The River is Calling

“A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.”

-Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It

My first fishing was done in lakes. Well, ponds, really.

Like a lot of kids, my parents introduced me to bass through a cork and a piece of worm and an accidental catch while aiming for bluegills. Later, I’d terrorize every pond in the county looking for a bass that would bite a worm made of plastic.

It wasn’t until I was a young man that I spent any time fishing rivers. My first exposure was a customary move by bass anglers known as “running up the river.” Every lake the bass club fished was really a reservoir and running up the river meant going to the shallow, dingy headwaters in search of largemouth. Two rods, a jig and a spinnerbait. Run the stump fields on pad, if you dare.

About the time I was eyeing up graduation, I was introduced to a true river. The Ohio turned out to be my first love. I’d later find out that the only thing famous about Ohio River bass fishing was how bad it was but, for me, the lazy Ohio was a taste of freedom. The vastness was overpowering. A guy could get in his boat and run until he was out of gas and never see the whole place. Every creek and culvert pipe looked perfect.

What I remember most was the landscape. The Ohio River serves as the geographic boundary of Appalachia, an entrance way to southern culture foreign to a midwest kid. Driving country roads on the floodplain of that river, all the windows down and the wipers on through the drippy morning air.

On a good day on the Ohio, you might catch five bass but most guys didn’t. The key was to find unfished water which usually involved navigating endless unproductive creeks in hopes of finding a little deeper ditch or drain that held a few fish. There were no mapping chips or aerial images to help you along, either, which made for lots of wasted hours and success coming to those who put in the most work. This was where I first heard the river speak.

It started as a whisper, dismissed as curiosity. It does not happen when fishing lakes or ponds.

On big rivers like the Ohio, it happens most in remote places and usually late in the day. There will likely be a sharp bend, a laydown tree or beaver dam that’s tough to get across and then you’ll hear it.

The biggest tournaments never made it to the Ohio so I went elsewhere in life, allowing me to experience the places I had dreamed of. The James, where creeks are “runs” and the bass only feed when the water moves. The Thousand Islands, the fish factory that sleeps half the year. And the Potomac, caught between historic America and modern, hallowed fields overlooking the waterway that once divided our country.

These were big rivers like the Ohio, but with fish. Sometimes everywhere. But the vastness of these places intimidates the visitor, closing off communication. Dialogue requires living with a river for a while, especially a big river. A big river is stern and less approachable.

I found a friend in the Mississippi. Fittingly, our nation’s largest river is its most diverse. When most people think of the Mississippi River they imagine muddy water, catfish and the blues. My Mississippi didn’t fit the stereotype. Rocky wing dams held back endless backwater “sloughs”. The “O”, “G” and “H” are silent, I figured out. Nobody wants to fish in a sluff.

The current’s fast here, fast enough to speak. You’ll hear it come across the shallow dams and then beg you into the backwaters as it rolls around a log pinned on a sandy bank. There’ll be a bass behind that log and, despite being convinced that the water’s pace will make a cast impossible, he’ll come out and eat your swim jig as it races just under the surface. You’ll try the next seven logs without a similar result and then suddenly notice that you’re lost.

For certain, you have to be lost to find a place as can’t be found.

For you it might happen elsewhere. It may be when you’re caught on a stump in the Cumberland or so far up the Chattahoochee that you swear you can hear the dam.

But you’ll be turned around a bit, still capable of getting home but fairly certain it’s going to take longer than you originally planned. It won’t happen until you’re alone

When I settled on the St. Johns I really didn’t know much about it. I knew I liked lily pads and alligators and the idea that I was always within casting distance of a bass big enough to make me nervous.

It took a while for me to hear the mighty voice. Others had for millennia, as evidence by the Native American shell mounds created on its banks. Among the oldest in North America, these archaeological wonders showcase a time when the world existed only as two oceans and a river down the middle. The native people could have lived anywhere, but strangely settled on some of the most inhospitable climate and terrain on the continent.

Only the river knows why.

It will share with you its secrets. But it’s getting late and the run back is sure to take longer than expected. Fish up to that last tree and head out.

It’s best not to listen.

Joe Balog is the Executive Director of Mighty River Recovery, a nonprofit organization working to restore Florida’s St. Johns River. A former national tournament angler, product designer, seminar speaker and guide, Balog has worn just about every hat available to a professional angler. Today, he enjoys rehashing his experiences and adding veteran insight through his weekly Bass Wars column.

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