Old Doc and Tom King

Something from the tackle box:

       Expecting snow in summer and rain in the dry season makes more sense than honoring a fool.  A curse you don’t deserve will take wings and fly away like a sparrow or a swallow.  Horses and donkeys must be beaten and bridled – and so must fools.  Don’t make a fool of yourself by answering a fool.  (Proverbs 26:1-4 CEV)

       The nice young man pushed his Old Towne canoe away from the dock.  He paddled out into the early morning mist of a cooler than normal Fourth of July morning on the lake.  It was just starting to get light enough to see, the sun still a good ten minutes away from showing its upper edge over the pine forest that lined the opposite shore of the lake.  Just enough time to paddle up the cottage lined western shore, northward, to Old Doc’s Cove.  It was a good time of day, and Old Doc’s Cove was a good place to toss some cork poppers to the bluegills that would be feeding there in that hour it takes for the rising sun to drive the mist off the water’s surface. 

       It was the nice young man’s regular habit to go fly-fishing for panfish on any morning he didn’t have to get ready for work, even on Sunday mornings, as he didn’t have to start getting himself and family ready for church until nine o’clock or so.  He never missed church with his wife and three boys, even if the fishing was good in the early morning. 

       A nine-foot long fly-rod, a #3 weight Grey’s Streamflex, was the nice young man’s only companion this morning, at least at this point in the outing.  He had a number of fly rods, old and new, to choose from on mornings like this, like a ladies’ man with a little black book of numbers to call on for a Friday night date.  All set up and ready to go, his rig rested with its reel end nestled between his feet, the length angled out and before him supported by the crosstree brace running across the center of the canoe.  His tackle looked as relaxed and ready for the morning at hand as the young man felt. 

       As he paddled along the young man smiled.  He mused to himself, that having the Independence Day Holiday fall on a Sunday this year would have cheated him out of a morning’s fishing if the last contract negotiation hadn’t granted him Monday off as a compensation for this year’s Holiday cohabitating the calendar with his weekly Holy Day.  The weather permitting, tomorrow’s sunrise would greet the young man in the same fashion as it promised to greet him today.  It was a good thought, and he paddled on with long firm strokes. 

       Just a minute or so away from turning in at the mouth of the cove, our young man heard the first buzzings of a potential fly in his Sunday morning ointment; a fly so unlike the bright yellow cork popper, already cinched to the tippet of his rig, that it began turning his smile into a frown just as surely as the rising sun would drive away the morning mist.  It was the voices of two other lake residents, both well known to the nice young man, Doc Mallery and Thomas King. 

       Though still somewhat muffled by the intervening shoreline, cottages and trees, the conversation was unmistakably contentious, judging by the tone and vocabulary that could be picked up on.      

       “Well you’re a fine piece of work, you dumb-ass redneck, rumbling in her in that pig of a tub at this time of the morning!  Rumble, rumble, rumble!  You act like you think you own the whole dang lake, and can ruin everyone’s peaceful morning any time you want, with the noise from that hideous piece of junk you call a bass boat! Oooo, fancy baaaass boooat!”

       “Bugger off, Doc!  You don’t own this cove any more than I own the lake!  I shut down and coasted in before you even came down to your dock, so you didn’t hear a thing, and you know it.  So just shut up and fish where you are, while I fish where I am!”

       “Bugger off yourself!  And don’t rev that dang monstrosity of a barge on your way out, or I’ll call the cops!  There’s no wake allowed this close to the docks!”

       “The only wake in this cove is coming from all the stinky wind blowing out of your big mouth!  I’m fishing right here, where I fish all the time, you old gut-bucket, so get used to it!”

       “Only because you enjoy ruining my fishing, that I’m trying to do, - off – of – my – own – dock, by the way!  Why can’t you catch fish over by where you live!  Probably got ‘em all fished out with all the fancy fish murdering gear you got packed on that nautical eye-sore you zoom around on tryin’ to wipe the whole lake clean of fish!  Leave something for the rest of us, ya greedy, pork rind muchin’ Florida redneck!”

       “Doc, - or should I say, ‘Quack,’ - you’ve been watching me fish here for years, and you know dang well that I release every single fish I ever catch!  Unlike you, you old mud-fish muncher!  But go ahead and keep all of them bottom feedin’ trash fish you want!  It’s no skin off my butt, - or your face, - which are just about the same thing, - ya backwoods bumpkin!”

       Having lived his whole life on this lake, the young man knew both of these old-timers.  He had known one of them for as long as he could remember, Doc having lived on the cove that bore his name for over fifty years.  They were a pair to draw to, those two, for sure. 

       Doc Mallery was the first person to build a house that was nice enough to live in all-year-round on the lake, way back before our nice young man was even born.  It was still considered the second nicest house on the lake, although many others had been built since, including the one our young man lived in.  As the only local dentist in the community, Doc had made a good living over the years and had put most of his income into his lake property, so it was really nice. 

       Ten years ago, at the age of seventy, Doc had sold his dental practice, and now spent all of his days inflicting pain on his fellow lake residents.  Let me explain that statement.  You see, Doc had long ago been judged as the crankiest person in the county, as judged by patient and neighbor alike.  Everyone admitted that he was a good dentist.  In fact, he was noted for doing very fine dental work, with very little physical pain inflicted on his patients, which accounted for his very successful practice.  But his chair-side manner, along with all the other manner that he proffered towards the world around him for that matter, left a whole lot to be desired. 

       How he had managed to woo, wed, and stay married to the sweetest girl in town, a woman regarded as the nicest person in the county by all who know her, was a mystery that very few could ever even begin to unravel, try as they might.  But there you have it!

       Despite his reputation, the nice young man knew Doc to be an “alright guy,” once you got to know him better.  He had fished on Old Doc’s Cove since he was a very young man, and had always been able to talk with Doc, even when Doc was in his crankiest of moods.  You just had to look past the rough manners to see what his wife, Sandy, saw in him.  There was way more there than meets the eye.   

