Sleep Sometimes is Easier Said than Done.
It’s still a fairly warm evening; the rounded little river stones are doing a good job of retaining the days’ heat. The water is doing its best to cool the air but the sun was still winning the battle. I was still in a holding mode. I was ready for bed but there were still too many folks fishing and for some reason I had begun to notice cruisers driving through the parking lot/beach.
I decided if I couldn’t beat them I would join in the fishing. But, and I say but, I was not going to take the canoe out and anchor with the boaters. My rear had had all the boat seat it could take for one day. I got my long spinning rod and walked down to where my cast would carry out to the current. The bait was a Mepps of some sort but definitely a yellow spinner attached to a two-pound clear line. The reel was the smallest of the Penn spinning reel series. I had splurged on the rod and was very proud of the idea behind the purchase. I was going to fight troutzilla on a spinning rig that felt like a fly rod set up. The long Loomis was a crappie fishing special. It was about nine and a half feet long and only broke down into two pieces. It was hard to bait and tend to in a small boat but great on the land casting situations. Even broken down and in the nice case, the outfit was too long for canoes and camping situations. But man, did it feel good in your hand.
With this rig in hand, I marched down the beach fully confident that I and only I could do battle with monster troutzilla. The reason of course was that I was bringing the right equipment to the fight. In other words, like every other fisherman or fisherwoman on that beach I thought I had it figured out. I thought that one last trip to the fishing store had set me up for the big win. If gadgets would catch fish, I should have had a boat full. I can tell you right now I still don’t have this fishing thing figured out. Maybe I will get someone in the boat someday who has a semblance of an idea as to what the hell I am supposed to do to catch trout.
I stood near some people and flipped the lure out trying to mimic what the others were doing. Apparently I had arrived just as the fish had migrated to southern Patagonia or some damn place. As far as I know I must be the trigger that sends the whole school into migration mode. It just has to be, because they go somewhere every time they see me coming with fishing pole in hand.
I piddled with the fishing until the stragglers begin to thin out. Dark was approaching and even the diehards were giving up on what had been a perfect Sunday by the river. Now most would go home, eat a late supper, go to bed and wake up to face a brand new work week.
Others, the old loners like myself, were going back to the hotel rooms or RV parks or maybe a café for a quick bite before bed. They would be on the river tomorrow or on the road home one of the two. I ran into quite a few of these gents. Most were married, but the spouses had other interests and stayed back in Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, St. Louis or on the Kansas farm. This was a vacation from life. They were on a real road trip with a purpose. This river was something to dream about when times were bad or slow. They were an interesting lot, these men. I enjoyed the few chats I had with them. Every one seemed to have a story of hard work and dreams gone by and now they were here in the evening heat after a gorgeous sunset. Things were going A-OK.
I loved the cold water for one major reason. No mosquitoes could live in it. The other bane of the camper the “no see’ums” seemed to live everywhere I had ever set up a tent my entire life. Here I would have no tent or jungle hammock due to the no camping on access areas rules. I had been told all the land along this part of the river was private. I didn’t seem to have a choice as far as I knew. Supposedly there were no campgrounds near the river so there I was breaking the law as inconspicuously as possible.
When it was good and dark, I pulled out my cot and sleeping bag. Once again, I pulled the boat up as far as I could. The water looked to be rising so I tied the boat rope to my cot just in case I needed a wake up later that night. The cot was placed less than twenty feet up the slight rise from the canoe. If the thing started to float off I wanted to be the first to know it. I would just reel it in and drag it higher ashore. No problem.
The real problem came as I crawled into my sleeping bag. I would not be able to sleep for constantly looking at the river to see if the boat was about to do a bon voyage on me. The water was staying fairly constant from the White River side and was quite low. The Norfork Dam was still putting out a strong stream and my concern was the White would start a rapid rise like the seven gates I had seen on my last trip and both the canoe and I would be floating.
A light mist began to rise as dark enclosed the little beach. I had not had to deal with the fog all day coming down the White. I did have to drag the bottom of the boat over rocks and gravel bars. The look of some of those shoals was completely different at low water. I had to learn how to read the water. This trip, there were sharp rocks right underneath those waves and ripples. The motor’s health and life span depended on reading correctly. Last time the high water was a completely different read. I could see boils and swirls but the read was to keep your boat upright and out of any kind of trouble mostly from the current’s power. The rocks might have been further under the water but the mishap would be a much more dangerous situation. Fast water causes fast consequences.
I see in my notes where I tried to mark all the shoals with the GPS. However there were some shoals that were so long I couldn’t tell where one ended and another started. I probably marked them wrong but who could predict how the river would look from one day to the next. I couldn’t. I think I was maybe more impressed with Buffalo Shoals this time. But then when you see the actual rocks sticking out of the water, almost any of them tend to impress the novice.
Friday, September 17, 2010
24 Norfork, Ark. On the beach just visiting round.
So what was I to do? The water was still dropping in the White. But the North Fork was putting out a strong current. I had only limited experience with Norfork Dam so I didn’t have any idea as to how long they would keep generating. When I turned into the North Fork to make my run up onto the gravel ramp, the current pushed the little boat back toward the White. I had to use a lot more throttle than expected just to keep my course.
The wide gravel beach that had once been the launching ramp for the area was now secondary. It had been replaced by a new handicap-equipped, concrete ramp with handrails and a wheelchair swing. But it looked like most people were continuing to use the old method of backing down the gravel riverbank. I guess it was easier to turn around than in the new high dollar ramp. The folks who came to the “beach” to fish were able to find parking just a few feet from where they were fishing.
The ramp was located at the confluence of the two rivers. The water from the North Fork is extremely cold since it is only five miles or so from the dam release point. I understand from some of the locals that the Game and Fish Commission stocks this location fairly often. Needless to say we are in the heart of some of the finest trout fishing in the entire world. The “beach” is a favored fishing spot for the local folks who want to wade, fish from the bank or put their boats in the river.
When both the White and the North Fork were down, the fly fishermen could wade and fish from the mouth as if it were dry land. People were casting the White from the confluence shallows as if they were in a boat. The fish that were used to traveling back and forth from one river to the other now had to pass within feet of these fishermen. On this Sunday night, fishing was good and there seemed to be a lot of young couples. I had assumed trout fishing was a male thing. I was wrong big time. There were ladies with and without male companions. They knew what they were doing and were more than keeping up with their male counterparts.
I thought this couple togetherness has to be a good thing. Young couples starting out fishing together in a wonderful setting. Good traditions will make good people. Good people will make good families. Good families make good children. Good children make good adults. Good grown-ups make a good nation. It’s a cycle that should be promoted rather than degraded by Hollyweird.
Fly fishermen next to the spinning rigs, next to the bass reel cats, it just didn’t matter here where the line hits the water, all were in harmony with the day. The sun sank and the day ended that way. The little canoe was pulled up as high on the bank as I could get it. The anchor was set out nearly twenty feet up hill. I had one of those el cheapo folding chairs and kicked back to enjoy the late afternoon light. I decided to drink a cold bottle of water and shoot a picture or two as the sun descended on what had been a beautiful day.
After I got a few river at sunset shots, I put the camera gear away. As I fiddled with the boat storage bags, a couple drove up and parked near where I was working. When they got out they carried pizza boxes instead of fishing rods. Hmm. Now this is a different approach. I got my cold water and sat back down in the shade. It was still hotter than a firecracker. The two of them came to within a few feet of where I was sitting and sat down on the grass. They were going to have their pizza picnic next to the river.
The man was a big old boy, way bigger than me. I figured he was over six-four and pushed three hundred. The woman was about his age both somewhere in their thirties. They were both very outgoing. She said she was from Chicago but I don’t think I ever caught where he grew up. They asked if I would like a piece of pizza. When they opened the two big boxes the smell swept over me like Napoli’s back in Garland. Before we were through I had eaten three slices of the pie. I had no idea I was so hungry. I had plenty of food in the can. I had planned on heating up some Dinty Moore beef stew in a few minutes. This was some of the best darned pizza I had ever eaten. The couple said it was from some little shop near the bridge in Cotter. I asked if it was a pizza joint and they said no it was something else like a hamburger stand. You never know the talents of a tiny community till you stop.
The couple began to tell me their story. They wanted to start a shuttle business and were visiting Norfork and trying to work up a little business. I would have used them had I not known about Cotter Trout Dock beforehand. The man, David Wells, was an injured railroad construction workman. My great-grandfather had been a section foreman on the L & N in Tennessee. We spoke of gandy dancers and my Irish side’s four-generation railroad history. The two of them had fallen in love with these hills and this river. They bought a little place way back in the hills. The place had no electricity but they were working on it. They really loved the way they were living and you could see they felt there was a future in the float fishermen. I did too. I encouraged them to stay at it by visiting all the outfitters and asking to subcontract out some of the shuttle work.
Here was another case of people who wanted to make a life for themselves away from the corporate world. David apparently did not enjoy what he was doing and his wife just wanted the independent life of working for herself. As they finished their pizza and got ready to leave, I thanked them and told them to keep after it. I told them if they believed in their dream enough and worked hard it would happen. I sincerely hope they get to live the life they have chosen. They seemed like a nice couple.
