| Ah, fishing; what a beautiful thing—hooks, sinkers, floaters, line, rods, reels, boats, trucks, cheap sunglasses, and goofy hats. What a beautiful thing! People argue; some say that fishing is an extreme sport, while others say that it's just a lazy hobby. But what all those people arguing don’t realize is that, at any given time, it can be either of the two. It is truly a sport for all ages, genders, and races. If a person wants, he/ she can take a walk to a cozy little pond and sit on the bank with a cane pole and comfortably wait for the floater to go under. Likewise, the true pro or, in my case, pro-wannabe can read every book written on how to snag that award-winning bass, go out and buy the most expensive tackle on the market, get up at 4 in the morning, load up the boat, gas up the truck, dump his woman, forget his mother’s birthday, and miss his child’s first word (which, incidentally, will be something like "boat" or "bassmaster" or "Bill dance ain’t got nothin’ on you, daddy!"). He will then spend the entire day driving the boat as fast as it can go across the water to each point of preference to slowly and meticulously troll around until he’s hit every nook and cranny on the lake. At the end of the day, he’ll say, "let’s see; hooked one, lost five, got hung up twice, lost a lure, got sunburned, missed dinner, and I’m broke. It was a good day."
There seems to be no limit to what man will do for the fauna of the water. After saying that out loud, I realize that I am no exception. You’d think that after all the broken hearts of man through the years due to a combination of his woman leaving him because he’s always fishing, going fishing all the time and rarely catching a keeper, and going broke because he’s spending all his money on gas and tackle, that we’d learn something from our predecessors. But we don’t. It’s a vicious cycle. I say all of this because of a story—yup, a fishing story. I try to keep all of those to myself because—well, I’m simply not quite the best fisherman in the world. Most of my stories are accident related or just simply the, "I went fishin’ yesterday"—"Oh yeah? Catch anything?"—"Nah." Type of thing. Most good stories revolve around that big catch; that huge fish that made you drop your sunglasses, which landed on your can of coke sitting on the driver console, which spilled all over the console and into all the electrical devices, which caused a short, which caused a fire, which cause you to jump into the lake, but did not cause you to lose that fish. But I find that most of my stories revolve around the fish that I didn’t catch. The most recent (and one of the most frightful) episode was just the other day. Ever since I bought my house, I’ve been dying to go fishing down at the river just behind the house, but I could never find time; I guess because when I’ve had time, I’ve usually used it to work on the house, play guitar, or write all the silly stuff in these journals and such. Well, late last week I had the itch. I left work with a plan. I went to Wal-Mart (I love Wal-Mart) and picked up a few new lures and decided to get a new tackle box. Later on in the evening, this would prove to be a wise decision. This thing is just cool; all sorts of zippers and pockets and velcro and stuff like that—more like a tackle bag I guess. I got home, got all strung up, and threw the tackle box over my shoulder. I walked about a couple hundred yards down the street, cut through the trees, and made my way down to the river. There isn’t much on my side of the river—just rocks. It opens up to just sort of a rock shore out of the trees. There isn’t much fish attraction, so I was walking up and down the shoreline casting different lures out into the middle of the river hoping to snag something. It was still hot and sunny at the time. "I guess they’re just not gonna go for it," I said as I grew more frustrated and impatient. I knew what I needed. "I need shade—trees and bushes! Why can’t there just be some place to get in there and find ‘em?!" I thought to myself. After all, a big part of it is the excitement of the search. For a man to know that he has dug deep into his soul and brought out this instinct to track something down is just a wonderful thing for him. Why do you think that men never stop to ask for directions? After I had grown impatient enough, I decided that it was time to put my instinct to use. My eyes scanned across the water and met the other side of the river. In my sight were trees and bushes hanging over the water, branches lying in the water, and—um—cows (I don’t know why, but I think fish like cows). "There are fish over there," I said adamantly. "Now, how do I get over there?" was my next thought. I turned up the instinct meter a little bit. I looked upstream, and standing there calling my name was a bridge. What better way is there across a river than a bridge? I would soon discover that, in this case, the answer to this question is: any way. This bridge is old—really old—prewar old. It’s an old railroad bridge simply made with steel beams running the length of it and crossbeams underneath for bracing with thick, wooden beams across the top (which are spaced apart about a foot) supporting the tracks with some steel bracing. Over the years, it’s had its share of