       The other half of this argumentative equation, Tom King, was another story.  Mr. King had bought a lot, and built what was generally regarded as the nicest home on the lake, with part of the fortune he had made as a spectacularly successful luxury auto dealer and real estate speculator down in Florida.  His place was two miles north and the half mile across the lake, on the eastern shore, from the cove he was fishing, and arguing in, now.  Retiring fifteen years ago, at age fifty-five, Tom now spent the good months of May through October, “up north,” on this lake, preferring the weather at his Florida home on Marco Island for the rest of the year. 

       Now, Tom was different than Doc in many ways, and he was generally well liked by all his summer neighbors.  He worked really hard at being likable, as all really good salesmen do.  He was quick with a smile, quick with a handshake, told good stories, and liked listening to what you had to say as well.  Tom would help you with things, joined some of the local organizations, where he helped doing good things with others.  He took his wife to church every Sunday.  Went to the same church our nice young man belonged too.  Tom was a good man on the face of it, as well as underneath, just like Doc was a good man underneath, but not so much on the face of it. 

       That’s not to say that Tom was without fault.  He wasn’t.  The air of self-confidence that Tom possessed, an air so common and necessary to the success of any good salesman, often seemed to tip over into the realm of arrogant and overbearing braggadocio, especially to those who don’t care for salesman personalities, of which Doc was certainly one.  Tom’s personal taste in clothing, jewelry, cars, boats, homes, and just about anything else he owned, did tend towards the flashy - if not the downright ostentatious, another strike against him in Doc’s book.  And probably his biggest fault, at least in the mind of our nice young man, was that Tom really did fancy himself to be a much better fisherman than he actually was!

       Tom really did suppose, that if he hadn’t been so busy making a fortune in limos and land down in Florida, he would have certainly been a leading moneymaker on the professional bass fishing tournament circuit.  He did have the gear for it, top of the line boat, tackle, fish-finders and such.  And he did use them a lot, spending most of his free time in Florida and up north, plying the local waters for bass of both greater and lesser mouth size variations. 

       Tom King loved fishing for bass! But, as our young man knew, Tom King wasn’t really any better at it, for all that he put into it time and money-wise, than the young man’s oldest boy, floating around the lake in an inner-tube tossing rubber worms at weed beds with his ten dollar Zebco rod and reel. 

       “But what did that matter in the end?” thought the nice young man, “Is Tom’s love of fishing any less important to him, than mine is to me?  As Thoreau had first noted generations ago, ‘Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.’”

       “Well,” the young man mumbled to himself, “I might as well turn around and find some peaceful fishing in my second favorite spot to work the old buggy whip, back at Delmar’s Cove.  Just thirty yards from where I started out!  The sunrise feeding frenzy will be half over by the time I get back there, I suppose.  But, - anyway, - I guess I’ll paddle up and say, ‘Hi,’ to each of these miscreants in turn, before I make my exit.  If they can’t find it in themselves to observe the finer points of the Honorable Brotherhood of Hook and Line’s code of social conduct when meeting on the water, I guess it’s up to me to set a better example.” 

        The young man glided on up to the retired salesman first, Tom’s bass boat being just off the near shore of the cove, as he turned the corner to paddle in.

       “Hey there, Tom.  How’s the fishin’ this morning?”

       “Oh, hi there!  The fishing is actually pretty good.  I’ve boated and let go three nice ones already!” (Then turning his head and projecting his voice towards Doc’s dock) “The fishing’s good, - but the company is lousy!  Just like it always is in Old Quack’s Cove, when the Old Quack is out on his dock!”

       “Kiss my bass!” came the reply from forty yards away. 

       “Ya know, Tom, I can’t figure out why you keep dropping in on this spot.  It’s the same story every time.  You and Doc just end up abusing each other the whole time you’re fishing here.  You’ve got a six hundred acre lake, with lots of great bass spots, and you’ve got the boat to get to any one of them in ten minutes.  Why, there’s three spots within a quarter mile of your own place that are every bit as good as this old cove.  You don’t have to even see Doc when you’re out fishing, cuz Doc only ever fishes off of his own dock.  Why antagonize the guy?  It doesn’t seem like it could be fun for you. – Or am I wrong about that?”

       “Oh no!  I hate all this arguing, - BUT – I’ve got as much right to fish here as anyone else!  Old Doc’s name might be on this cove, but he doesn’t own the water!  As long as I stay fifty feet away from his dock, I can fish here all day long if I feel like it.  And I’m not going to let that old sucker-muncher badger me out of it. Turning his head and projecting again)  Did you hear that, - you old sucker-muncher!”

       “I heard it, - you old fish murderin bass turd!” came the reply from Doc’s dock. 

       “Well, I guess you’ve got your point to make.  But I sure don’t get it.  Will I be seeing you and Tanya at church later this morning?”

       “Sure, sure!  We’ll be there by nine thirty.  We’re setting up for the coffee hour after the service.  Everything’s all already to go.  See you then, good buddy, and I hope you get some big slabber ‘gills before you go back in.  Got to keep those three little ones full of fish, eh!”

       The nice young man moved away in the direction of Doc’s lawn chair outpost at the end of his dock.  Half a dozen paddle dips and he was back-paddling to hover near the old dentist.

       Doc actually was a bottom-fish eater, just as Tom so often accused him of being in their ongoing argument.  Mostly he fished for the redhorse suckers that came out into the sandy shallows of the cove from the stream that ran along one edge of Doc’s property and opened out into the lake, creating the cove that bore Doc’s name.  Doc’s wife, Sandy, canned those Redhorse suckers, mixed with spicy mustards and relishes, into something very special.  In fact, Sandy’s canned sucker was considered a real gourmet treat whenever she provided it to be eaten on fancy crackers at the coffee hour after church.  Old Tom King never hurled out the epitath of “sucker-muncher” at himself when he was stuffing his face with that fine fare after a service.  Those redhorse were Doc’s prime target when he was fishing, but he didn’t have anything against fried catfish for dinner either, if he happened to get one of those with the worms that he fished flat on the bottom of the cove. 