After the folks left I kept thinking of Jon Fogerty’s line about “people on the river are happy to give, big wheel keep on turning, Proud Mary keep on burning, rollin, rollin on the river.” Don’t forget the little canoe is named after the fictitious or real steam boat in the same Fogerty song. I know a lot of you young whippersnappers think “Proud Mary” is a Tina Turner song. The reason your ten-year music generation thinks that is because Tina Turner sang it in a way that made it a signature song for her as well as Credence Clearwater Revival. Some singers can do that every now and again but only Patsy Cline could do it every time.
When I say ten-year music generation I might be a little off. It could be fifteen-year generations. My theory is that most people really listen to new music for only a few years of their lives. I don’t mean to confuse a human generation with what I call a music generation.
For example, had you been in Junior High in 1964 when the Beatles made it big,you would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve to fifteen years of age. I would assume you would have followed the music and other popular tunes of an era spanning about fifteen years. Let’s say twelve plus fifteen, that would put you right into twenty-seven to thirty age range. Now what are young adults that age typically doing with their lives? Babies and careers leave very little time for new music appreciation. People begin to lose interest in new music and start to settle into a special interest genre. They begin to turn off top forty and hunt for stations that cater to their established preferential palates. Now we have a serious anthropological reason for satellite radio to succeed. That is exactly what Sirius and XM are offering. “Your” music on demand no matter who you are or what you enjoy.
The sunset had been nothing less than spectacular. As I sat in my little folding chair, I watched the old sun ball drop into the river. The water turned a bright gold more like a bright yellow. As the sun sunk deeper into the horizon the water turned a darker gold and finally the light show ended with an orange river. Then she was gone till the morning. Neat huh?
The sunset had been nothing less than spectacular. As I sat in my little folding chair, I watched the old sun ball drop into the river. The water turned a bright gold more like a bright yellow. As the sun sunk deeper into the horizon the water turned a darker gold and finally the light show ended with an orange river. Then she was gone till the morning. Neat huh?
#23 More riverside nonsense
Of Boats and Snakes and Such
Norfork a great place to launch your boat. But I wouldn’t recommend trying to sleep on the access area. For one reason, the Game and Fish folks don’t allow camping on their access areas. Secondly, there are way too many things going on and way too much activity.
However a neat thing happened to me at Norfork. I saw what I considered the perfectly designed boat for my river exploits. I pretty much decided I would have one the first time I laid eyes on a River Hawk.
As I was coming down the river from Buffalo City to Norfork, the weather was beautiful and the scenery magnificent. I was able to shoot several “keeper” pictures.
I was in a great mood. It was Sunday and the locals were out fishing on the river. It seemed there were very few guide boats out compared to what were obviously local folks in their garden-variety rigs. Sunday was the day the people of the mountains got to enjoy their river.
I would like to point out that to one non-local, ex-local, the river really does belong to those who live and make their livings in these hills. Folks who move in from up north or retire from Little Rock and Memphis have been welcomed. Tourists and rich fishermen are part of the scene now. But I don’t think any of the people who have come to the river late in life will ever understand the power this river has on the people who grew up along it’s banks. No matter where you go or who you think you have become in life, you will always have the White in your soul. Now at age sixty-two, I still refer to the White with a phrase, “on the banks of the beautiful White River.” I know that sounds strange but what is really weird is I hear the line coming from W.C. Fields voice. Ah Yes….I don’t know if it was a commercial logo for my hometown or what, but it stuck with me all these years.
I met an old fellow at one of the access areas along the way. We chatted as he and his wife readied their big jon boat to put it into the water. He told me something that really struck home. He said the people of this area loved living by the river. The river was very much a part of their lives. They were drawn to it, as we had been further downstream those many years ago. He told me a story about his father, a man who worked the rocky fields of the hills. The man moved his large family to a more suitable farm far away from the hills and the White River. He was a good farmer and worked hard. The new farm prospered and so did the family. Then one day he went to the man who owned the land and told him he was leaving and going back to the hills. The landlord was incredulous and asked why the farmer would leave prosperity to go back to poverty. The sharecropper told him simply, “ cause you ain’t got no river here”.
That sharecropper’s son told the story proudly as if to explain to me why after 50 years in a Wichita aircraft plant he sold out and came back home to the river. Here he was, as wiry and tough an eighty year old as I have ever seen. His wife could barely get out of the tall pick-up while carrying her oxygen bottle and nose-breathing apparatus. But you just knew you would have had to fight both of them if you told them they needed help in launching their rig. It was what they did and who they were. They had come home to the river and everything was right.
Most of the boats I passed were anchored with the people just kicking back. Most were having a cold drink while getting a little sun and trying to catch a few trout. A good many of the boats had families in them. Every time passing a boat with kids in it, I would motor fairly close and yell out to the kids. “Y’all be sure to remember today. This is the good stuff.” The parents would grin and wave at me. The kids would sort of look at each other and then wave a sort of questioning wave. I enjoyed doing it and did the same thing all the way to Norfork. I made it to Norfork around 6 p.m. Cotter to Norfork in six hours, I guess that wasn’t too bad for low water and not knowing what you’re doing.
Somewhere between Buffalo City and Norfork, I got a second look at a strange little boat. It was the same two guys I had seen at the Cotter Trout Dock. The boat looked to be a cross between a Cajun Pirogue, a canoe, and a jon boat. A real rock bottom shallow river man’s boat, she was shallow drafting and equipped with a transom for a motor. The beam was way wider than a canoe and there were three floatation filled bench type boat seats.
I was falling in love. I spoke with the fellows who owned the first one I saw. They were two big old country boys who just wanted a good fishing boat when they found this one. They were crazy about the little boat. I was looking at all the advantages not available to me with my canoe and motor set up.
They could stand up and cast. They could run a ten-horse motor or more. They were not afraid of tearing the boat apart when power was required of the engine. They had room to store all the gear as well as a small dry storage compartment. They were very happy about the way they could paddle it just like a canoe. They bragged on the little boat weighing a mere one hundred and twenty five pounds and yet it was fiberglass. The lightweight would qualify as light enough to fit my trailer and I wouldn’t have to buy another. That would save me six or seven hundred bucks and a bunch more tax money. The transom and sides were high enough they didn’t worry about waves swamping them. The list of safety advantages went on and on. I was impressed and admittedly my stiff backside must have been having some influence at that point.
I think I mentioned when I pulled into Buffalo City I had tired-tail syndrome. The tired tail had turned into a numb bottom and sleepy legs by the time I reached Norfork. The motor on the canoe was essentially hanging off the side of the boat. That meant the canoe would naturally try to tip over if something like a human didn’t offset the weight to the other side. There was a major problem in being made into a counterweight. The seat in the canoe was very narrow at the hips sort of like Jimmy Dean’s “Big John.” There was no room to “scoot over.” So in order to throw your weight to the opposite side of the boat, one had to lean away from the motor and sit on one cheek. When that cheek went to sleep you shifted your whole body and leaned even more away from the motor and sat on the other cheek. Now I know the Bible says we are supposed to turn the other cheek, but this was getting ridiculous. I had tried cushions and seats with back pads but nothing kept the posterior from napping after an hour or so.
All safety features aside, when I saw that big old boy sitting on a soft padded swivel seat and running his motor at will, I knew I had to get one of those little boats.
As far as the rest of it went, I was most impressed with the wide beam and the stability it lent to my river exploration effort. The only problem now was where to find a dealer or manufacturer. When I ran into the two young fellows just up river from Buffalo Shoals, they thought the manufacturer was out of business. I asked where they had gotten that one and they gave me a sort of hillbilly answer. He had traded a hundred dollars cash and a worn out chain saw for the one I was admiring. I shook my head. Smart. Wish I could do that in the big city.
At Norfork I ran into another boat almost identical to the one the two young fellows had fished from. This time the fellow told me it was a gunew or something and he thought it was made right up here in Steel. Not to look too ignorant, I pretended to know where Steel or Steele was but had not a clue. I remembered the Oates twins at C.M.A. were from Steele, Missouri so I thought it shouldn’t be a problem to find it. I knew as soon as I got to a computer I would Google the town and name and I would have my manufacturer. To fast forward a little I will tell you that didn’t work. The lady who runs the White Sands was able to come up with a Steel, Arkansas near Fayetteville but we couldn’t find it on any maps. Nor could we find a Chamber or any boat manufacturer there. So much for her Google.
After the Google failure I began to think all was lost on the inexpensive comfortable, safer boat idea. I would keep my eye out to see what I could learn as the trip progressed.
Well now the trip plans had changed and the new plan required me to camp here at Norfork. I knew the little rock beach fairly well having waited for Debbie there on my previous trip. I knew there were outhouses up on the hill and that was a welcome relief. I can’t believe I just used that word in this context.
The Fish and Game enforcement folks at Calico had told me camping was not allowed on the access areas. But they had suggested there might be land adjoining the access areas that would be OK to use. I was going to take them seriously or maybe have to draw up my own boundaries for their property.