abuse to say the least, and it’s lasted quite a long time, so I wasn’t too worried about it collapsing or anything. However, I did notice that there used to be two sides, each supporting a set of tracks, on the bridge, but now there is only one side; one set of tracks. I suppose the other side, excluding a short section right in the middle of the bridge, collapsed. Nonetheless, all that was really on my mind was getting to a good fishing spot. I didn’t want to head back through the woods and down the road to try to find out how to get to it, so I just jumped in the river and started to wade upstream. I stopped a couple of times to cast just in case. It took me about 25 minutes just to get to the bridge, but I was excited about getting across, so it seemed worth it. I had to climb up a steep, muddy bank to get up to the road going under the bridge; no problem—just some mud. I looked around for any visible way up tot he tracks. It seemed hopeless. I thought to myself, "It’s just way up there, and I’m just way down here, and the only way that I can see is—no way—I can’t…Yes—Yes, I can. There’s fish over yonder! I know it!" The difficulty of this chosen approach is hard to describe. I guess you could say that it was kind of like learning to parallel park, or—no—learning to ski—or—wait—learning to fish! On the other side of the road that went under the bridged, was the "A" shaped concrete base that supported the bridge. On the other side of it, there were just lots and lots of vines and weeds, and bushes, and—briars—lots and lots of briars. I took one look, and I knew that it was going to be tough, but I was determined. I put my fishing pole in my mouth, threw my tackle box around my neck, and started to make the ascent. I made it upward about ten feet and just got stuck. There were so many vines and weeds; I could hardly move. I was wearing sandals, and the large gravel under my feet was hard enough to grip as it was, so I thought I was just going to slip and fall down onto the road and get ran over by a truck or something. Determined not to die before I caught a fish that day, I threw my pole up the hill. Then, up went the tackle box. I took one deep breath, clinched my teeth, squinted my eyes, and gave it all I had. The pain of all the briars cutting my legs and arms didn’t hit me until I had reached the top. When I got up there, I lifted my arms in silence as if being watched by a crowd of millions for a moment or two. I was officially the king of the mountain. I grabbed my stuff and stood in the middle of the tracks looking across to the other side. It didn’t really seem that far from down below; but from this point of view, it seemed like a mile. I didn’t question my intention though. I intended to get across that river; I intended to catch the largest smallmouth bass that has ever sucked in river water. I remember thinking, "nothing is going to stop me; not less than ideal weather, not a muddy bank, not a bunch of briars, weeds, vines, or gravel, not a long bridge, heck, not even a …wait…what if…no, what are the chances? I mean, really, what are really the chances of a train coming while I’m on here?" It occurred to me that it seemed that just about every hour there was a train going one way or the other on those tracks. It was then that I actually, subconsciously, was starting to develop a plan to escape the path of the train. I noticed some of the concrete pillars that used to support the other side of the bridge were jumping distance, and I thought, "yeah, I guess I could make that if I had to. But how on earth would I get down? I’d be stranded." I just sort of laughed and thought about how silly I was to be thinking about it, but something had to keep my mind occupied to keep myself from getting hypnotized by the passing beams under my feet. All my mind was taking in at the time was, "beam, water, beam, water, beam, water, beam, water, beam…" I don’t thing the spaces in between the beams were big enough to fall through, but I still didn’t want to skin up my shin, and I definitely didn’t want to loose a sandal. So, I kept focused on my steps trying not to go cross-eyed, and I occupied my mind by finding an escape route. I then noticed the middle section of the other side of the bridge, and thought, "hey, that would be a good place. It’s not too far, easily accessible, plenty of room, good view, room service, free breakfast, free cable and, ok, ok, ok…I’m just retarded. This is silly; a train, ha ha, I mean, come on, DJ, what are you thinking, a tr…wait…what is that? No, it can’t be. It must be thunder. But there isn’t a cloud in sight. Maybe those beams really did hypnotize me. I thought I heard a…it’s getting louder. HOLY CRAP! IT REALLY IS!" It must have been the right time of the hour because, sure enough, I heard the steady, thunderous sound of a bunch of metal wheels rolling on the tracks. It was definitely the familiar sound of a train coming my way. I stopped for a second and thought, "Boy, I’m sure glad I was being retarded. I think I already know my plan. I could just make a run for it. But what if I don’t make it? I’m dead. I could jump down to that pillar. But then I’d be stranded. And jumping is not even an option; that’s just sure death. I guess I’ll just run and step over to that middle