Isaac Walton, the godfather of all angling, once contrasted anglers with the Ògrave, serious menÓ who always thought of work and who brought a dark seriousness to everything they did. For them all was work and cost. Anglers were different said Walton. They Òenjoy a contentedness above the reach of such dispositions.Ó
Angling, according to Walton, was the best of all recreations because it was quiet and invited the angler to contemplation while hunting was a Òturbulent, toilsom, perplexing recreation.Ó And while the serious men are busy at work, anglers Òsit on cowslip-banks, hear the birds sing, and possess ourselves in as much quietness as these silent silver streams, which we now see glide so quietly by us.Ó
Walton knew that nothing will ruin good fishing or hunting faster than taking your work or worries to the river or field. Every now and then I catch myself--as I walk along from the truck to the river--thinking of all the work I have to do. It is the same mentality I develop when I am late to a meeting. I find myself walking too fast, crashing along the path, ignoring what is around me.
When that happens, I have a very effective cure. I deliberately stop walking and begin to look for arrowheads. Most of the rivers I fish are bordered by fields that long ago were the rich bottomland hunting grounds of the Indians. In the old forests that were here before the white man cleared the bottoms to get at the good soil trapped by the trees, the Indians hunted the rich array of deer, bear, turkey, elk, bison that once frequented these places.
Arrowheads are the last traces of these hunts. Although we know now that much Indian hunting was done with spears, not arrows, we still call their projectile points arrowheads. Ever since I was a boy, I was taught by my grandfathers and father how to scan the newly plowed fields for these remnants of ancient hunts. It was a skill that went with all our hunting and fishing and walking the land.
Looking for arrowheads is another kind of hunt, a hunt for small patterns confused by all the clutter of twigs and leaves and trash rock that cover every good field. Looking for arrowheads is also good preparation for going to the river. It attunes you to the world right in front of you. It requires you to pay attention to detail. It requires patience. And it is mostly frustrating. All of these are good disciplines for a fisherman.
By the time I have found a chert flake or two, checked them for edge, and sorted out the tracks in the soft earth, I am no longer hurried in my approach to the river. My time has become earth time, soil time, Indian time, slowly seeping water time. My attitude begins to change. Now, I am no longer here to do anything. I donÕt have a job to do; fishing isnÕt going to be work.
I donÕt have to rationalize what I am doing. I donÕt have to have any explanation. We donÕt fish or hunt for any reason. If there is any reason it is older than the Indians and it survives in our blood not in our ideas. I have no reason for being here, nothing to see or do or get done. I only have to be here and the being is enough. River being and my being become one.
I stand ankle deep in the furrows, sinking in each step. The earth itself is reaching up to wrap my feet. I wade in the earth as I do in the river. Earth and river are two sides of the same stream of things, bending back and forth together. Heavy slow currents pulling and pushing me, bending my steps in a line under the hill toward the gate where the hen turkey stood.
I pocket a worked edge, then a three sided scraper. I wander without line or course across the soft turned soil. The air is warm. I hear the river over my shoulder. Now the wind blows faster than my thoughts, the river runs faster than my blood. The slow, sure voices of old hunters have called to me from these flakes and chips and points. From the shade at the gate, as I look back, the field lies bright in the sunlight.
Later, on the way back, I stop again. There is no time to measure; only the shadows are longer. The black point makes a tiny triangle as its tip breaks the soil. At first I think it is only a chip, but as I grasp it, it pulls free, entire. It is a near perfect three-inch point. Another hunter passed here earlier. His tracks are gone but his edge is still sharp. This point could hunt again.
I walk out to the truck at the road. Under my feet near the gate a covey flushed, breaking for the river. I mark the spot: the gate, the old beech tree, the two old 20 gauge hulls at the edge of the first furrow. These are useful things to note.
And yes. Two fish. Enough.
Gerald L. Smith
Sewanee, TN 37375