       “Hey there, Doc, how ya doin this morning?”

       “Shove off, will ya!  You’re scarin all the redhorse away from my bait!” 

       “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.  I Just wanted to say ‘hi’ before I tried to get some shallow gills to go for a popper down there, - just like I always do, Doc.  Say, ya know that Tom isn’t taking any of your redhorse out of the cove.  He’s strictly a crank-baiting bass man.  Why do you harass him so bad every time he fishes over here?” 

       Following Tom’s example, Doc answered the question loudly, face turned towards his verbal adversary.  “Cuz he’s an obnoxious, fish murderin, fish hog!  That’s why!  The props on that ugly boat of his alone kill more fish than all the hooks and lines that go into this lake put together!”  Turning back to the young man, he added, “He’s not a sporting fisherman, - like you and me.”

       Our young man couldn’t miss the irony of this statement, arising from the fact that both he and Doc did fish for the pot, mostly, while Tom did release pretty much everything he caught.

       “Come on, Doc.  You know that isn’t so.  Tom may have the fastest fishing boat on the lake, but he doesn’t have the only one.  He doesn’t churn up the water any worse than many others you know.”

       “But they don’t do it here in front of my dock, - at least not all that much.  HE’S here every other dang day, churning everything up!  And he does it just to get under my skin!  Well, he’s not going to get away with it without hearing about it whenever I’m on my dock!”

       “Whatever, Doc.  Will I be seeing the lovely and charming Mrs. Mallery at church later?”  (They young man already knew the answer to his question.  Sandy Mallery never missed church.)

       “Of course.”

       “Great.  Why don’t you join her some Sunday, Doc?  We’d love to have you.”  (The young man already knew the response to this question as well.)

       “Never gonna happen, Pal.  Now get out of the way of my fishing!  The bluegills are over there!”  Doc jerked his thumb in the direction of the lily pads on the far side of the cove, which is right where our nice young man had originally intended to fish.

       “I think I’ll head back towards my place, and fish around Delmar’s Cove, instead.  Don’t want to crowd you, or Tom, seein as how you’re all gettin along so well this morning.  See ya later, Doc.”

       The young man paddled off towards the mouth of the cove and the shoreline leading back south.  With his back to the dueling duo, he listened as the verbal war heated up again.

       “….You old backwoods, mud-fish muncher!....”

       “….You old red-necked, big mouthed, bass murderin!....”

       As the young man paddled past the first cottage just south of the cove’s mouth, he spotted Sally O’Neil, reading her morning paper on the porch by the light of the rising sun.

       “Good morning, Sally.”

       “Good morning to you as well.  Can you believe the racket those two idiots make?  I thought the fireworks weren’t supposed to go off until tonight.  It’s the third time in the last six days they’ve been at it like this.  Can you believe that I come up here all the way from Grand Rapids, a week out of every month, just to get away from the big city noise?  Sure makes it hard to enjoy a cup of coffee and the morning paper on your own cottage porch, - let me tell you.” 

       “I know, Sally, - I know. – You should try living up here with them full time.” 

       “What a pair of fools, - that’s what I say!” 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Two, otherwise goodhearted and decent humans, sure can be hard to figure out when they just don’t like each other at all for some reason or another.  If you don’t believe it to be the case, just ask any small-town church pastor if it isn’t so. 

Fishing in a Magical Kingdom

Something from the tackle box:

       Leopards will lie down with young goats, and wolves will rest with lambs.  Calves and lions will eat together and be cared for my little children.  Cows and bears will share the same pasture; their young will rest side by side.  Lions and oxen will both eat straw.  Little children will play near snake holes.  They will stick their hands into dens of poisonous snakes and never be hurt.  Nothing harmful will take place on the Lord’s holy mountain.  Just as water fills the sea, the land will be filled with people who know and honor the Lord.  (Isaiah 11:6-9 CEV)

       I recently returned home to Lake Odessa from a week spent enjoying the hospitality and amenities of Central Florida, which is a nice place to spend a week in mid-February when you’re from Michigan.  The weather was grand, the theme parks were fun, and the company I kept was very good, just as it has been on each of my trips to the Orlando area, made every other winter for the past sixteen years now.  So, let me explain my habit of biannual trips to the world in and around Disney’s Kingdom, before I get into my subject matter of fishing proper, just so you can figure out where I’m coming from on this story. 

       My younger brother, Joe, has been the music teacher and band director at Lake Michigan Catholic Schools, in St. Joseph, Michigan, since he graduated from college with a music teaching degree way back in 1981.  That’s thirty-six years, to date, of working with the young musicians learning the art of marching and concert performance at LMCS (as well as many years coaching the girls varsity basketball team).  It has been a very successful gig for Joe, attested to by the fact that, during his tenure, over half of the students enrolled at the High School have been involved in band from year to year, some years, well over half.  Band is a big thing at LMCS, and the program that my little brother has built up there is largely responsible for that.  Mr. Jarvie is an institution at LMCS, and those of us who claim kinship with him are rightly proud of his accomplishments. 

       Early on in his tenure as a band teacher, my brother started organizing these mid-winter trips so that his students could experience performing a concert at a nice venue far away from home, as well as spend time learning together, having fun, and developing that ‘esprit de corps’ which is needed for any group to reach that next level of competent performance.  It has worked well for the music program at LMCS, and is one of the big reasons over half of the student body participates in band most years. 

