The Great Mississippi River Fishing Caper, Road Trip 2004...part 4

to come into shore. Jared and Jeff are catching lots of fish…blue gills, drum, perch, sheepshead, and some other fish we don’t know the names of. Jared especially like these soft silvery fish and started using them for bait. That’s the way real fishermen do it: catch small fish and use them as bait for bigger fish. Jared said there is everything in the Mississippi, even eels and clamshells with real cultured pearls inside.
On this sunny evening the water is grayish brown and teeming with life. Schools of tiny fish flit about, weird worm larva wiggle in on a wave, occasionally a bloated 2’ carp comes by, dragonflies skim the surface, and in the distance egrets and heron scoop up dinner then make a fretful squawking sound. Strange, since the birds are silent waders along the Fox River where I live.
I confess. I am not really a good fisherperson mostly because I make noise when I get a bite and try to set the hook. Jared called me Curly as in The Three Stooges. But when I try to control myself I am concentrating so much on being quiet that I lose my focus on fish and another one gets away. The funniest thing was that all of my noise attracted the fishermen in boats and although they could go anywhere on the river, they would pull up near the pier because they thought we were catching the big ones. Ha! We were surrounded by a flotilla.
We ended up fishing rather late into the evening…with that soft billowy breeze and the sun warming our skin and the fish biting like crazy you forget about time and about being in a remote area where the stores close at 7. Heck, the whole county only has 17,000 people.
We had to drive 25 miles south to Prairie where civilization would still be awake. Jared had promised to make us a big catfish dinner no matter what. Now don’t laugh, we bought farm-raised catfish at K-mart. We bought hush puppy mix too, although earlier in the day I had purchased all of the ingredients (using a recipe I printed out off the Catfish Institute website the night before we left) at Michelson’s, and 3 choice russets for fries. Still I suggested Chinese at a restaurant I noticed on the way down since it would be about 11 if we drove back to the cabin and cooked.
Everyone liked that idea.
It was sweet driving back up the coast, a brilliant gigantic orange sunset and the vast river sparkled a beautiful robin’s egg blue, just the same color as my nail polish. What a splendid night, swinging up and down and curving left and right through the bluffs. Back at the cabin, Jared put on music (volume 22 is his fav) and we danced and ate Chinese and leaned on the balcony with giant moths hitting us and bats zooming around our heads and the whole aliveness of the forest coming at us. New moon, very dark. It was spooky. It was beautiful. I could just imagine the deer deep in the forest arm-in-arm dancing like the Rockettes to Crystal Method…left kick, right kick…mouths open…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhaaaaah…secret transmission coming to you…we got it
Locked in some hazy dreamstate I saw a man coming down a loooooooong hallway. He asked, “Where are your keys?” I pointed to my backpack. He left quickly doing backward hand sprints down that same narrow hall.
I awoke at 7:30. It was cool. The air was still on. Jared wasn’t around. Upon further inspection I noticed his truck was gone. I rustled Jeff out of his sleeping bag. “Let’s go to breakfast. We scrambled down the mountain, grabbed the keys off the floor of my car, open the cattle gate and zoomed toward the Red Apple Inn. ****