From my canoe I looked
upstream at the falls, still amazed that the entire river fits and
falls through that narrow rock gorge. Above the falls the wide and lazy river narrows to a steady and strong slick at a surprising rate. It pays to pay attention. Long ago I'd heard a
story of a Forest Service employee who's aluminum canoe had been
pulled into the falls along with himself and his springer spaniel. The
dog survived.
I paddled into the bay I
hoped would be loaded with bass but was disappointed that weeds had
pretty much filled what I once remembered as a honey hole. The most
interesting thing there was a boat that apparently went down the
falls. It was stuck upside-down in mud but I could see the bow
smashed in. I don't know how it ended up where it did, but if anyone
had been hurt I would have heard about it. Recovering it will be tough - if anyone bothers to try. Surveying the scene I
recalled some harrowing experiences I've had with dangerous water and
realized with a different turn of a leaf I could've easily not been
here today. I looked skyward for a moment then touched the zipper on
my life jacket.
Near the entrance to the
bay, in the river proper, I caught smallmouth bass with deerhair
poppers in jumbled rocks along the shoreline. Yielding to the current
I eased downstream and aimed for a rocky point across the river. A
commotion behind caught my attention and I turned to see I had an
audience. Several adults and a passel of children had found the
portage trail around the falls and hiked it to rivers edge. If there
was ever a time to blow a cast that was it, but my popper flew
straight and true and a nice bass exploded on it the second it hit
the water. I landed the fish amid the cheers and waves of the folks
across the river. To makes matters even better, my next cast
connected too! Maybe my spectators thought I was showing off, but at
any rate after that second fish they disappeared up the hill into the
woods.
Autumn is on the way. A
couple of frosty mornings let us know, as if we needed reminders.
Grouse hunting season opened a couple of days ago and it's time to
start splitting the hours between fishing rods and shotguns. It may
be a little bittersweet for me but my English setter, Gabby, is
thrilled. Autumn doesn't last long so we'll make the best of it. I
was a regular at the skeet club for the last couple of months hoping
to tune up the old shooting form, to good effect I hope.
But there
was still the urge to organize a couple of fly boxes for some late
season trout fishing. So little time, so little time.