       Of course, trips like these require a lot of organization, work, and adult supervision, to pull off in a way that leaves school staff, administration, parents, as well as the students themselves, satisfied with the all the results, not to mention enthusiastic about repeating the whole process again two years down the road.  Enter big brother, Mark (known as “brother Jarvie,” to the students, as opposed to “Mr. Jarvie,” their teacher) recruited as a volunteer bus and event chaperone for the two, twenty-four hour long, bus rides that get us to Orlando and back, as well as our days at the theme parks, learning sessions with Disney teaching staff, small group side events, dinners out, and our visit to Church services at Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando. 

       It has been my great pleasure to serve in this capacity of being an ‘overseer of the youth’ on nine of these trips, so far.  It’s a lot of responsibility but, generally, pretty easy duty.  I certainly hope to go on one or two more of these trips before my brother’s anticipated retirement about four years from now.  My wife tried it with me once and swore, “never again,” but I treasure the experiences that I’ve had, on each and every one of these trips, as having been grand!  In any event, that’s how I got to central Florida for a week this past month.  Now, on to some reflections about fishing that I made while I was there. 

        Despite its reputation as a fishing Mecca, I have only been able to spend a couple of days fishing in the State of Florida – and these have not come while serving as a chaperone on my brother’s band trips.  Easy duty or not, there isn’t time for a fishing excursion on an official ‘overseer of the students’ daily activity schedule.  So, I leave my tackle at home.  But that doesn’t mean that fishing isn’t on my mind!

       It is actually possible to fish right at Disney World.  If you are staying at one of their resort centers, you can book guided catch and release bass fishing excursions that ply the waters in and around several of the parks.  I’ve actually witnessed people enjoying themselves in this way right in the waterway that feeds the lake around which the Epcot Center’s World Showcase is located.  Happy people catching and releasing nice fish right between France and England.  Sort of a ‘fishing the English Channel’ experience, in miniature, I suppose.  While there were no fishing excursion boats there for me to watch on this last trip, I did notice some fishing tackle set up for display by the seawall on the France side of the channel.  It’s a nice touch.

       The fishing theme also gets represented right in a couple of the attractions at the parks as well.  One of my favorite rides at Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park is Splash Mountain.  I always make it a point to salute the fishing gulls on my gentle boat ride towards the big drop at Br’er Rabbit Falls.  It’s only good manners when you meet fellow practitioners of the piscatorial arts when on the water.  The gulls always return the favor by singing “How Do You Do?” as I float by, which I think is nice.  “Good fishing to you, boys!”

       Aside from the “fishing” theme, there are also just   Fish are easily spotted in bodies of water not used for nighttime fireworks displays at several parks.  There are a couple of nice “underwater” viewing stations to watch some nice sized South American pacu swim around from at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and throngs of native Florida fish crowd the waters looking for handouts under the bridge that you cross making the loop around Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure park.  (Please don’t feed the fish!)  But the place I want to mention in particular is ‘The Seas with Nemo & Friends’ attraction at Epcot Center.  Formerly ‘The Living Seas,’ (a name that I personally much preferred) ‘The Seas with Nemo and Friends’ is an exhibit that I always spend some time at when visiting Epcot for a couple of reasons. 

a lot of FISH to be seen at the parks.

       The first, and less important reason, is that it is a really nice aquarium, with a multitude of very beautiful fish and other marine life to be seen in very beautiful (albeit, manmade) environments.  Disney is rightfully famous for first-class attractions, and ‘The Seas’ is no exception.  There are bigger and more up-to-date aquariums out there to visit, one right there in Orlando, but ‘The Seas’ is just right in my book. 

       Which brings me to the second, and more important, reason I like ‘The Seas’, a reason that many haggard parents carting small toddlers around Disney World have discovered as well.  It is quiet, - and peaceful, - and relaxed, inside ‘The Seas’.  The lighting is dim.  There is no piped-in background music.  Adults whisper when talking there.  Crying toddlers calm right down.  Some youngsters even lie down on the ledge in front of the viewing widows and take a nap.  Overtired babies being rocked in Parent’s arms finally drop off to sleep.  And the fish – even the carnivorous ones – like sharks and barracuda – swim around and around – all together – in peace! 

 

Something to take home in your creel: 

       It’s somewhat counterintuitive, to my way of thinking, that I should be able to experience the same feelings of serene union with God’s creation at a Disney World attraction, that I find fly-fishing for trout in the early morning mist on my favorite secluded stream.  It is a fact strange oddly strange to my mind.  But then, I guess, peace is found where peace is found. 

The Biggest Bass I Ever Caught

Something from the tackle box:

       After exploring the land of Canaan forty days, the twelve men returned to Kadesh in the Paran Desert and told Moses, Aaron, and the people what they had seen.  They showed them the fruit and said: "Look at this fruit!"  The land we explored is rich with milk and honey.  But the people who live there are strong, and their cities are large and walled.  We even saw the three Anakim clans.  Besides that, the Amalekites live in the Southern Desert; the Hittites, Jebusites, and the Amorites are in the hill country; and the Canaanites live along the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River." 
       Caleb calmed down the crowd and said, "Let's go take the land.  I know we can do it!"  