In the case of Norfork there was an additional problem. There was absolutely no privacy available without going into very high weeds and underbrush. Here is where the rubber meets the road. Are you a true outdoorsman or not? Are you willing to wade into chest high weeds and brush in sandals and shorts, throw down a cot and sleep there?
The answer was not no, but hell no. I am scared to death of creepy crawlies. As Maureen Miller Johnson Brown, the black lady who helped raise my brother and me, used to say, “I don’t fool with no smooth shoulders, nuh huh.” She was serious and so was I. Once upon a psychology class at Tiger High, I was given a word test. When they gave you the word you had to tell the grad student the first thing was that came to your mind. When the guy said snake I did not hesitate and quickly said, “chopping hoe.” He was from somewhere in the northeastern part of the country. It was obvious he had no idea what I just said. He asked me to explain what I meant by the term chopping hoe. I explained it was an instrument used to chop the weeds out of a garden or a cotton patch. He asked me to describe this instrument of agricultural endeavors. When I described the hoe it seemed to perplex the MBA candidate even more. The next thing he wanted to know was how an agricultural tool had anything to do with a snake. My explanation seemed redundant to me but I told him anyway. When we were children, my parents, grandmother or Maureen Miller Johnson Brown would be watching over us as we played in our yard or at someone else’s home. We spent a lot of time in a wonderful White River community by the name of Bethesda. It really didn’t matter whether we were in a newly built post World War II subdivision or up in the hills at friends homes. There were plenty of copperheads, rattlesnakes and if you were near water, there were always the scary cottonmouths. Any of these “smooth shoulders” as Maureen called them, could kill a kid.
So whenever we kids or, more than likely, our dogs would spot a snake, there were no questions about the snake’s role in the ecology. Everybody yelled get the chopping hoe and cut his head off. If I see a snake today and it looks anything like a poisonous type, I going to shoot it or kill it someway or run like hell and possibly all of the above. They scare the hell out of me and I still believe we are to do battle upon sighting one another. On this matter, I quote Mammy Yokum and say, “I has spoken.”
The graduate student thought the people where I came from must be very unenlightened if we went around killing all those cute little creatures. I told him to go onto his next word or his little project was about to be over.
#22 The Captain and his crew
#22 The Captain and his Crew
Then another boat came up the river. The big jon boat was heavily loaded and coming in too fast. When they beached her, everyone in the access area could hear the sickening screech of aluminum on concrete. It was an expensive, beamy boat with two older couples and lots of fishing and picnic gear. This was a heavy boat for its style and purpose.
The Captain sent his first mate to get their big four-door pick up. The man backed the trailer onto the ramp a little crooked. His partner started yelling at him to straighten it out. Both women took it upon themselves to relay the Captain’s order to the man driving the truck. Apparently everyone in the boat understood the man in the truck to be deaf except the driver himself.
Up until that point this operation had been fairly normal. Now we were starting to see a little kink in the armor. Apparently the old fellow driving the truck was deaf as a post. As far as the gentleman who was running the motor in the boat was concerned, I was beginning to realize he didn’t see so well. I was getting the idea that a show was in the making.
The captain had backed his boat back out into the river and waited for the trailer to be positioned properly on the ramp. Once the trailer was lined up ninety-degrees to the river, his job was to gun the motor and drive the boat up onto the partially submerged trailer. In most instances this was not a problem. There were only two things to keep in mind. One, don’t hit it so hard that the nose of the boat would crash into the boat wench at the other end of the trailer. Two, keep her straight so you line the boat up. It did take a little practice to build confidence but it wasn’t that big a deal. However, as usual, when dealing with the upper White River one had to take into consideration the considerable amount of current. As he approached the boat he would be fighting a side current of some five or six miles per hour. That side force would be doing everything it could to make the Captain miss his mark. At this time, I was giving the Captain a fifty – fifty chance of hitting the trailer no matter where it was parked, current or no current.
I am going to try to tell what I saw. I hope I do the scene justice. I was sitting on the edge of the ramp about even with the truck driver’s position and about ten feet away. I had a great seat for the show. No popcorn, but I did have my nabs and agua.
The trailer was crooked but not too bad. The main problem was that he had missed the ramp with the right wheel of the trailer. The submerged wheel had gone off the ramp and into a depression next to the concrete. Even the Captain, who didn’t see so well, could tell something looked very wrong. Once more, he yelled for the driver to pull up and straighten out the trailer. Again, the two ladies repeated what he said in voices that were becoming louder and shriller with each attempt at communicating with the driver. Almost predictably, the old man in the truck said, “What the hell did he say?”
The ladies had gotten out of the boat and were presently at their battle stations. One sun hat-wearing lady was near the river’s edge some three or four feet from the submerged wheel. The other lady was on the driver’s side of the trailer near the tailgate of the truck. I began to understand she was the spouse of the truck driver and the lady facing shore must be married to the “El Capitan” himself. Exasperation began to show in the face of the woman I had assigned to the driver. I assumed her to be with the driver because she looked at him as if she was about to take a club to his head. Her eyes began to squint and her face was turning a shade of red. I thought she was holding her breath there for a minute. She must have thought she was standing in the perfect relay position. I thought someone in that family needs to learn how to read lips or sign or something. Even if the driver did know how to read lips, it wouldn’t have done him any good unless he could read lips backwards through the truck’s side mirror. Whatever her position, it didn’t seem to help his hearing one bit.
The other lady had obviously seen this act before. I noticed she started to look around to see who was watching. She was wearing a large brimmed sun hat and seemed to be shrinking back into the hat somehow. I remember thinking if that lady pulls that bonnet down around her face anymore, she won’t be able to see. Then I realized that might be the idea. As she gripped the sides of her hat brim she started edging backward into a little stand of trees at the river’s edge and next to the ramp. It looked as if she was seeking protection from the tree trunks. I didn’t quite get that one figured out before my attention was called back to the boat’s stern again.
The man was still sitting in the river idling the motor and keeping his boat lined up against the light current. Every once in a while, out of impatience, he would gun the boat and make a big circle in the river. Then the Captain would come back to give orders and wait again. He hovered out into the river twenty feet or more. It was obvious from his position and posture he meant business. He fully intended to get a good run at the trailer when he got his chance. He repeated for the third time for his partner to pull up and straighten out the trailer then back down the ramp straight this time.
The relay lady gave up her position and came to the driver’s cab door. Again I am at ringside and can hear every word even if they are whispering. Whispering they were not. In a very loud voice and in a tone only one’s wife of many years could muster, she said. “He said pull up dammit!” By this time her mouth was no more than six inches from her husband’s left ear. He turns to her just as ticked off and says, “Well why didn’t somebody say so in the first place.” With that he gunned the pickup.
As she jumped back, she started a backwards stumble that only ended with a heavy sit down no more than a foot from my feet. The tires squealed for a few feet leaving black marks on the ramp. The lady looked up at me from her upside down position. As I extended a hand and began to help her up, I asked if she was OK. She had skidded a little on her more than ample posterior, so I was concerned about a broken hip or something. She said she was fine, just a little skinned up but mostly embarrassed. She then got up, rearranged her clothing, as if pulling her dignity back into place. She walked away without a limp. She did rub her rump a little. I bet it stung. She was fine. If it had not been for her age, I would have thought her “bouncing booty landing” was funny. Aw heck, I might as well admit it. It was hilarious but not near as funny as the lady with the sombrero Grande over in the trees.
When the trailer lurched forward, the wheel in the hole came right straight up in the air like it had been shot out of a catapult. For just a moment it seemed as if the trailer was in a freeze frame, one side four feet in the air with the other wheel dancing on it’s edge. Gallons of water splashed harmlessly upward with the tire came out of the hole. However, even more gallons splashed sideways toward, you guessed it, the lady standing or maybe cowering is a better word for it, just feet away. Her hands were still attached to the sides of her hat brim, pulling it ever tighter and downward. Her face could only be seen through something of a cone or tunnel created by the bend of the hot brim. When the sheet of water went over her it looked as if a transformation had come over her. She went from a surprised look to a drowned rat in a matter of seconds. One second she was there holding her hat with her eyes bigger than saucers and a sheet of water about to engulf her. The next picture in my mind is one with the lady standing there still clenching the hat brim but dripping wet from head to toe. She could not have been any more soaked had she just walked up out of the river. Did I mention how cold the water was? Cold, damned cold. It was way too cold for wading or swimming. It was trout-river cold.
I don’t know if she had visions of the future or this was an everyday occurrence, but I swear she just looked like someone who was expecting catastrophe and when it happened was almost relieved. She looked at the truck and trailer and then at the Captain. At that point she just sighed and when she did, it looked like all the air went out of her. Her shoulders slumped as she walked away from the ramp out into the sunlight of the parking lot.
The Captain was yelling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Just back that thing back down here so we can go home.” I don’t think he saw his wife over there dripping on the parking lot. I’m not sure how much of the truck and trailer he could see. But I do know he sure could yell.
