da fungo
08-12-2013, 14:14
Assuming that hiking isn't the only thing on your bookshelf, this title might be of interest:
TRUSTING THE RIVER (http://www.amazon.com/TRUSTING-THE-RIVER-ebook/dp/B00EBWELOE/)
The blurb from Amazon:
Here's a sample from one of the stories in this collection:
"You notice two things when you fish a river solo in a two-man canoe. The first is the lack of conversation. The second is the canoe’s insistence on running the river backwards. When you sit on the rear slat, as you do when alone, the stern will swing around to the front, so that you progress downstream bass-ackward. You can fight the stern’s inexorable desire to lead by paddling hard left and then hard right. What you can’t do is fight the canoe and fish at the same time. Either you lay your rod across your lap and paddle, or stow your paddle and cast, in which case you must accept the inevitable.
On the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky, a tailwater trout fishery, it’s unsettling but (probably) not dangerous to keep your back turned to what’s coming, at least when the Army Corps of Engineers’ computer has prescribed a moderate release through the turbines at Wolf Creek Dam. There are no (well, not many) rocks to slam into, and most (but not all) the deadfalls and drowned tree-trunks are close to either bank. The stronger current midstream wants to keep you in its grasp. So there’s nothing (not much) to hit, nothing (maybe) to tip you. It’s as if the river’s saying…relax…don’t worry…just go with the flow…everything’s fine….
A question offers itself: can you trust a river? Well, trust springs from knowledge, among other things. I’d like to know the Cumberland so well that I never feel the need to peek back over my shoulder to see what’s coming. One thing I do know: if I can resist the urge to set down rod and pick up paddle, if for a little while I can trust the river to keep me safe in its care, I find that I miss talk in the boat less and less, because I hear instead the sibilance of the river as it slides along its banks, the splash of a trout in water I’ve just passed over, the caw of a jay or the squawk of a heron, the distant growl of a chainsaw. As long as I can stand to float backwards and do nothing about it, I hear what this place sounds like when I’m not there. I’m present to the sound of a river simply being itself."
If you can't get out on the water today, I invite you to come fishing with me.
TRUSTING THE RIVER (http://www.amazon.com/TRUSTING-THE-RIVER-ebook/dp/B00EBWELOE/)
The blurb from Amazon:
Here's a sample from one of the stories in this collection:
"You notice two things when you fish a river solo in a two-man canoe. The first is the lack of conversation. The second is the canoe’s insistence on running the river backwards. When you sit on the rear slat, as you do when alone, the stern will swing around to the front, so that you progress downstream bass-ackward. You can fight the stern’s inexorable desire to lead by paddling hard left and then hard right. What you can’t do is fight the canoe and fish at the same time. Either you lay your rod across your lap and paddle, or stow your paddle and cast, in which case you must accept the inevitable.
On the Cumberland River in southern Kentucky, a tailwater trout fishery, it’s unsettling but (probably) not dangerous to keep your back turned to what’s coming, at least when the Army Corps of Engineers’ computer has prescribed a moderate release through the turbines at Wolf Creek Dam. There are no (well, not many) rocks to slam into, and most (but not all) the deadfalls and drowned tree-trunks are close to either bank. The stronger current midstream wants to keep you in its grasp. So there’s nothing (not much) to hit, nothing (maybe) to tip you. It’s as if the river’s saying…relax…don’t worry…just go with the flow…everything’s fine….
A question offers itself: can you trust a river? Well, trust springs from knowledge, among other things. I’d like to know the Cumberland so well that I never feel the need to peek back over my shoulder to see what’s coming. One thing I do know: if I can resist the urge to set down rod and pick up paddle, if for a little while I can trust the river to keep me safe in its care, I find that I miss talk in the boat less and less, because I hear instead the sibilance of the river as it slides along its banks, the splash of a trout in water I’ve just passed over, the caw of a jay or the squawk of a heron, the distant growl of a chainsaw. As long as I can stand to float backwards and do nothing about it, I hear what this place sounds like when I’m not there. I’m present to the sound of a river simply being itself."
If you can't get out on the water today, I invite you to come fishing with me.