       (Numbers 13:25-30 CEV)

       Almost forty years ago, when I was a young man in my early twenties, I worked an early morning shift at the Battle Creek Post Office.  The scheduled hours for sorting clerks, getting the mail ready for the carriers and the outgoing trucks that day, was from three in the morning until noon.  When I got out of work, I would make the twenty mile drive, north and west out of town, to my home in the countryside of northeast Kalamazoo County.  Once home, I would eat a bite of lunch and then drive over to pick up my very young son from his morning at daycare.  We two would then entertain one another until my wife got home from her job in Kalamazoo, around five in the afternoon.  
       That was my usual routine in those days.  It was a full day, most of the time, and I was not able to fish nearly as much as I do in my present circumstances.  Even so, about once or twice a month, I would make arrangements to pick up little Zac a bit late that day, so that I could get in an hour or two of fishing for the middling sized trout that populated a small stream, Augusta Creek, I passed over on my route home.  It was a very comfortable arrangement that lead to some idyllic afternoons, as well as some fine pan-fried trout dinners with my family that night.  
       As relaxed of a little trout fishing situation that this was, I'm writing this story to tell you that the biggest bass that I ever caught, at the end of the biggest fight I've ever had with any fish, came on a day when I had gone fishing on my way home, intending to catch two or three dinner-sized brownies.  
       Augusta Creek winds its way through the countryside east of Gull Lake, in the area where Barry, Calhoun, and Kalamazoo Counties all come together.  You can get a small canoe down the Augusta, but nothing bigger, and it has pretty thick cover on both banks, as well.  You couldn't fish it with a fly rod in most places, with any ease.  But, just about any old place, a fisherman with a small spinning rod, some worms, and a good set of waders, could be fairly confident of coming away with a meal's worth of the trout that State would stock that stream with each spring. 

       Personally, I liked to fish Augusta Creek several miles upstream from the town of Augusta, getting in where a bridge on my route home crossed over it.  Mike B, one of my fishing buddies at work, had told me a lot about this stretch of the Augusta when we fist started working together.  I had mentioned that I was thinking of going fishing there one day, as I had seen others there during trout season, and he gave me lots of insights into how to work that stretch of stream.  I have always been grateful to him for that.  
       If you worked your way upstream, any more than a quarter-mile from where you got in, you had to stay in the water, as the banks on both sides were posted.  Because of this, fewer people fished that far north of the bridge.  But I didn't mind at all.  To me, it was worth the time to work that far just to not have others fishing right around me, which was often the case if you stayed near the bridge, or fished downstream from it.  I also thought that the fishing was a tad bit better, once you got a good way north of the bridge, but I never told anyone else that.  
       Anyway, on the day that this story took place, my judgment on that point could have been called into question by anyone who was watching.  I had worked my way further up the Augusta than I ever had before, a good half-mile or more, and I was having no success at all when it came to my fish count.  Not so much as a measly "kipper snack" had been I tucked into my canvass creel.  I was about ready to start working my way back downstream, to my waiting car and home, when I remembered something Mike B had told me about fishing this far upstream, way back when we had first talked about it, a story that I had been a bit skeptical about at the time - and still was.  
       "I'll tell you about a little 'hot spot' if you promise to keep it under your hat, because I'm not sure if you can legally hit it any more, - exactly.  But, if you go a good half-mile or so, upstream from the bridge, you will see where a little, slow running, tributary stream runs into the Augusta.  It's pretty densely packed with thicket on both banks, brambles that weave together over top of the water, most of the way.  So most people miss it, or don't bother with it if they do see it, 'cuz it's too hard to fish.  But the stream itself averages about six to eight feet wide, and one or two feet deep, in most places, and the trout are in there.  So you can legally fish it - if you're willing to fight your way through all that brush to do it.  But you have to stay in the water, because both banks are heavily posted, 'No Trespassing!" 
       "Now, it's not really worth going up that stream for the trout.  They aren't any better than the ones out in Augusta Creek proper, and way more work to get at.  They aren't what you're pushing through all that junk for.  If you've got the gumption to push through all that crud, for about two hundred yards or so, you're going to find that this little stream flows out of a spring-fed pothole lake, only about three or four acres in size, I'd say, - but - it is deep, - and it is clean, - and it is full of monster bass!
       "The whole pond is on the property of one crotchety old man.  I think he must put bass that he catches in other places in that hole, 'cuz it ain't natural for that many big fish to be in that small of a lake.  I heard that he feeds them off his dock, on corn, every day, like they was pigs or somthin'.  And he must, 'cuz some of them are huge! He's got a woven wire fence running through the water, right where the stream runs out, to keep all the big fish in that pond from escaping downstream!
       "Now, the lake is natural, and the stream running into it is "technically" navigable, so you used to be able to get to that pothole without leaving the water, and you could fish into it right over the top of his fence, which he shouldn't have there anyway.  Of course, you had to take his cussing if he caught you doing it.  I've done so myself, a couple of time, some years back, but not lately.  
       "A couple of years ago, that crusty old bugger went and cut down two big sycamore trees, on on either bank of the stream, right near where it leaves the lake, and he let them fall so that their tops formed a fence in the water.  Now you can't get past that mess without getting out of the stream and trespassing on his property.  As far as I know, those bass have been all his ever since.  I've a mind to go back there sometime and see if it's changed any since then.  But maybe you could go sometime, and then let me know how it is."  
       That is what I remembered Mike telling me, about three years earlier, and he had said that it had been a couple of years before that, when the trees had been felled into the creek.  I hadn't put a lot of stock in Mike's story when I first heard it.... but then.... a lot can happen in five years..... and...... I was this far upstream anyway......  so I started looking around.  It wasn't five minutes before I found where that little tributary stream ran into Augusta Creek, and it looked exactly as Mike had described it.  
       It was tough work, busting the brush and working my way up that little creek, as no one had pushed through it in a long time, I could tell, but I did it.  When I had gone the predicted two-hundred yards, and gotten in sight of the end of the headwaters of that little stream, I found it to be just as Mike had said; two big old trees were felled, one on either bank, with their tops entwined in the middle of the stream, right at the edge of the pond.  The only difference was that a lot of time had passed since those treetops had been put there.  All of the smaller branches were gone, long ago dried up and removed by current and weather.  Even many of the two or three inch thick branches had broken off, and floated away to decay downstream.  Would it be a puzzle to get through?  Yes.  Was it an inpenetrable wooden/iron curtain?  No. 
        I'll admit that it was a chore.  Climbing over branches was the easy part.  I was on my hands and knees in the water twice, getting under branches that I couldn't get over.  My shirt was soaked.  Getting my rod, creel, and landing net through the puzzle of branches, along with my carcass, was trickier than threading threading a raw spaghetti noodle and a Kleenex through a ball of wadded up barbed wire without breaking or tearing one or the other, - but I did it!  And, once I was on the further side of the tangle, I found nice big branch that would support my weight.  It made a nice bench to sit on while I made my cast over the half-submerged fence, about five feet in front of me, that still kept the pond-monsters from running downstream. It felt good, and adventurous, to be there.  