The truck was now stopped in its own skid marks. I guess he liked stopping fast as much as peeling rubber. The relay wife walked up to where the driver was sitting and calmly said to him, “OK, now back it straight down the ramp.” The driver said, “What’d he say?” She yelled, “He said back the son-of- a-bitch into the river.” Our driver said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do but everybody keep stopping me.” And with that the man backed the boat trailer down the ramp as pretty as you please. The trailer was perfectly aligned with the bank and was just a little short of being ready for boarding the boat. I thought I was going to fall over by this time. Needless to say, a crowd of fishermen had started to reel in and come to watch. This was not something you see every Sunday.
The lady relaying orders could see the trailer needed to come back a few more feet in order to be under water far enough for the Captain to run the boat up on it. The Captain could see the scene but probably not too clearly because he yelled for the driver to come on back about fifteen feet. Now fifteen feet might have looked right to him but it was going to put the entire truck, front wheels and all, in the water. We were just about to have a drowned truck. I guess this was the last straw for the lady in the wilted sun hat. She came back from her exile on the parking lot and asserted herself into the situation. She was ticked off more than just a little bit. She yelled at the relay wife and told her not to repeat that order. She yelled at the Captain, whom I think was her husband, and told him to shut the hell up. She then walked around the front of the pick up truck and slapped the hood with the heel of her hand. That got the deaf guy’s attention. I think it scared him.
When she got around to the driver’s side she became very calm and yet very loud at the same time.
She said, “ Back ‘er up about six or seven feet, watch my hand, when I tell you to stop, I mean stop.” He looked at her as if he had never seen any one as intelligent in his whole life. Then he said a quiet OK and backed up with his eyes never leaving her face or hands.
They backed up about six and a half feet. The fenders of the trailer were covered in water. The trailer was aligned perfectly for a run by the boat Captain. Now we have to remember that when this all started, the Captain was very much in charge and let everyone within earshot know it. Now it was his turn, and all eyes, the crowd now had grown to about fifteen bystanders, were turned to the boat. The Captain was not one to shirk from the limelight and seemed to be enjoying the attention. He backed the boat out into the river just a little, took aim at the trailer guides, and gunned the twenty-horse hard straight ahead. Now what looked like a straight shot to him must not have been what other people would have thought was a straight course. As a matter of fact he would have done well to have traded jobs with his better- seeing, hard-of-hearing partner.
When he came roaring in from abut fifteen feet out, his eyes must have crossed or something because not only did he miss his mark and run slap over one of the trailer fender guides but he kept the motor going at full tilt boogie for about five seconds too long. He hit the guide with the nose of the big twenty-foot boat, clipped it off, and ran the boat up on the fender of the trailer, thereby turning the boat on its side ever so slowly. Just as he got the motor shut off, the bow of the boat crashed into the trailer wench knocking it backward into the tailgate of the truck.
The truck driver heard the metal boat wench hit the tailgate, or felt it, I never will know which because it hit with a huge wallop. The boat leaned off the trailer fender and the right side went into the water. That meant the left side was almost straight up in the air. And we can assume where the Captain is by now. Yup, in the water. Thank goodness he had clipped the kill switch cord to his left wrist. When he was being unceremoniously dumped into the water, his left hand went skyward similar to a bull rider at the Mesquite Rodeo. That killed the sputtering motor as it laid half in the water and half out.
The two women looked at what had just occurred with mouths wide open. The crowd had to shut their own jaws. The Captain struggled to his feet standing in two feet of cold, cold water and sputtered and fumed, but he could not figure out how to blame anybody but himself. The crowd saw he was OK and started to giggle, then laugh, then belly laugh. The two women turned around and walked quietly together toward the ladies’ loo. The old fellow in the driver’s seat kept trying to turn around to see just what the heck was going on. I walked over to him and put my hand on his left arm. He looked at me with questions in his eyes. I told him to put her in park and get out to see about his buddy. He got out, took one look and started laughing like crazy. He then turned to me and said, “ My brother’s been doing this craziness for over 60 years and it gets funnier every time.”
The last I saw of them, the wives were still out of sight and the brothers were putting all the pieces back together. The guys in the crowd were helping them get the boat on the trailer and everyone was in a great mood, even the Captain.
After they were taken care of, I shoved off for Norfork town where I would see my boating future.
Then another boat came up the river. The big jon boat was heavily loaded and coming in too fast. When they beached her, everyone in the access area could hear the sickening screech of aluminum on concrete. It was an expensive, beamy boat with two older couples and lots of fishing and picnic gear. This was a heavy boat for its style and purpose.
The Captain sent his first mate to get their big four-door pick up. The man backed the trailer onto the ramp a little crooked. His partner started yelling at him to straighten it out. Both women took it upon themselves to relay the Captain’s order to the man driving the truck. Apparently everyone in the boat understood the man in the truck to be deaf except the driver himself.
Up until that point this operation had been fairly normal. Now we were starting to see a little kink in the armor. Apparently the old fellow driving the truck was deaf as a post. As far as the gentleman who was running the motor in the boat was concerned, I was beginning to realize he didn’t see so well. I was getting the idea that a show was in the making.
The captain had backed his boat back out into the river and waited for the trailer to be positioned properly on the ramp. Once the trailer was lined up ninety-degrees to the river, his job was to gun the motor and drive the boat up onto the partially submerged trailer. In most instances this was not a problem. There were only two things to keep in mind. One, don’t hit it so hard that the nose of the boat would crash into the boat wench at the other end of the trailer. Two, keep her straight so you line the boat up. It did take a little practice to build confidence but it wasn’t that big a deal. However, as usual, when dealing with the upper White River one had to take into consideration the considerable amount of current. As he approached the boat he would be fighting a side current of some five or six miles per hour. That side force would be doing everything it could to make the Captain miss his mark. At this time, I was giving the Captain a fifty – fifty chance of hitting the trailer no matter where it was parked, current or no current.
I am going to try to tell what I saw. I hope I do the scene justice. I was sitting on the edge of the ramp about even with the truck driver’s position and about ten feet away. I had a great seat for the show. No popcorn, but I did have my nabs and agua.
The trailer was crooked but not too bad. The main problem was that he had missed the ramp with the right wheel of the trailer. The submerged wheel had gone off the ramp and into a depression next to the concrete. Even the Captain, who didn’t see so well, could tell something looked very wrong. Once more, he yelled for the driver to pull up and straighten out the trailer. Again, the two ladies repeated what he said in voices that were becoming louder and shriller with each attempt at communicating with the driver. Almost predictably, the old man in the truck said, “What the hell did he say?”
The ladies had gotten out of the boat and were presently at their battle stations. One sun hat-wearing lady was near the river’s edge some three or four feet from the submerged wheel. The other lady was on the driver’s side of the trailer near the tailgate of the truck. I began to understand she was the spouse of the truck driver and the lady facing shore must be married to the “El Capitan” himself. Exasperation began to show in the face of the woman I had assigned to the driver. I assumed her to be with the driver because she looked at him as if she was about to take a club to his head. Her eyes began to squint and her face was turning a shade of red. I thought she was holding her breath there for a minute. She must have thought she was standing in the perfect relay position. I thought someone in that family needs to learn how to read lips or sign or something. Even if the driver did know how to read lips, it wouldn’t have done him any good unless he could read lips backwards through the truck’s side mirror. Whatever her position, it didn’t seem to help his hearing one bit.
The other lady had obviously seen this act before. I noticed she started to look around to see who was watching. She was wearing a large brimmed sun hat and seemed to be shrinking back into the hat somehow. I remember thinking if that lady pulls that bonnet down around her face anymore, she won’t be able to see. Then I realized that might be the idea. As she gripped the sides of her hat brim she started edging backward into a little stand of trees at the river’s edge and next to the ramp. It looked as if she was seeking protection from the tree trunks. I didn’t quite get that one figured out before my attention was called back to the boat’s stern again.
The man was still sitting in the river idling the motor and keeping his boat lined up against the light current. Every once in a while, out of impatience, he would gun the boat and make a big circle in the river. Then the Captain would come back to give orders and wait again. He hovered out into the river twenty feet or more. It was obvious from his position and posture he meant business. He fully intended to get a good run at the trailer when he got his chance. He repeated for the third time for his partner to pull up and straighten out the trailer then back down the ramp straight this time.
The relay lady gave up her position and came to the driver’s cab door. Again I am at ringside and can hear every word even if they are whispering. Whispering they were not. In a very loud voice and in a tone only one’s wife of many years could muster, she said. “He said pull up dammit!” By this time her mouth was no more than six inches from her husband’s left ear. He turns to her just as ticked off and says, “Well why didn’t somebody say so in the first place.” With that he gunned the pickup.
As she jumped back, she started a backwards stumble that only ended with a heavy sit down no more than a foot from my feet. The tires squealed for a few feet leaving black marks on the ramp. The lady looked up at me from her upside down position. As I extended a hand and began to help her up, I asked if she was OK. She had skidded a little on her more than ample posterior, so I was concerned about a broken hip or something. She said she was fine, just a little skinned up but mostly embarrassed. She then got up, rearranged her clothing, as if pulling her dignity back into place. She walked away without a limp. She did rub her rump a little. I bet it stung. She was fine. If it had not been for her age, I would have thought her “bouncing booty landing” was funny. Aw heck, I might as well admit it. It was hilarious but not near as funny as the lady with the sombrero Grande over in the trees.
