“Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upward.” - Vladimir Nabokov
“I fish to burn off the crazy.” - Unknown
“There he stands, draped in more equipment than a telephone lineman, trying to outwit an organism with a brain no bigger than a breadcrumb, and getting licked in the process.” - Paul O’Neil
The rain wasn’t all that hard or near intense. It wasn’t exactly what you might refer to as a drizzle either. Hard rain is usually referenced as a trash mover, gully washer, or in more refined spaces, a good old downpour. This was no trash mover, but this rain fell in long and warm, sheets. Not in big fat drops, but in amounts plenty huge enough to explode in little mushroom clouds on surface water. Tight and definitive, these globules of high density moisture rippled the surface of the quiet and seemingly remote Tennessee River slough rather loudly.
If you’d been planted in an aluminum boat, the drumming would have been exponentially louder. The worn and soggy hat dampened the noise. The quickly soaked hat rim dribbled the warm water down the neck, soaking the waist, as you pondered how soon the dry socks in the bottom of the waders would last. It was that kind of rain.
Canada geese tending a nest in the cattails seemed to be muttering to themselves. The Red-winged blackbirds, with sodden red shoulders in the buck-brush, gurgled wet sounding discontent. In some small way these bird murmurs continued to quiet the quivering slough’s surface.
Recent honest downpours had pushed the slough out of bounds. Dry shoreline weeds of a week ago, were now severely challenged with a death row sentence; sudden death by drowning.
Gar and carp absolutely live for drowning shorelines. Startling gar as you wade the flooded and confused shore weed is easy. Spotting leg long gar before you spook them is not as easy when you’re intent, immersed with the art of fishing, for May bass.
Every suddenly spooked and splashing gar nearby conjures a sudden troubling question. It’s a stupid question you tell yourself, but one that’s almost apparently unavoidable. Then again, maybe it’s not all that stupid, nor is it completely all that paranoid.
Was that really an alligator? That thing that just brushed my leg, was that what I thought it was? Do you think that could have been an alligator? They say there really are alligators in Tennessee. Alligators this far north? Everglades pythons this far north? Surely; not yet?
These jumpy thoughts emanate, or germinate silently, from the murky high waters that attempt to drown the weeds. Wading in muddy sloughs, where you can’t see your feet, is nothing like wading in some clear mountain trout stream. This is different. This is May in the rain. May in some backwater river slough. Each cast, at best, falls in six feet or less of turbid, weed choked water.
Stumps, sticks, logs partially submerged and gasping for air, all become targets. Rivulets from ditches, overflowing from runoff, are high value. This is ‘Old School’ fishing at the pinnacle, or infancy, in so many respects.
Spears and arrows replaced with rod and reel and lure. Where it all began, with hand crafted wooden plugs, cranky and cheap old reels, mass produced by a company who adopted the name of some old British playwright. Braided nylon spooled, stiff bamboo and steel rods, now sold on web sites as antiques. This only amplifies it all.
Both relaxing and taxing at times, Mostly taxing on the back and the knees, but deeply more immersive. ‘In the zone’ fishing, and not stressing about crowding on boat ramps and lithium battery life.
How did old school fishing wither and how did today’s bass fishing business machine attempt to shut down the old school? How did exorbitantly priced boats, filled with technology like video game screens, try to eliminate the old school of ancient fishing? Could it have been something as simple as the competitive drive of organized tournaments, or some sort of bizarre bragging rights? Was it fishing for money that tried to eliminate, or at best, challenge the old ways?
The big bass love the rain. The feisty bass, not yet fat, or long enough to be referred to as big, devour the May rain, feeding like teenagers who haven’t seen a fast food burger in weeks.
Next with the full moon of this month, come the bull bluegill and the shellcracker as they struggle with their beds. More old school. Nothing fancy or high tech needed here. Just some worms and crickets will do to fill any freezer. But today, in the rain, the bass will do also. Don’t let a little rain in May imperil the old school.
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