       I put the biggest hook I had on, to replace the tiny thing I had been using to fish for the little trout back in the creek, threaded on one of the red worms from my bait pouch, and started making casts and slow retrieves.  It wasn't long before I got what I had come for, what I had heard about from Mike, what I had doubted, but was now believing in with all my heart.  Something big had grabbed the end of my line and was tearing it off the reel in a run towards the further shore of that little lake.
       There wasn't going to be any "muscling" this fish in, I knew, not with the light trout tackle I was using.  I only had 4lb. test line on, and so quickly set the drag on that fish as light as it would go without actually throwing the line into the lake after him.  Even so, that fish had my little rod bent into a horseshoe, drag screaming with the velocity of the line running off, as he dashed from here to there across that pond.  It's a good thing that little pothole was so small.  I had enough line on that he couldn't tear it all off my reel, even when he ran to the furthest point of the lake from me.  The hardest work was getting the line back on when he was moving on an angle towards me.  I had to crank like crazy when that happened to keep line tight.
       The old monster broke the surface a number of times in the fight, showing his size to my eyes.  To do so was probably a good tactic on his part.  Seeing the fish actually magnified the incredulity of the whole situation in my mind.  It added to my anxiety over handing him, and being able to prove to the world that this monster indeed existed!  I was tense, for sure, and fish break off on fishermen who are tense.  But, somehow or other, this one didn't.  He finally began to tire a bit, and I was able to coax him closer and closer to my fallen treetop perch, in between his shorter and shorter runs away from me.  Finally, I had him sloshing around in the water just on the other side of that mostly submerged woven-wire fence, stretched across the creek mouth, just five feet away.
       Now came the tricky part, that I hadn't anticipated.  How did I get the fish over that fence, close enough to get my hands on him?  The stream was much deeper, and soft bottomed, right there where it exited the lake.  There was no way I could get off my perch, to stand in the water, and reach my arm over that fence!  And my light line wouldn't even come close to bearing his weight, if I tried to lift him over the top of it with my rod, from where I sat!  I was beginning to realize that the whole expedition had been an exercise in futility.
       Well, I would just have to cut my line and let him go.  I would be pushing my way back through all of that tangle, and wading the half-mile more downstream, with nothing but another fisherman's story to show for it all.  My heart was sinking. - And that's when it happened!
       As I was sitting there, pondering the injustice of it all, that old monster had been gathering his strength.  He decided to make one more jump in a last ditch attempt to shake the hook out of his mouth and run free.  He came up straight out of the water, further up than he had on any other leap in our match.  I didn't even have time to think about it, I just reacted out of instinct, while he was mid-flight in his leap, and gave a jerk on the line while he was flapping in mid-air.  It was enough to pull him over the top, from one side of the fence to the other.  With that, he was exhausted, and it wasn't five seconds before I had him lifted out of the water by his bottom lip.  The biggest bass I had ever caught, or ever even seen in person.  
       But that wasn't the end of the story!  As I sat there, holding up that fish and looking him up and down with a huge smile on my face, I heard whistling and applause coming from across the lake.  I looked over, and there stood the old codger on his dock, an open bag of what looked like cheap dog food lying at his feet.  When he saw that I had seen him, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted over:
       "Well done, young man!  Well done! - That was, without a doubt, the finest piece of fishing, by man or boy, that I've seen in my en-tire life!  You go ahead and keep that fish, if'n you want 'em, 'cuz you've earned 'em.  He ain't the biggest one in this pond, anyways, not by a long shot. - But NOW, - I suggest that you take my advice - and get your scrawny butt out of here!  And don't come back!  Cuz, if you DO, and I catch you, I'm gonna pepper it with rock salt! - Now GIT!
       From my vantage point right about then, his advice seemed very sound, - and so I took it.  

Something to take home in your creel:
       
       I have no desire to retrace my steps, of that long ago day, to see if that honey-hole even exists anymore.  The events I've just related took place almost forty years ago now.  No doubt, the old codger, who kept those bass in his "private" lake, is long gone, along with his monster fish.  At least I'm content in believing so, without knowing for sure.
       I believe that older men tend to respect property rights much more automatically than young lads do, at least as a general rule, and I'm an older man now.  That is the way it's always been, - I think, - and that is as it should be, - I guess.  
       While I still don't believe that I was technically in violation of any letter of any law, in getting to that place on that day, I certainly had broken the spirit of it.  For that, I owe the old codger an apology.  I had no real business in being there to catch that fish in the first place.  I wouldn't do it now.  Indeed, I wouldn't have done it even a few years after I did do it.  Even at the time that I did do it, I never went back to work and told Mike that I had done it.  Even then, I knew that it had been a dubious adventure, at best....  But a genuine adventure, nonetheless!

Book Offer

Mark L. Jarvie

761 Fourth Ave.

Lake Odessa, MI 48849                                                                       January 24, 2017

Dear friend, relative or casual reader, as the case may be,

       On my birthday this past October, my dear wife presented me with a small number of professionally bound copies of selected articles from my blog-site, bluegills on a fly rod.  The book contains a selection of twenty-nine stories from the first year of postings on my blog.  It was a beautiful gift that took me totally by surprise.  What a gal!