When the trailer lurched forward, the wheel in the hole came right straight up in the air like it had been shot out of a catapult. For just a moment it seemed as if the trailer was in a freeze frame, one side four feet in the air with the other wheel dancing on it’s edge. Gallons of water splashed harmlessly upward with the tire came out of the hole. However, even more gallons splashed sideways toward, you guessed it, the lady standing or maybe cowering is a better word for it, just feet away. Her hands were still attached to the sides of her hat brim, pulling it ever tighter and downward. Her face could only be seen through something of a cone or tunnel created by the bend of the hot brim. When the sheet of water went over her it looked as if a transformation had come over her. She went from a surprised look to a drowned rat in a matter of seconds. One second she was there holding her hat with her eyes bigger than saucers and a sheet of water about to engulf her. The next picture in my mind is one with the lady standing there still clenching the hat brim but dripping wet from head to toe. She could not have been any more soaked had she just walked up out of the river. Did I mention how cold the water was? Cold, damned cold. It was way too cold for wading or swimming. It was trout-river cold.
I don’t know if she had visions of the future or this was an everyday occurrence, but I swear she just looked like someone who was expecting catastrophe and when it happened was almost relieved. She looked at the truck and trailer and then at the Captain. At that point she just sighed and when she did, it looked like all the air went out of her. Her shoulders slumped as she walked away from the ramp out into the sunlight of the parking lot.
The Captain was yelling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Just back that thing back down here so we can go home.” I don’t think he saw his wife over there dripping on the parking lot. I’m not sure how much of the truck and trailer he could see. But I do know he sure could yell.
The truck was now stopped in its own skid marks. I guess he liked stopping fast as much as peeling rubber. The relay wife walked up to where the driver was sitting and calmly said to him, “OK, now back it straight down the ramp.” The driver said, “What’d he say?” She yelled, “He said back the son-of- a-bitch into the river.” Our driver said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do but everybody keep stopping me.” And with that the man backed the boat trailer down the ramp as pretty as you please. The trailer was perfectly aligned with the bank and was just a little short of being ready for boarding the boat. I thought I was going to fall over by this time. Needless to say, a crowd of fishermen had started to reel in and come to watch. This was not something you see every Sunday.
The lady relaying orders could see the trailer needed to come back a few more feet in order to be under water far enough for the Captain to run the boat up on it. The Captain could see the scene but probably not too clearly because he yelled for the driver to come on back about fifteen feet. Now fifteen feet might have looked right to him but it was going to put the entire truck, front wheels and all, in the water. We were just about to have a drowned truck. I guess this was the last straw for the lady in the wilted sun hat. She came back from her exile on the parking lot and asserted herself into the situation. She was ticked off more than just a little bit. She yelled at the relay wife and told her not to repeat that order. She yelled at the Captain, whom I think was her husband, and told him to shut the hell up. She then walked around the front of the pick up truck and slapped the hood with the heel of her hand. That got the deaf guy’s attention. I think it scared him.
When she got around to the driver’s side she became very calm and yet very loud at the same time.
She said, “ Back ‘er up about six or seven feet, watch my hand, when I tell you to stop, I mean stop.” He looked at her as if he had never seen any one as intelligent in his whole life. Then he said a quiet OK and backed up with his eyes never leaving her face or hands.
They backed up about six and a half feet. The fenders of the trailer were covered in water. The trailer was aligned perfectly for a run by the boat Captain. Now we have to remember that when this all started, the Captain was very much in charge and let everyone within earshot know it. Now it was his turn, and all eyes, the crowd now had grown to about fifteen bystanders, were turned to the boat. The Captain was not one to shirk from the limelight and seemed to be enjoying the attention. He backed the boat out into the river just a little, took aim at the trailer guides, and gunned the twenty-horse hard straight ahead. Now what looked like a straight shot to him must not have been what other people would have thought was a straight course. As a matter of fact he would have done well to have traded jobs with his better- seeing, hard-of-hearing partner.
When he came roaring in from abut fifteen feet out, his eyes must have crossed or something because not only did he miss his mark and run slap over one of the trailer fender guides but he kept the motor going at full tilt boogie for about five seconds too long. He hit the guide with the nose of the big twenty-foot boat, clipped it off, and ran the boat up on the fender of the trailer, thereby turning the boat on its side ever so slowly. Just as he got the motor shut off, the bow of the boat crashed into the trailer wench knocking it backward into the tailgate of the truck.
The truck driver heard the metal boat wench hit the tailgate, or felt it, I never will know which because it hit with a huge wallop. The boat leaned off the trailer fender and the right side went into the water. That meant the left side was almost straight up in the air. And we can assume where the Captain is by now. Yup, in the water. Thank goodness he had clipped the kill switch cord to his left wrist. When he was being unceremoniously dumped into the water, his left hand went skyward similar to a bull rider at the Mesquite Rodeo. That killed the sputtering motor as it laid half in the water and half out.
The two women looked at what had just occurred with mouths wide open. The crowd had to shut their own jaws. The Captain struggled to his feet standing in two feet of cold, cold water and sputtered and fumed, but he could not figure out how to blame anybody but himself. The crowd saw he was OK and started to giggle, then laugh, then belly laugh. The two women turned around and walked quietly together toward the ladies’ loo. The old fellow in the driver’s seat kept trying to turn around to see just what the heck was going on. I walked over to him and put my hand on his left arm. He looked at me with questions in his eyes. I told him to put her in park and get out to see about his buddy. He got out, took one look and started laughing like crazy. He then turned to me and said, “ My brother’s been doing this craziness for over 60 years and it gets funnier every time.”
The last I saw of them, the wives were still out of sight and the brothers were putting all the pieces back together. The guys in the crowd were helping them get the boat on the trailer and everyone was in a great mood, even the Captain.
After they were taken care of, I shoved off for Norfork town where I would see my boating future.
#20 Buffalo City on the White and folks you meet
Buffalo City and the folks you meet on the river.
I pulled into the first landing area I saw when approaching Bufflao City access area. I got my body out of the little canoe, as quick as I could. While I was standing around trying to get some circulation back into my tired tail and stiff legs, I noticed and overheard a guy taking a creel survey. He would talk to people who came in from the White. Some folks he approached and others such as myself he did not. I was curious how he chose whom to ask about their catch. I guess to the trained observer the real fishermen were obvious.
I was planning on motoring up the Buffalo and spending the night on a gravel bar some 15 miles up stream. In order for me to reach my camping destination the water had to be high enough for travel. More importantly the water had to be slow enough for my little three and a half to motor upstream. I figured, who better to ask than the creel questioner himself. He must hear lots of info from both ends of both rivers.
Nope. Wrongo. He told me right quick he does not speak to people coming off the Buffalo. They don’t have creel numbers for his trout survey. Now I knew why he hadn’t spoken to me. I was in a canoe. Motor or not he took one look at me and decided I was not one of his people even though I was motoring in from the White River and coming from upstream while the Buffalo was down stream. Man. That was too bad. He was in a heck of a position to have a world of real-time knowledge about conditions on both rivers. He could have been ‘the man’ but he chose to be a bureaucrat. Too bad.
I noticed a couple taking their new Supreme jon boat out of the water. Luckily for me they pulled the boat, truck and trailer over in the shade near where I was hanging out eating my lunch of Nabs and Jerky washed down by cold water.
For those of you who may not have had the privilege of knowing Laddie Hutcherson or his more than lovely wife Nancy Wright Hutcherson of “Gin Head” fame, they coined the term Nabs many years ago when road trips meant gas station food and Nabisco packages of Cheeze and Orange Crackers or peanut butter and crackers from a machine. Most of the time, we would have a Coca Cola with them and then it was “Nabs and Coke.” That was lunch on the road with those two. There may have been other adult cold beverages involved but I can’t remember for sure as it’s been awhile since those Tiger High days in Memphis.
I still enjoy my “Nabs” lunches, but I have to think healthy now so I have added a couple of Oberto’s jerky sticks to the package and I know I am getting a truly balanced meal. Yes sir, all the food groups worth eating can, and do, come to you from a machine.
The couple allowed me to look over their new boat. It was just like the one the fellows from Ardmore had purchased the day before. It looked as if Dave’s Boats was doing a good business. They explained the attributes of their boat and I was impressed. Indeed the Supreme probably was the perfect White River fishing machine. I asked them about the motor. I thought it looked a little underpowered since the ones I had seen on this size boat had all been twenty horses or more. Yet, here these folks were with a Mercury ten horse. Herein lies a little hillbilly wisdom. When dealing with the feds, give the appearance of what they want and they will go away. It seems the government had decided there should be a limit on the size motors they would allow on the Buffalo River. The Park Service now rules the river since it was designated the nation’s first Wild and Scenic River. These hill people had been traveling the Buffalo in boats since before there were outboard motors. They knew more about the river than the government folks who were sent to dictate behavior on “their” river.
