – they are chock full of testosterone. They are driven to seek excitement, in one or more of it's forms daily. It's a requirement of life.

     We men were once sitting around relaxing after a big Christmas dinner at the Dunnahoe farm. Someone mentioned the river, and I woke up. I always slept through all those long discussions about farming. They bored me to death. The river is really rolling right now, someone was saying. "Let's go see it" someone else chimed in. "Why don't we take the boat?" We loaded up the boat and headed for the river. As I think about it, forty some-odd years removed, only an irrational craving for excitement or extremely pore' judgement could have brought about what happened on that cold winter day.

     So, I and my inlaws loaded into that small boat and headed up river. The boat was far too small for that crowd, and not a life jacket was in sight. Sport was the only one old enough to have better sense, but there was no way, I mean no way, Sport would let himself be left out when a river adventure beckoned. Not even up to the day he died. The twenty horse motor pushed us up the rolling  river. A rock levee extended well out into the river ahead. JD pushed the boat toward the end of the levee. The thing about rolling river water is – when it hits the end of a rock levee, a huge whirlpool can develop, and suck down anything that enters it. JD steered the boat around the levee. Suddenly we went down – down into the heart of the whirlpool. All around us was a whirlpool of water. Time to say our prayers.

     JD opened up the motor full throttle. The motor strained. We whirled with the water. Ever so slowly, the motor pushed the boat to the side of the whirlpool; then, even more slowly, we climbed. As we pulled out, finally, we were all ready to go back to that warm living room, ready to be bored the rest of the day. Talking about farming didn't seem quite so bad. Our appetites were sated, for that day.

    Once I was floating with my brother-in-law, Delton, down the White River to the Mighty Mississippi, then floated past the mouth of the Arkansas River to Arkansas City. We reached the mouth of the White River about sundown, and camped on a sandbar. The mosquitoes were beyond the edge of comprehension. In pioneer times, nobody could live here long, with malaria running rampant. The grave yard at Napoleon, Arkansas, a town there that no longer exists but was here in pioneer days, left lots of tombstones. Few, if any, died here that were older that 26. Anyway, we set up our tent, sprayed the doorway down good with mosquito repellent, dashed in and zipped it up quick. Then we spent the next hour picking off the mosquitoes inside, one at a time. Then, we could sleep. Or we would have, had it not been for the buck deer who resented our presence so much, he spent the night dashing up and down behind our tent, stomping and snorting. Anyway, now we can get down to the scientific work. By morning, my body was stopped up tighter than a drum. I took a good dose of Castor Oil, the most horrible tasting stuff God ever created, but one of the most effective. We then shoved off from the mouth of the White, down the mighty Mississippi. By the time we reached the mouth of the Arkansas River, I was rushing ashore to the bushes.

     The thing about floating a major river is – you have lots of time to think. By the time we had reached Arkansas City, I had finished my calculations. It is six miles, 31,680 feet, from one river mouth to the next. The Big Muddy rolls along at approximately six MPH. The human digestive tract is 23 feet long. Using that raw data, Castor Oil must run through the human body at a rate of .0007 MPH. Something I had always wondered about.

The thing about the river is – some creatures can live both in and near it. They normally breathe air with their lungs and have to surface regularly when active. But with the coming of the winter, they can bury up in the mud of the river bottom, get real still, and take in enough oxygen through their skin to live.

     Such is the Bullfrog, which is in the process of disappearing from this earth as I speak. Their numbers have dropped alarmingly in my lifetime. Now let's move our focus to the far northwest corner of Arkansas, to Fayetteville. My friend Bob and I decided to try our hand at catching bullfrogs on the west fork of the upper White River near Fayetteville. It had rained quite a bit, but it looked doable on the wide stretch of the river were we put in.

     The thing about the river is – it can flowly slowly in a wide eddy, even when up. When a narrow chute comes up, it can pick up the pace drastically. We were downriver half a mile before such a chute appeared, past the point of no return. We came around a bend, and our lights picked up a log, stretching from side to side, right at water level. Too late. We hit it, the boat turned sideways, we took on water on the backside, and our boat was swamped. We were held tightly against the log in the swift current. I looked downriver. Our gear was headed to Beaver Lake, accompanied by our lights, their beams swinging back and forth like searchlights at an airport. We tied the boat to the log, ( I don't know why, it was going nowhere.) I floated downstream, gathering up what gear I could find. When I got back, Bob had salvaged what he could. He was now walking across the log, gear in hand. He had my large landing net in one hand, which should not have been in the boat at all on a frog hunting trip. Bob slipped slightly at mid stream, slowly sat down on the log, then even more slowly was pulled off and under the log by the current. When he surfaced downstream, he shouted, "My glasses! I've lost my glasses!"

     You must understand. Bob's glasses were as thick as coke bottles, and he couldn't see a lick without them. And, they cost a pretty penny. Like me, he was dirt pore'. This was a big deal. I looked up. Bob's glasses were perfectly balanced on the rim of my landing net, which was still in his hand. "Hold very still, Bob!" I shouted, as I swam over and grabbed them.

