WIWAB - Home and Back Again

We trudged back to the campsite dragging our one catfish on the stringer with us. Dad put the fish with the others in the net in the river. I climbed into my dry clothes and waited by poking around in the dying fire with a stick.

He was back in a minute saying, "Let's pack up and head home. I'm tired." I was tired too. It was well past midnight -- way past my bedtime. We started throwing things into the trunk of the car -- waders, fishing rods, wet clothes ... anything we could find that looked like ours. We were done in minutes. "Anything we missed, we'll get in the morning." he said. We climbed in the car and crept our way back down the dirt road with the corn to our right and river to our left.

"I hope those darn gar swim on before morning." he said. I just nodded. And in mid nod, fell asleep.

I felt a shake on my shoulder some time later. "OK, climb in bed. I'll get you up in the morning." he told me. I climbed out of the car, shuffled off to my room, stripped off my clothes and climbed in bed -- stinky, dirty, and all. A bed never felt so good.

The next thing I heard was my door open with a pop, and my dad saying, "Come on, boy. Rise and shine. We need to get back down there before the fish get off the hooks." From under the covers I poked my head out and gave him a bleary one-eyed stare.

"What time is it?" I rasped.

"Not that early. Get moving." came the reply. I tossed back the covers and reached for my jeans on the floor. "Grab another pair of jeans out of your drawer and bring them with us." he told me. "No sense in putting on your wet ones again. Your Mom's going to have to wash anyway." He left the door open and walked down the hall toward the kitchen.

After a two pieces of buttered white bread toast with cinnamon sugar and a big glass of orange juice we were on our way back to the river. The morning was sunny and starting to get hot already.

We turned down our dirt track again. I peered out the window as we got close to our camp of the night before -- straining to see our poles in the greenish looking water of the river. No such luck: a view of the nettles and a glimpse of the water was all I got.

We stopped under the trees, Dad opened the trunk and pulled out his waders. I was standing on one foot and then the other. "Run down and see if we've got anything on. I'll be right there." he said. I didn't need encouragement. I slid down the dirt bank and ran across the gravel to the edge of the water. Scanning the far bank I could see our poles. All the lines hung straight into the water -- no movement, no fish. I sagged.

He came up beside me. "Pretty quiet. Maybe we got skunked." he said. "Wouldn't be the first time, but we've got that one lunker in the live net, so it's not a total loss."

He walked to where the minnow bucket was sitting in the river and upended it. Spilling the few remaining minnows into the stream. "Won't need those now. I didn't dump 'em last night because I didn't want the fish eating them instead of our bait." He set the bucket on the gravel. "OK, let's see what we got." He started across the stream.

As he approached the first pole it twitched. Closer still and the end dipped down into the water. "Got one! He's tired from fighting all night, but there he is." In seconds, a fat catfish was flopping in the net. "Gars didn't get them all I guess." he said grinning. He carried the pole and the fish in the net back to where I waited on the gravel next to the river. He put the fish on the stringer, then fitted the hook into the eye-screw on the pole so it was all neat and tidy. He laid the pole on the gravel. "Let's go get another one."

And so the next hour went by in a flash. We caught a few more fish, but on some poles the bait was still on. He's slap the line like a whip against the water to knock the bait off, then hook the hook in the pole's eye and toss it to me near shore. Eventually all the poles lay waiting for us on the bank.

Then we retraced our steps. He had cords tucked away in some pocket or another and we tied the poles into two bundles as we walked back to the car. He rinsed the bundles in the river to get rid of some of the mud. Then, like a shot, he was up the bank with each bundle and tying them onto the roof racks of the car. He rinsed the buckets and threw them in the trunk. He cleaned up the last of the debris around the campsite. With a final glance we walked to the river's edge and pulled up the wire live net that contained our fish. We must have had more than a dozen -- a good haul for those days. He carried the net back to the car, laid a pad of newspapers on the floor of the back seat and put the net on top of it. "Let's go home. A cup of coffee sounds really good."

And so it was over. I caught a last glimpse of the river as we drove out to the main road. The leaves of the corn were waving in the light breeze. We rolled the windows down on the way home as the sun beat down.

"When are we going to go again?" I asked.