The hillbillies knew the river and its temperament. The Buffalo is one of the most dangerous rivers in the world due to its propensity to flash flood whenever there are heavy rains. The solitude and beauty of the river lulls you into complacency. The Buffalo is sneaky. It will wait for you to go to sleep on what you consider dry land, and then it will rise out of its banks and try to sweep you away. You may not even know about a rainstorm that is happening some fifty or sixty miles upstream yet the water will rise more than a foot per hour where you are camped. If you have not allowed for a camp exit plan, you may be in dire straits without Mark Knopfler.
Part of your exit plan may include your boat. In the case of a 20-foot long jon boat, you will need sufficient power to guide you through what has changed from a benign stream to a raging torrent. If your boat is loaded with gear and people, the dictated ten-horse motor might not be enough power. If your escape route involves motoring upstream, you could be in big trouble. The government looked on the Buffalo as a utopian canoeist and kayaker river. It looked good to the eco heads when they drew up the rules in far away Washington. As we all know, reality rarely touches Washington thought, so here the locals were left to deal with another of the bureaucrats’ unintended consequences.
Hillbilly engineering will conquer all. It seems you can take the carb off of the ten-horse and replace it with a fifteen-horse carburetor and whammo, you have a fifteen in ten’s clothing. Now you stand a better chance in cases of emergency. Thanks to the couple for letting me know how to do it. I want everyone to know this little engineering secret so they at least have a choice of rectifying a very scary rule. My rule in cars and trucks is to always have more engine than you think you will need. Period. I am quickly realizing the same reasoning should hold true with outboard motors and little boats.
The folks with the Supreme had just come from small mouth bass fishing up the Buffalo. Now I had someone with up-to- the-minute river information. These rivers are living, changing beasts. If you don’t keep up with the news of what they are doing real time, you can get yourself stranded or hurt. Chatting with other boaters about your plans is a good idea anywhere along the river. In talking to these folks I learned enough to completely change my action plan.
It seemed they had just come out of the mouth of the Buffalo. The water was down in the White, and the normal level of the Buffalo this time of year was typically low. The couple told me over the past few years the Buffalo had been filling in a gravel bar at the point where it emptied into the White. This created a problem when the dams were not letting out any water. The water level could actually go down so far that the gravel became a minor dam across the mouth of the Buffalo. This would keep normal boat traffic backed up until the dams released enough water to raise the White high enough to flood back into the Buffalo.
The fellow with the Supreme advised me not to go up the Buffalo that night if I intended to come right back out the next day. He was afraid I would go up the river and camp for the night and then be on the wrong side of the gravel bar with the water still falling. That was not a catastrophe in itself, but I would have a hell of a time carrying my boat and all the camping gear over quite some distance of gravel bar. He suggested I rearrange my route and do the lower Buffalo another day.
And that, my friends, is why we needed our little creel man to be attentive to everyone not just his charges. What we needed was a town crier as well as a fish counter. I did change my tactics and decided to travel on down the White and sleep on the access area at Norfork.
Sleeping on the gravel beach at Norfork proved to be a little more difficult than I imagined. But that story will come a little later.
The folks with the ten-horse on the big, good looking, Supreme left. I was still sitting in the shade on my little campstool, Nabs finished, but munching on a pear from my backyard tree in Texas. I liked sitting in the shade next to a cold river on a hot day. It made sense of the world.
I pulled into the first landing area I saw when approaching Bufflao City access area. I got my body out of the little canoe, as quick as I could. While I was standing around trying to get some circulation back into my tired tail and stiff legs, I noticed and overheard a guy taking a creel survey. He would talk to people who came in from the White. Some folks he approached and others such as myself he did not. I was curious how he chose whom to ask about their catch. I guess to the trained observer the real fishermen were obvious.
I was planning on motoring up the Buffalo and spending the night on a gravel bar some 15 miles up stream. In order for me to reach my camping destination the water had to be high enough for travel. More importantly the water had to be slow enough for my little three and a half to motor upstream. I figured, who better to ask than the creel questioner himself. He must hear lots of info from both ends of both rivers.
Nope. Wrongo. He told me right quick he does not speak to people coming off the Buffalo. They don’t have creel numbers for his trout survey. Now I knew why he hadn’t spoken to me. I was in a canoe. Motor or not he took one look at me and decided I was not one of his people even though I was motoring in from the White River and coming from upstream while the Buffalo was down stream. Man. That was too bad. He was in a heck of a position to have a world of real-time knowledge about conditions on both rivers. He could have been ‘the man’ but he chose to be a bureaucrat. Too bad.
I noticed a couple taking their new Supreme jon boat out of the water. Luckily for me they pulled the boat, truck and trailer over in the shade near where I was hanging out eating my lunch of Nabs and Jerky washed down by cold water.
For those of you who may not have had the privilege of knowing Laddie Hutcherson or his more than lovely wife Nancy Wright Hutcherson of “Gin Head” fame, they coined the term Nabs many years ago when road trips meant gas station food and Nabisco packages of Cheeze and Orange Crackers or peanut butter and crackers from a machine. Most of the time, we would have a Coca Cola with them and then it was “Nabs and Coke.” That was lunch on the road with those two. There may have been other adult cold beverages involved but I can’t remember for sure as it’s been awhile since those Tiger High days in Memphis.
I still enjoy my “Nabs” lunches, but I have to think healthy now so I have added a couple of Oberto’s jerky sticks to the package and I know I am getting a truly balanced meal. Yes sir, all the food groups worth eating can, and do, come to you from a machine.
The couple allowed me to look over their new boat. It was just like the one the fellows from Ardmore had purchased the day before. It looked as if Dave’s Boats was doing a good business. They explained the attributes of their boat and I was impressed. Indeed the Supreme probably was the perfect White River fishing machine. I asked them about the motor. I thought it looked a little underpowered since the ones I had seen on this size boat had all been twenty horses or more. Yet, here these folks were with a Mercury ten horse. Herein lies a little hillbilly wisdom. When dealing with the feds, give the appearance of what they want and they will go away. It seems the government had decided there should be a limit on the size motors they would allow on the Buffalo River. The Park Service now rules the river since it was designated the nation’s first Wild and Scenic River. These hill people had been traveling the Buffalo in boats since before there were outboard motors. They knew more about the river than the government folks who were sent to dictate behavior on “their” river.
The hillbillies knew the river and its temperament. The Buffalo is one of the most dangerous rivers in the world due to its propensity to flash flood whenever there are heavy rains. The solitude and beauty of the river lulls you into complacency. The Buffalo is sneaky. It will wait for you to go to sleep on what you consider dry land, and then it will rise out of its banks and try to sweep you away. You may not even know about a rainstorm that is happening some fifty or sixty miles upstream yet the water will rise more than a foot per hour where you are camped. If you have not allowed for a camp exit plan, you may be in dire straits without Mark Knopfler.
Part of your exit plan may include your boat. In the case of a 20-foot long jon boat, you will need sufficient power to guide you through what has changed from a benign stream to a raging torrent. If your boat is loaded with gear and people, the dictated ten-horse motor might not be enough power. If your escape route involves motoring upstream, you could be in big trouble. The government looked on the Buffalo as a utopian canoeist and kayaker river. It looked good to the eco heads when they drew up the rules in far away Washington. As we all know, reality rarely touches Washington thought, so here the locals were left to deal with another of the bureaucrats’ unintended consequences.
Hillbilly engineering will conquer all. It seems you can take the carb off of the ten-horse and replace it with a fifteen-horse carburetor and whammo, you have a fifteen in ten’s clothing. Now you stand a better chance in cases of emergency. Thanks to the couple for letting me know how to do it. I want everyone to know this little engineering secret so they at least have a choice of rectifying a very scary rule. My rule in cars and trucks is to always have more engine than you think you will need. Period. I am quickly realizing the same reasoning should hold true with outboard motors and little boats.
The folks with the Supreme had just come from small mouth bass fishing up the Buffalo. Now I had someone with up-to- the-minute river information. These rivers are living, changing beasts. If you don’t keep up with the news of what they are doing real time, you can get yourself stranded or hurt. Chatting with other boaters about your plans is a good idea anywhere along the river. In talking to these folks I learned enough to completely change my action plan.
It seemed they had just come out of the mouth of the Buffalo. The water was down in the White, and the normal level of the Buffalo this time of year was typically low. The couple told me over the past few years the Buffalo had been filling in a gravel bar at the point where it emptied into the White. This created a problem when the dams were not letting out any water. The water level could actually go down so far that the gravel became a minor dam across the mouth of the Buffalo. This would keep normal boat traffic backed up until the dams released enough water to raise the White high enough to flood back into the Buffalo.
The fellow with the Supreme advised me not to go up the Buffalo that night if I intended to come right back out the next day. He was afraid I would go up the river and camp for the night and then be on the wrong side of the gravel bar with the water still falling. That was not a catastrophe in itself, but I would have a hell of a time carrying my boat and all the camping gear over quite some distance of gravel bar. He suggested I rearrange my route and do the lower Buffalo another day.
