Hunt2Prove

The hand-sized bream came screaming like a bullet out of its mouth and just like that, the biggest fish my youthful eyes had ever seen disappeared with a resounding crash of ripples back into the depths of Bear Creek.   We hadn’t planned on fishing; my Dad and I were just out for a drive in his old, blue-faded CJ5. Like most of our excursions, we somehow managed to meander down a familiar old woods road that led to water – Johnson’s Ford, Carter’s Mill, or the lively spot where the creek meets the river just through the woods; where three local tributaries of learning become one and feed into the waterway on which kids become Mustangs and take a speed boat straight into adulthood.  As memories fade with time, I can’t recall whether it was late or early, morning or afternoon – In fact, it isn’t really an important part of the recollection if you know what I mean. Time didn’t really matter – For that moment it stood still, so a defining moment of my life could happen.

I’ve just returned home on this, Memorial Day, from swimming at the pool down the street with my daughter. Why this particular memory from my childhood is strong on my mind today I can’t really tell you. Perhaps it’s because the pool was crowded with kids and adults alike, who’ve probably never experienced a memory like this and likely never will. Perhaps it’s because I want to do things with my daughter much the same way that my Mom and Dad took the time to do things we with me. And too, it could be because summer is just around the corner, which means Savanna will have graduated Kindergarten and will have plenty of time to take many “ventures” as she likes to call them, with me. Whatever the case, it’s here and it’s not going anywhere until I memorialize it in such a way that it can’t be forgotten even if I’m doomed to forget it one day.

I hopped out of my weathered seat and was amazed at how shiny and clean it seemed to be while the rest of the Jeep was covered in dust, mud, and God knows what. That old Jeep saw many “ventures” itself. If it could talk it would voice stories for decades to come – some so good that they could actually grace the pages of outdoor magazines; others, maybe the funny pages of the local newspaper or worse that special publication that comes out from time to time showing the worst type of photo anyone can ever pose for – a mug shot. I learned several noteworthy things in and around that vessel of adventure – how to tie a fisherman’s knot and how to drive. I learned that one night, my Dad and uncle Mike, while on some “boys’ night out” that was surely fueled by an over abundance of alcohol, got to the end of a dirt road only to find that “Cowboy Rick” had been deposited into the ditch about two miles back – having succumbed to dangers of riding in the back of the Jeep and drinking like a fish – drinking and riding being just as bad as drinking and driving in pretty much any situation, especially when riding in the back of a jeep that had no seats, much less seat belts.

As life would have it, things change and one day my Dad up and commissioned me to sell the Jeep.   So, sell it I did. My brother-in-law at the time took the two-hour ride to Wilmington with me to deliver it. On the ride back, just a few miles from home we hit a bump that caused the trailer to jump off of the ball and slide, in a spark-filled, screeching fit along the highway until I could find a safe place to pull over. I had put the 2-5/16” hitch on a 2″ Ball – Not something I recommend. As my Dad loves to call it, this was – “Failure to secure the load.” In my case, the load was our brand new trailer that we had bought a week prior to haul our bobcat and tractor to and from our proving grounds as I dove head first into a new chapter of my life that includes the creation and management of supplemental habitat for wildlife, most specifically white-tailed deer and turkey. In my Dad’s case – the load was “Cowboy Rick” and from the sounds of the story, he had most certainly forgotten to secure it.

The creek bank was a dusty, grungy mix of decomposing leaf matter and gave off that pungent smell that is indicative of dying, yet very much alive – organic soil. I knew there would be worms. My Dad knew there would be worms. What we didn’t know was whether or not there would be a hook to put them on. Turns out – there was one, and by one I mean – One! Not two, not a tackle-box full – One. It was tied to the factory monofilament that ran back through the eyes of a 4’ smoke colored rod and into the mouth of what was once a shiny, silver Zebco 33. After many impromptu fishing expeditions quite like this one, the rod tip was gone, the eyes bent, and the reel crusted with the same sort of dirt we were digging in right now – the kind of dirt that produced plump, juicy earth worms that were just dying to adorn a hook.

With no cork, I sat down near waters edge and dropped the line to the bottom. I caught a couple of blue gill and somehow instinctively knew to throw one on the bank behind me. This wasn’t standard practice unless we were banking on catching a “mess” to eat or making some cut-bait for cat fishing, which we really didn’t need to do with the never-ending buffet of earthworms resting beneath my bottom. After a while, with not even so much as another nibble, my patience began to wear increasingly thin. I was tired of the mosquito bites I was getting and the fish bites that I wasn’t getting. As I tried to reel in the line for the final time it didn’t budge. Thinking I had become entangled with some rock or tree resting at the bottom, which happens about 9 out of 10 times when bottom fishing in Bear Creek, I began to do whatever I could to break the line.  As I walked backwards up the bank in an effort to stretch the line into breaking the water began to roll and the biggest largemouth bass I’d seen at the time was twisting and turning, flopping and churning trying to rid itself of the hook that had become lodged in its mouth. Instead, all it did was rid me of the one and only hook I had. I equate those few moments of excitement and sheer letdown with the same feeling one gets during the whitetail rut when a could-be shooter buck chases a doe by your stand three or four times without presenting a shot, giving you just enough of a glimpse to leave you yearning to see more. Or, in my case, to an evening I would later spend in the deer woods in search of my first deer with a bow: I shot 5 arrows at three different deer – Needless to say, those white-tailed does went home that night unscathed. I went home that night with no arrows in my quiver and no deer to explain the lack there of.

Had we been frontiersmen facing starvation that one, seemingly unimportant bream taking its last few flops on the bank behind us could quite possibly have made the difference between living and dying – for a few hours anyway. In our case, however, it made the difference between one more shot at a legend of a largemouth. My Dad, being the MacGyver, fix anything kind of man that he is, knew our only shot would be to use the bream I had previously doomed to a fate of becoming worm bait or even better – big fish bait. There was a problem with our plan, however: No Hook! Realizing the seriousness of the fish we had just lost and the time sensitive nature at a second chance my Dad began wrapping the line around the fish’s mouth. After enough wrapping and a good knot it was ready for the water. His idea: gut catch the bruiser fish by allowing it to “hit” and subsequently swallow the hand-sized fish that had just smacked the top of the water, making a sound much like that of a dive turned belly flop. It worked…temporarily!

We didn’t catch that fish that day, but we did get to feel its will to survive a second time. And, somewhere in that fight, in that span of about twenty minutes of success and failure we forged a memory that will last a lifetime. We proved that the obstacles of life and impromptu fishing, however big or small, can be overcome when you live with the notion that where there is a will, there is way; when you concentrate on what you can do, rather than what you can not. Like a sign from above of my life to come, I saw my first white-tailed buck rub that day as we jumped back into the jeep and headed towards home. Our “venture” for the day was over.  For days and weeks to come I would re-live that moment in my head much as I am now. And, in that recreation of a memory I can still hear the zipping of the line, see the fish in all it’s might, and feel the tug of it and the outdoors on my heart. Just like a signpost of life, that three-inch sapling with the bark scraped off would cause a stir in my mind that wouldn’t go away – I had to know more; I had another adventure coming; another chance to find out exactly who I am and what I’m here for. And, to think, it all started on the bank of a creek with a fish I didn’t catch.