       Since then, a number of friends and associates have seen this little book and have encouraged me to offer it to a larger number of readers than the few copies I was gifted with could accommodate.  To that end, I plan to re-order enough copies to provide all who might wish to have this book one of their own.  This book has 140 pages of delightful fishing/devotional stories, each beginning with a passage of scripture and ending with an observation on fishing, family, friends and faith.  Several b&w illustrations are contained in the text and the cover binding features a beautiful color rendition of one of my wife’s stunning watercolor artworks.  It really is a nice looking book, and the writing is pretty good, if I do say so myself. 

       I have estimated that the costs of printing, shipping, and getting these books into the hands of their new readers is going to amount to over ten dollars per copy.  While I have no desire to make a substantial profit on this work, neither to I want to go in the hole.  So I am asking all who make an order to pay $15 per copy to cover my expenses (checks may be made payable to Mark L. Jarvie).  While advance payment with your order would be greatly appreciated, personal acquaintances may wait and pay upon delivery of the book if desired. 

       To order, send your name, mailing address, and number of copies ordered, along with payment if you so choose, to me at the address shown above.  I anticipate making the order at the end of March and should have the book in your hands by the end of April.

Thank you, and blessings be upon you all,

Rev. Mark L. Jarvie

A Mighty Minty Evening on the Ice

I’m sorry that my Christmas story for this year is so late.  If you read my entry for December you may know why.  Old S.C. is back, a little less rough around the edges than he was in ‘A Mighty Minty MORNING on the Ice,’ but still prone to course language.  I hope you aren’t offended by that.

Something from the tackle box:

       When the men went into the house and saw the child with Mary, his mother, they knelt down and worshiped him.  They took out their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh and gave them to him.  (Matthew 2:11 CEV)

       It would be a calm but cold night, old Sam Cass had decided as he walked the mile and a half home from his job at the B&M service station and convenience store. 

       “Only six o’clock and it’s already darker than a sack full of ice holes,” he mused to himself, the same musing that he made every night as he made the walk home in the months of December and January.

        “Got damp daylight savings time can kiss my bass.”

       Despite the grumbling, Sam was in a pretty good mood, as he usually was most of the time.  His constant chatter, rife with course language even when no one else was around to hear it, was a habit going all the way back to his childhood.  He came by it honestly, as his dad had been just the same.  Sam was much like his father had been in many ways, - but not in all ways.

       “Sure hope old Rudy ain’t too wound up for his dinner when I get home.  Can’t help but hardly step on that damp cat’s paws two or three times before I can get the dank cat food into the dank bowl!  Har, har, and that’s the dank truth, har, har, har.”

       Old Sam loved his cat Rudy, who’d showed up and moved in with him at his shack on the lake over 16 years ago now.  They understood one another and enjoyed as close of a relationship as an old tomcat and a crusty old duffer could either want. 

       But the anticipated affections of an old cat waiting for his dinner was not the only thing old Sam was looking forward to tonight.  It was Christmas Eve and Sam would be going to the Midnight Candlelight Service at the Episcopal Church after a few hours of ice fishing.  Now, it might surprise the reader of this story to learn that the thought of going to a church service, and staying up late into the night to do it to boot, would lighten the mood of anyone possessing the crude mannerisms held by our old friend Sam, but such is the case. 

       If you would know the whole truth, I should tell you that Sam could be found in church every Sunday morning!  In fact, no local who knew him could recall a Sunday morning when Sam hadn’t been in church from the time he was an infant.  This can be accounted for by the fact that his dearly loved mother made him be there every Sunday morning until he reached an age where he could willingly promise her that he would be there every Sunday morning on his own until the day he should die.  Sam loved his mom – and he always kept all of his promises.

       Now this is not to say that Sam could always be found in the same church every Sunday morning.  That was not part of the promise.  There were six churches within an hour’s walk of his shack on the lake and Sam attended them all on a regular rotation system.  First Baptist, St. Agnes Catholic, Pilgrim Congregational, Laketon Methodist, St. George Episcopal, and the New Life Original Four Square Gospel Holiness Temple, all saw his presence in that order before he started over again.  He liked variety in his worship more than his dear mother would have probably approved of, her having been a staunch Baptist through and through, but, again, that hadn’t been part of the promise.    

       The strict rotation was ignored for certain special Holy Day observances however.  Easter Sunday was always spent at the Baptist church of his childhood, Ash Wednesday always found him at St. Agnes, Good Friday was at the community service hosted by the Methodists, and Christmas Eve was always with the folks at St. George.  As he often told his cat, Rudy, “No one puts on a fancier Christmas shindig than those ‘piscopals do!  Too bad I can’t take you with me to see it!… Although… they do bless their critters inside the church every summer.…… hmmmm….”

       Home now, Sam let himself in and almost tripped over Rudy twice between the door and the bag of cat food waiting on the counter opposite the door.  The shack only had three real rooms, if you didn’t count the glassed in mudroom, coat rack, boot scraping, front porch you had to walk through to get to the only door.  It had been Sam’s home since he was fifteen and had moved in with his mom the year after his dad had died in the wreck. 

       Without dad’s pay mom’s work at the cash register of the B&M wasn’t enough. They’d had to downsize from the larger place they had lived in on the other side of the lake.  The new place wasn’t much, but Sam had always liked it.  As soon as Sam was out of school he took over his dad’s old job in the garage at the B&M fulltime.  Things got better for a while, and they talked about moving into a bigger place again, but then mom got sick and followed dad into the Promised Land.  By the time he was twenty two Sam had the place all to his self and didn’t see the need for any more room.  That was a long time ago now.  Rudy liked it too. 

       “Well Rudy, is you ready to go do a little fishin’ with me before I leaves ya to go listen to that fancy Christmas music and bible story readin’ by candlelight service over at the ‘piscopal church later on?” 

       Rudy did not look up from his dish, but Sam knew that he would go.  Whether it was in the boat or riding the fishing sled over the ice, Rudy always went out with Sam whenever he went fishing.  The cat seemed to love being on the water as long as he didn’t have to get into the water.  It was one of the things that kept the pair so close knit.