And that, my friends, is why we needed our little creel man to be attentive to everyone not just his charges. What we needed was a town crier as well as a fish counter. I did change my tactics and decided to travel on down the White and sleep on the access area at Norfork.
Sleeping on the gravel beach at Norfork proved to be a little more difficult than I imagined. But that story will come a little later.
The folks with the ten-horse on the big, good looking, Supreme left. I was still sitting in the shade on my little campstool, Nabs finished, but munching on a pear from my backyard tree in Texas. I liked sitting in the shade next to a cold river on a hot day. It made sense of the world.
#21 Ranting about my DeLorme GPS.
Buffalo City and the GPS fiasco.
Let me get this out of the way. I haven’t seen any buffalo in Buffalo City. I haven’t seen any city in Buffalo City. I have seen a Game and Fish Commission ramp and access area. I have seen what appears to be a campground along the river. But I am not sure what I saw. I did see people walking along a well maintained shoreline so I assumed it was a resort of some sort. I know the mouth of the Buffalo River is not more than one half mile downstream from the access area. I am pretty sure the bluff across from the ramp is Stair Bluff and I think it may be the side of Turkey Mountain but I’m not sure about that part.
There may be a town up on the road leading to the river but I haven’t seen it. The next time I’m in that area I will go see if I can find out more and if there is a café, I am going to try to order a Buffalo Burger.
A couple of miles before I reached Buffalo City, the batteries failed on the GPS. I had not hit the three-hour mark this time. This was 12 miles at about a six-mile per hour average. It was, however, long enough for my posterior to be barking at me. The narrow little cane bottom canoe seat had already started to impose its’ impression on not only my buttocks but my back as well. I was going to have to figure some way to beat this problem.
Back to the GPS. It was a DeLorme PN-20. I had been told by an REI staffer, it was the best off-road topo gear available and so new they didn’t even have it in the stores. I ordered it from the factory and paid full retail for the rig. I got the chargers and all that they called “road gear” or something like that. We also bought the deluxe package to get the mapping software for the computer. That was the important part. We were told by DeLorme, almost any GPS could make a trail but making the maps was the specialty of the house DeLorme.
After three frustrating weekends, I think my computer guru wife would beg to differ with that assessment. Tedious would be kind from her standpoint. Amy was having a terrible time learning the “geek to geek speak” software in building the maps. She had printed out a three ring binder some two inches thick of instructions and still could not figure the thing out. There was nothing intuitive about the program and to make things worse when you got something finished if you tried to do something else it would wipe out the previously finished product.
Amy took DOS twenty years ago and has been using computers of all sorts ever since that time. She never has to call a help desk and does everything but write her own programs. Amy is seriously computer savvy. I, on the other hand, am not. She should have breezed through a consumer product like this. To her it was based on non-sensical logic and continually threw up roadblocks to routine procedures.
On my end, I was having a hell of a time learning and operating the GPS unit in the field. I would lay the manual down beside me and try to walk through the instructions to achieve simple goals like lay down a track. I wasn’t trying to get from Chicago to San Francisco and figure ETA’s or anything. I just wanted to lay down a track so I could make it follow me as I went about my travels. The next step would be to download the info with the markers I blazed, so we could build a map on the supposedly great topo’s from DeLorme.
One of the main problems was the nomenclature they used. I referred to it as geek speaking to geek without regard for the consumer or end user. Reading the wording in the GPS or in the instruction manual, was like reading another language. When I called the guy at the factory who had told me how wonderful the equipment was, I asked him to walk me through setting the GPS up for a simple tracking run. At that point, Amy had spent an entire weekend uploading their maps to the GPS unit. I thought she was going to shoot me before it was finished. Again, tedious would have been kind.
I was at REI in Plano asking for help from their resident GPS guru when the factory guy called back to assist me with setting up the tracking. He was the product manager or something. I had already had to have the charger and original rechargeable batteries replaced after the first trip. At this point I was in preparation for the Cotter to Guion trip and was trying to make sure I had the GPS thing down so the work would count this time.
I was due to leave for Cotter the next day and needed help. That morning I had called the DeLorme help desk or technical assistance desk, whatever they call it. I had gotten into an argument with the staffer who was handling my call. He was telling me there was nothing wrong and I was asking if that was the case why didn’t the map show up. I got ticked and asked for the manager. He came on all ticked off and eventually told me my learning process was not their responsibility. If the machine was not broken don’t call them. That is when I called the guy who had basically sold me the machine. It took him several hours, meetings you know, to call me back. I was, by this time, desperately seeking help from the REI guys in the Plano store.
The fellow was nice enough. I think he got ticked when he heard how I was treated by his “help” desk. He tried to walk me through his procedure to get my problem straightened out. It didn’t work. As I told him, he was speaking from a satellite and I was still on the runway. The words he was using to instruct me were his company’s words. They were geek speak and I might as well have been listening to someone speaking Greek because I had not a clue as to what he was saying. I still don’t know why they could not have used words that meant something to the everyday consumer especially since it was a consumer’s device. Those people are going to fail at this venture. I eventually had to send all the DeLorme equipment back for a refund. It was just too hard to use and, as I learned from the REI guys, they had a really bad reputation when it came to the help desk.
I instinctively knew it was too hard for me to deal with alone. Then when I ran into all that attitude at the help desk, I was sunk. Therefore they are going to sink as well. A couple of weeks later I went to a field GPS demo session put on by REI. There were several people there, none of which I would call a computer whiz. All had Garmin equipment and the instructor walked us through setting the units up from scratch. I was amazed at how user friendly they were. There were symbols that actually made sense to the consumer. The buttons were easy to understand and didn’t take a thick manual to figure out. Within a very short time I was feeling comfortable with the Garmin and realized I had bought a line of hooey.
Later I did go to the REI store and bought the Garmin top of the line GPS and the National Geographic Topo software for my area. There is usually a reason if one company is out selling the rest of the industry a gillion to one. Maybe I should have thought about that instead of listening to the hooey tipster.
The other knock I have on the supposed rock star of GPS units is that side by side in difficult locations the Garmins are able to get signals when the DeLorme hasn’t a clue. That could make a difference in the high-walled canyons of the float-fishing world. The best thing I can say about DeLorme is my contact took pity on me and accepted the products back.
Now back to the river. The DeLorme batteries went out in less the three hours. I want to make sure I say these were the new replacement batteries sent to replace the old ones that went out on the last trip. I had charged the darned things all night along with the older pair. But this time I knew exactly where my old funky Sam’s Club cheapy AA batteries were located. I had actually anticipated the factory’s failure. Of course the weather and the river were cooperating as well.
I had made an equipment change. Instead of the paddler’s wet bag for my camera equipment and batteries, I was using a photographer’s Pelican hard case. The thing was bulky, but it protected the gear from bumps much better and it was actually probably better in the waterproof department. I was keeping the case at my feet. The Pelican contained two professional grade cameras with lenses ready to shoot. This trip I was determined to get some descriptive pictures. This was much better access and protection for the gear.
I opened the back of the GPS and removed the old batteries and replaced them with my cheap AA’s and turned the thing back on. Whammo, we had GPS again and had not missed more than 100 yards of river. If you read the previous story, you will realize I am floating this section for the second time because my batteries failed in a storm and I lost two whole sections of my trip. That was a dangerous way to learn the value of the GPS unit and its batteries.
When we started the blog, the original idea was to pass onto others information about not only the river but the equipment as well. The GPS story will evolve and I will be adding information as we try new products.
Let me get this out of the way. I haven’t seen any buffalo in Buffalo City. I haven’t seen any city in Buffalo City. I have seen a Game and Fish Commission ramp and access area. I have seen what appears to be a campground along the river. But I am not sure what I saw. I did see people walking along a well maintained shoreline so I assumed it was a resort of some sort. I know the mouth of the Buffalo River is not more than one half mile downstream from the access area. I am pretty sure the bluff across from the ramp is Stair Bluff and I think it may be the side of Turkey Mountain but I’m not sure about that part.
There may be a town up on the road leading to the river but I haven’t seen it. The next time I’m in that area I will go see if I can find out more and if there is a café, I am going to try to order a Buffalo Burger.
A couple of miles before I reached Buffalo City, the batteries failed on the GPS. I had not hit the three-hour mark this time. This was 12 miles at about a six-mile per hour average. It was, however, long enough for my posterior to be barking at me. The narrow little cane bottom canoe seat had already started to impose its’ impression on not only my buttocks but my back as well. I was going to have to figure some way to beat this problem.
Back to the GPS. It was a DeLorme PN-20. I had been told by an REI staffer, it was the best off-road topo gear available and so new they didn’t even have it in the stores. I ordered it from the factory and paid full retail for the rig. I got the chargers and all that they called “road gear” or something like that. We also bought the deluxe package to get the mapping software for the computer. That was the important part. We were told by DeLorme, almost any GPS could make a trail but making the maps was the specialty of the house DeLorme.
