‘THERAPY OF THE RIVER AND THE ROD’

          It’s a hot summer day in North Georgia, and beads of sweat stream down off my ol’ bald head and down my face. A light breeze wafts over me as I wade waist-deep in the cool, clear water of the gently flowing river. With a couple of rhythmic false casts, I work out 30-feet or so of fly line and smoothly shoot the line up under some low-hanging tree limbs with a sidearm cast, dropping the little feather and cork poppin’ bug with it’s wiggly li’l rubber band legs mere inches from the heavily shaded riverbank. It lands with a small plop, and before the ripples can broaden out more than a couple of feet… KER-PLUNK! A fish SWIRLS, greedily snatching my offering from the surface. With a quick flick of my wrist, the rod tip comes up, firmly settin’ the hook. The ‘bull-gill’ immediately dives for the bottom as he goes to doin’ li’l dosey-dos in his struggles to get free. I feel the fish’ every movement as my 8-foot-long fly rod bows, throbbing and quivering under the strain. A minute later, I strip the fly line in and scoop the fish up, dripping and wiggling. It’s a big ‘Bull’ Bluegill, and his colors are iridescent and gorgeous. A moment later, the popping bug is pulled loose from the corner of his mouth and he’s slipped back into the cool river water, where he darts off into the deep… to live and fight another day. A couple of false casts to stretch my line back out, and I’m casting to another likely lookin’ spot along the bank. A usual day on the river can mean repeating this scenario anywhere from a hundred to two hundred times, bringing a heart-pounding adrenaline rush with each catch.

          This weekend, a couple of friends and I will push off in a couple of beat-up old canoes to float the deep spots and wade the shallows, all the time tryin’ our darndest to outwit some of the Good Lord’s finny creatures. If we’re lucky, we’ll bring a mess of the biggest ones home for a supper of deep-fried fish and homemade hush puppies. If not, well… I reckon we’ll just have to settle for cold beer and good barbeque from JORDAN’S, up at Cleveland. Either way, though, each of us’ll come back completely worn out, sore as can be, and burnt to a crisp from a day spent on the water, but better men, for sure… thanks to good camaraderie and the therapy of the river and the rod.