     We finally righted the boat, sloshed most of the water out, and continued on. We had never floated this section of the river in the daylight, a big mistake. We soon entered a long hole that was filled with logs from end to end. We had to swim, pulling the boat over, under, around, and through. When the river merged with the main White River, it grew much wilder.

     The thing about chill bumps is – they start on one's lower back, slowly spreading upwards.They finall come across the top of the head, and stop, right above the eyes. Such was the case with me, as I sat listening. Listening to the wild rapids below, between us and my truck. It proved to be a long night, productive only in everlasting memories.

     The thing about pore' schoolteachers. The family has to eat. During the summer, I worked at whatever job I could find. I once worked for a plumbing outfit in Fayetteville.When they discovered I was a good, hard worker, they stopped renting a backhoe. I became a human backhoe, at thirty dollars a week. I told my working buddies about my frog hunting trips. One could float a five mile stretch on one of the pretty, clean rivers around there, and pick up as many bullfrogs as a family could eat in a while, in those days. The loud, deep bellow of a large bullfrog is seldom heard on the river nowadays. Then, one could hear a dozen at a time. There is no sound quite like it.

     One very large guy wanted to go with me. He was not a nice person – Big, tough, and rowdy. I finally agreed. We placed my truck on the War Eagle River, drove five miles up and put my boat in. As we sat around waiting for it to get dark, we were joined by an old timer, who talked our ears off. Sensing my partner was a true greenhorn who had never been on the river at night, he proceeded to tell a string of water moccasin horror stories. After a few, my partner got up, went to his truck, and got two rolls of duct tape. He proceeded to wrap a whole roll around one leg, right up to his hip. Then he did the other leg. I was beginning to have misgivings about this expedition. But we were there, committed. When it got dark, we headed down river.

     The thing about the river in those days was – The old timer's stories were true. In the space of time that I now see a moccasin on the river today, I would see 10 then. They are disappearing too. Far too many people beating on their heads with a chunk. For every two bullfrogs we picked up, we saw one snake. Those rivers are so clean, and weed free, we had no need for a gig. Just keep the light in their eyes, slowly ease up on them, look around to make sure it is not also a target for a nearby snake, then pick it up. After I had picked up several frogs, and we had seen several snakes, my partner had lost all his bluster. He was shaking like a leaf. After another mile, tears were rolling down his face, and he simply would not get out of the boat. The thing about pulling a light boat over a shoal, empty, It was easy. But add a whimpering 280 pounder, and it was back-killing work. It didn't help the bottom of the boat any, either. We were nearing halfway, over two miles to my truck. I could balk, and hope he was anxious enough to get home to get out of the boat, or I could just pull him the rest of the way. I just bowed up and did it.

     The only other noteworthy experience on the rest of that trip was passing through a giant, new hatch of mayflies. They were so thick, one could not inhale without taking one in. When we did pass on through, the boat had an inch of mayflies in the bottom.

     The thing about the river at night is, it just does that to some people. I once had a big, tough football coach in the front of my boat at night. We passed under a low hanging limb, a roost of birds thundered out, and he just ran to my end of the boat, sat in my lap, and sunk the boat. Farther down, a large beaver, for some reason, went against his naturally mild, shy nature, planted himself in the middle of a riffle, and made it plain that he had no intentions of letting us pass. I had to get out and do battle with him with a boat paddle, while my partner hung in the back of the boat. The wild river at night is not for everybody.

     It took two people, and two trucks, to do this right. I became more selective in my partners, and they became harder to find. I had ot hunt less. I have only been bitten once in all my frog hunting days. The telltale two fang marks of a poisonous snake were on my ankle, and we headed for the hospital. On the way, we passed a farm where two men, an midnight, were gathering sweet corn from someone‘s patch. When we got to the emergency room, I felt a bit silly, because it never swelled up or discolored. I guess I was sorta wishing it would when the doc came in. All I could figure, he had already used up his venom on another victim.

     Frog legs, properly cooked, are the best of wild eating. But they do move around in the skillet, when cooked fresh.

The thing about me is, there have been two distinct periods in my life when the pull of catfishing the river has been really strong. I have related to you some of the high and low times of the first period, when young blood coursed through my veins. During the early years of our marriage, that was the single largest problem Barbara had with me. I was gone too much at night, on the river. Most of those times, I was gone all night. That period tapered off and ended many years ago, though all the reasons are hard to put my finger on. As a young boy, we truly needed the wild meat for food. It was that or eat salt pork, period. And the salt pork did not keep into the summer. When Barbara and I married, that need lessened, because Barbara didn't like to cook it. Then the need for wild meat disappeared. But I still loved the river, and my attraction for the river was transferred more toward wildlife photography, float trips, etc. Then, thirty years later, after I retired, I began thinking more and more about my catfishing days, and I missed them. I have not yet caught the big one, three 25 pounders about topped it out. After much soul searching, I made a deal with my soul. I would not kill it if it was not to be eaten or for bait. I often, especially around my grand children, use the Indian custom of thanking the fish for giving it's life for our food. I have been more successful in my second period. I went through the learning curve a lifetime ago. For the last three years, I caught enough in one trip to feed the church catfish fry, seventy people or so. Several times. Up to 400 pounds per two-day trip.