       “Well, you’d dank well better hurry up and get your pie hole filled then!  I’m headed out to the porch to suit up and get the damp sled ready right now.  Won’t take me five damp minutes before I’m ready to go, so fill yer guts and come on! – har, har, har.”  Sam knew the cat would be ready to head out when he was.  Ten minutes later they were on their way.

       If there wasn’t any snow Rudy liked to walk ahead of Sam as he pulled his sled across the ice.  The sled would carrying the ice spud, lantern, tackle (including a rod given him by a very nice young man he’d met on the ice just a year ago now) and two buckets, one to sit on and own to toss fish into.  Sam would follow Rudy and chop out his holes wherever the cat decided to stop and sniff the ice.  You can pooh-pooh the system if you want to, but Sam caught more than his share of fish in this way.

       “Fancy electronic fish-finders is all fine and dandy I guess, but who needs ‘em when you got a cat that can smell those dank fish right through the ice like you can old buddy!”

       The cat was taking him a long way across the lake tonight, three quarters of the way across the lake in the direction of the place where Sam had grown up.  On these longer excursions Sam liked to sing on the way.  Sam actually possessed a pretty decent singing voice, which was why folks didn’t mind that much when their church came up on his Sunday rotation.  (Although, you could never be quite sure what kind of lyrics to the hymn tunes might come out of his mouth the minute Sam stepped out the front door of your church.) In keeping with the season, he decided on a bowdlerized secular Christmas jingle tonight.

     “Ohhh – Rudy the pink nosed kitty cat – had a very snot-ty noooose.  And if you ev-er saaaaw it, - you would say that it was grooooss!  All of the other pussy cats – used to run away in fear. – They didn’t want old snot-nose – to come and chew upon their eeear!  Har-har-har.  Whad ya think of that little tune, ya old waste of cat food? Har-har.”  Rudy just stopped and sniffed the ice.  “Well, - if this is the spot, then this is the spot, - ain’t it!”

       In ten minutes time the lantern was lit, a hole was in the ice, and Sam sat on a bucket with a line down into the lake and a purring cat in his lap.  The perch were there sure enough, and over the next hour or so Sam hauled them up and out at a steady pace.  He had his two dozen plus one limit some time before he really needed to head back in to clean up and make it to St. George’s on time for the service, so he sat there and just thunk for awhile.

       He could see the lights on in the old place.  When he and his mom had moved out the place had been bought by a Joe and Marge Bignall.  They had both been four years older and five grades ahead of him in school, but Sam knew them.  Joe and Marge had gotten married the summer after graduation from Laketon High and the old Cass place would make a good starter home for the young man and his bride.  Not that they planned to live there a real long time, as Joe would someday be a partner in his dad’s local hardware store, and they could move up.  Sam knew that they had both hated to see little Sam and his mom have to move out at the time, but the place was going to be sold one way or the other, and they agreed to meet the asking price, which was pretty nice when you think about it. 

       The Bignalls still lived there.  Dreams don’t pan out for lots of folks I guess.  The hardware had folded and was sold at a loss.  After that Joe went to work at a furniture wholesale store in the next big town down the highway, where he did OK, - until the MS put him in a wheelchair. 

       Fairly late in their marriage Joe and Marge had had a daughter, whom they loved, but who was a problem for them growing up on account of booze and bad company.  Same old story.  The daughter had married poorly and both she and her husband were now in prison, down for quite a while for engaging in a variety of criminal activities.  This was hard enough on Joe and Marge - without considering the little ones – Ned, Mike and Little Joe – aged eleven, eight and five – who had been living with Grandpa and Grandma Bignall for the last three years – and probably would be living with them for the next seven or eight years at least.  Good boys, a joy to their Grands, but a hard row to hoe for them nonetheless. 

       Sam had seen Marge just that morning, when she came to the B&M to pick up their rusty old wheelchair-lift van that Sam had put a set of new/used snow tires on for them.  Nope! The Bignalls would never be moving up from the place they’d bought from Sam and his mom as a starter home all those many years ago.

       “Ya know what, Rudy?  I’m thinkin’ maybe we ought to slide on over to the old place and leave some of these pretty perch by the front door.  I know they like ‘em.  Joe used to fish with me onest in awhile afor he got chair-bound, and he never minded taking the extras home.  I’m dank near certain they’ll still be at the Methodist church for another hour yet, as their Christmas Eve blast only started about half an hour ago.  They’ll never even know it was us! Har-har-har! Wha’d ya say, ya snot-nosed old bass turd?”

       Rudy just got off of Sam’s lap and hopped up on the ice sled.

       In another ten minutes it was done.  Of course the footprints in the snow, coming up off the lake, leading to the front door where the bucket of fish was set, and then running back down to the lake and heading off in the direction of old Sam’s shack, would be a dead giveaway.  But what did that matter?  On the way home across the lake Sam felt as talkative as usual. 

       “Rudy, I’m sure glad you reminded me of those six candy canes I had in the pocket of my overalls.  They sure looked pretty hanging around the rim of that dank fish bucket! Har-har-har.  How about another song, in keepin’ with the season.”

       Sam thought for a minute, then struck up one he didn’t sing often, but which he had always liked from the time he was a kid.

       “Ohhhh – Good King Wenceslas looked ouuut – on the feast of Steee-phaaaan. – When the snow lay ‘round abouuuut, - deep and crisp and eeee-vaaaan! ……….”

       And so old Sam sang in his heart all the way home, and then on to the best midnight candlelight Christmas service he could ever remember the ‘piscopals ever putting on for him.

Something to take home in your creel:

       The wealth of the Magi had very little to do with their gold, or their frankincense, or their myrrh.  It had a great deal to do with their hearts.  I hope your holidays were filled with generosity and goodwill towards all mankind.  Blessings be upon you all my friends.  M.J.