section on the other side and wait for the train to go by. Man, this is crazy. I can’t believe this is really happening!" I ran quickly to my safe point. I got there and turned around, and there it was coming around the bend. A train; that’s right—a train was actually coming across the bridge while I was on there. I was so thankful for the area of the other side of the bridge that hadn’t fallen. I swear, I think God kept that up there just because he knew how stupid I would be one day. As I stood there with the train cars zipping by about five feet in front of me, the wind was blowing my hair and clothes back; and watching all the cars go by, I began to wonder, "Where is all this stuff going? I wonder what each car has on it. I wonder if it’s true that people have been killed by stuff shooting up from the tracks. I wonder how heavy this entire train is. I wonder how fast it’s really going—I bet about forty miles an hour. It seems like about a hundred from here though. I wonder how much a train is worth. I wonder….I wonder which lure I’m gonna have to use when I get over there. Boy, I bet I’ll just be jerkin’ those things outta there!" The train passed, my heart rate was up, and I was ready to do some fishing. I trotted on across the bridge, and then realized that I had to find a way back down to the river. I just kept walking on down the tracks until I found a space in the tree line just large enough to enter. I cut through the trees and jumped an old fence. After wading up the river, climbing the bank, climbing the hill, facing the train, making across the bridge, and through he trees, I was really feeling like a man. I didn’t think anything could scare me at that point—or, at least, not as much as the train did. I was wrong. As I lifted my head after crossing the fence, I turned slightly to my right and I was almost face to face with a very large bull. It was then that I decided not to ignore a "NO TRESSPASSING" sign again. I guess those are really there for a reason. Needless to say, I was scared. Bulls are just crazy. I don’t know if it’s because they are really territorial or simply stupid, but they are just crazy. Here I was right in front of this thing, and afraid to move. I knew that if I ran, it would surely run me down. So I started walking very, very slowly to the left. Of course, the thing had to be curious and follow me. I started to double up my steps. It just kept up it’s pace. It started to remind me of one of those Friday the 13th movies; you know, when the victim is running as fast as possible through the woods, but Jason is just walking really slowly. He always stays right on their tail. I never did understand that. But I was afraid that I was about to understand it very soon. The bull kept walking, and I kept stepping up the pace until I was sprinting for the river. I shot through the field like a bullet. All the cows just stopped and looked at me as if I were really the stupid one. While I was admiring the cows’ proud attitudes, I didn’t realize that I was coming up on an electric fence. I thought quickly. I didn’t get shocked—I was surprised. But what did happen was even worse. As soon as I noticed the fence, I had no other choice but to jump it. I knew I couldn’t stop. So—I jumped. My foot got caught on the fence, my sandal came off, and I landed face first in mud and cow manure. I never dropped my fishing pole though. I got up, and I was about to cry. All I wanted was to get to a good fishing spot. Was that too much too ask? All I wanted was just one catch. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. I got up. Finally, in my sight, was the river. I could already see a good place to enter into the tress to get down to the river. I figured I’d get hit by lightning or spontaneously combust soon, so I didn’t waste any time. I probably got about three casts in before I got hung up in a tree. The little spot that I found was just big enough for me. There was just no other place to go. I threw my line again and again and again. On my final cast before calling it quits, I made a pretty good cast, and I was able to work the lure pretty good, but I ended up just getting caught on a log that was lying in the water, and I broke my line. I just hung my head in defeat. I was proud to have made it without giving up, but still, I had lost. It kind of reminds me of the first Rocky movie. I turned around to make the venture back home, and it dawned on me—I had to go back the way I came: the fence, which I slowly went under this time, the cows, which I looked and laughed at again, the bull, which I certainly found a way to avoid, the other fence, which I slowly climbed, the bridge, which I ran across wasting no time at all, the hill that I had climbed, which I certainly avoided—all of it—again. Like I said, I was able to avoid the bull, and I did avoid the big hill that I had climbed because when I got back to the other side of the bridge, I just kept on walking. I knew that It had to lead to an easier place; and it did. I found that by walking on down the tracks, I ended up right behind my house. "DUH!" was all that I could think to say. As I sat on my porch trying to soak in all that had just happened, I thought, "It’s just fishing. Is it really worth it?—yeah—it is." -dj aug 2, 2004 |