After three frustrating weekends, I think my computer guru wife would beg to differ with that assessment. Tedious would be kind from her standpoint. Amy was having a terrible time learning the “geek to geek speak” software in building the maps. She had printed out a three ring binder some two inches thick of instructions and still could not figure the thing out. There was nothing intuitive about the program and to make things worse when you got something finished if you tried to do something else it would wipe out the previously finished product.
Amy took DOS twenty years ago and has been using computers of all sorts ever since that time. She never has to call a help desk and does everything but write her own programs. Amy is seriously computer savvy. I, on the other hand, am not. She should have breezed through a consumer product like this. To her it was based on non-sensical logic and continually threw up roadblocks to routine procedures.
On my end, I was having a hell of a time learning and operating the GPS unit in the field. I would lay the manual down beside me and try to walk through the instructions to achieve simple goals like lay down a track. I wasn’t trying to get from Chicago to San Francisco and figure ETA’s or anything. I just wanted to lay down a track so I could make it follow me as I went about my travels. The next step would be to download the info with the markers I blazed, so we could build a map on the supposedly great topo’s from DeLorme.
One of the main problems was the nomenclature they used. I referred to it as geek speaking to geek without regard for the consumer or end user. Reading the wording in the GPS or in the instruction manual, was like reading another language. When I called the guy at the factory who had told me how wonderful the equipment was, I asked him to walk me through setting the GPS up for a simple tracking run. At that point, Amy had spent an entire weekend uploading their maps to the GPS unit. I thought she was going to shoot me before it was finished. Again, tedious would have been kind.
I was at REI in Plano asking for help from their resident GPS guru when the factory guy called back to assist me with setting up the tracking. He was the product manager or something. I had already had to have the charger and original rechargeable batteries replaced after the first trip. At this point I was in preparation for the Cotter to Guion trip and was trying to make sure I had the GPS thing down so the work would count this time.
I was due to leave for Cotter the next day and needed help. That morning I had called the DeLorme help desk or technical assistance desk, whatever they call it. I had gotten into an argument with the staffer who was handling my call. He was telling me there was nothing wrong and I was asking if that was the case why didn’t the map show up. I got ticked and asked for the manager. He came on all ticked off and eventually told me my learning process was not their responsibility. If the machine was not broken don’t call them. That is when I called the guy who had basically sold me the machine. It took him several hours, meetings you know, to call me back. I was, by this time, desperately seeking help from the REI guys in the Plano store.
The fellow was nice enough. I think he got ticked when he heard how I was treated by his “help” desk. He tried to walk me through his procedure to get my problem straightened out. It didn’t work. As I told him, he was speaking from a satellite and I was still on the runway. The words he was using to instruct me were his company’s words. They were geek speak and I might as well have been listening to someone speaking Greek because I had not a clue as to what he was saying. I still don’t know why they could not have used words that meant something to the everyday consumer especially since it was a consumer’s device. Those people are going to fail at this venture. I eventually had to send all the DeLorme equipment back for a refund. It was just too hard to use and, as I learned from the REI guys, they had a really bad reputation when it came to the help desk.
I instinctively knew it was too hard for me to deal with alone. Then when I ran into all that attitude at the help desk, I was sunk. Therefore they are going to sink as well. A couple of weeks later I went to a field GPS demo session put on by REI. There were several people there, none of which I would call a computer whiz. All had Garmin equipment and the instructor walked us through setting the units up from scratch. I was amazed at how user friendly they were. There were symbols that actually made sense to the consumer. The buttons were easy to understand and didn’t take a thick manual to figure out. Within a very short time I was feeling comfortable with the Garmin and realized I had bought a line of hooey.
Later I did go to the REI store and bought the Garmin top of the line GPS and the National Geographic Topo software for my area. There is usually a reason if one company is out selling the rest of the industry a gillion to one. Maybe I should have thought about that instead of listening to the hooey tipster.
The other knock I have on the supposed rock star of GPS units is that side by side in difficult locations the Garmins are able to get signals when the DeLorme hasn’t a clue. That could make a difference in the high-walled canyons of the float-fishing world. The best thing I can say about DeLorme is my contact took pity on me and accepted the products back.
Now back to the river. The DeLorme batteries went out in less the three hours. I want to make sure I say these were the new replacement batteries sent to replace the old ones that went out on the last trip. I had charged the darned things all night along with the older pair. But this time I knew exactly where my old funky Sam’s Club cheapy AA batteries were located. I had actually anticipated the factory’s failure. Of course the weather and the river were cooperating as well.
I had made an equipment change. Instead of the paddler’s wet bag for my camera equipment and batteries, I was using a photographer’s Pelican hard case. The thing was bulky, but it protected the gear from bumps much better and it was actually probably better in the waterproof department. I was keeping the case at my feet. The Pelican contained two professional grade cameras with lenses ready to shoot. This trip I was determined to get some descriptive pictures. This was much better access and protection for the gear.
I opened the back of the GPS and removed the old batteries and replaced them with my cheap AA’s and turned the thing back on. Whammo, we had GPS again and had not missed more than 100 yards of river. If you read the previous story, you will realize I am floating this section for the second time because my batteries failed in a storm and I lost two whole sections of my trip. That was a dangerous way to learn the value of the GPS unit and its batteries.
When we started the blog, the original idea was to pass onto others information about not only the river but the equipment as well. The GPS story will evolve and I will be adding information as we try new products.
The White River, # 19 Cotter to Buffalo City, second time around.
Rolling down the River.
When I had a chance, I asked Debbie if they had the merchandise for setting up a White River Rig. I had not forgotten the previous nights’ lesson. They had it all, right there at the dock office. There was power bait, corn, sinkers and small trout hooks. I bought some of it and Debbie donated the rest. I think she felt bad for me because I still had not caught any fish. Caught any hell, I hadn’t even had a bite. But given my history with any thing that required patience, it was not surprising that I was doing badly.
I finally pushed off around noon. The water was warmer but still cold. The air temp was getting fairly hot. The sun was bright and sunburn was a definite threat. The water had continued to drop since early morning. Now we were starting to get into the low water version of the flooded river I dealt with last trip. This ought to be interesting I thought. I checked the dad-burned GPS. Yes, it was actually working this time. Newly recharged batteries and the settings had been installed with the help of the factory tech via telephone.
The little canoe made its way out of the tiny bay into the current. I pulled the starter cord and she kicked right off. Away we went at a whopping three and one half miles per hour. That included help from the current. The last time we left that bay, I think we went to almost 10 miles per hour like it or not. It was quite a difference. But the most significant change was the ability to see more than twenty-five yards. I could actually see the banks and scenery for a change. Great, I would be able to do some of the much-needed photography. I had to have the river photos in order to complete the blog and potential book. So far I had been shut out due to rain and fog.
This was a reduxe. The GPS had not performed due to short-lived batteries. The photography obviously was still waiting for the camera to come out of the bag. We would get one take done this trip. No doubt there would be many more efforts searching for the pictures that would satisfy my picture editor’s mind.
As we traveled down the river I soon became aware of a new challenge. Instead of flying three to eight feet above the shoals and big rocks, I was now dodging them. Uh oh, this is not going to be a walk in the park like I thought. I had to be concerned about hitting the composite propeller against the rocks and breaking it in pieces or twisting the drive shaft. I wasn’t too worried about dragging the bottom of the canoe on the rocks as I felt it had been built to take that type abuse.
I was concerned about twisting the motor off the brackets if I hit it on the rocks.
(Edit note: It is now November and I am editing this story. Today I finished patching the bottom of the Mad River from this expedition. It was not built to take that type abuse. Nothing is.)
Oh well, at least I was able to take my time and guide the boat a little better this time. I would try to be vigilant and read the water. If I read it far enough ahead I should have time to miss whatever was coming up. The trip wasn’t a cruise through a park lake, but it sure was an improvement over the last time down the river. I was actually enjoying learning to read the water. I was becoming a little more accustomed to the ways of the river.
I had been told to watch for the eagles flying around Ranchettes’ Access. Somehow or another I couldn’t quite figure out where I was when I was supposed to be passing the Ranchettes area. The map I was using and my reader tracker GPS were offering two opinions while my brain offered a third. Amazing ! Here I am with a lap full maps and this high dollar GPS and I can’t figure out where I am. I think I passed the Ranchettes’ Access without ever seeing it. I must have been studying my map too closely or something. But I did see the birds. As I was passing some locals out for a great Sunday of fishing, I spotted two Eagles playing around on the side of a big wooded hill. They would swoop down close to the river then swing upward with the same pent-up energy of a roller coaster on its downhill run.
The birds were apparently swooping near a nest in the trees along the ridge then frolicking as gliders all along the hills and the river below. I watched the two with great anticipation. I was getting closer, my little motor humming along as quiet as possible. Soon one of the big guys swept low across the river, then turned almost straight up as it climbed up and over the ridge on river right. Then it was gone. I turned to watch the other and it had disappeared into the trees on the ridge where I had suspected a nest. No birds. I had not gotten close enough to really get a good look but I had called them to the attention of the Sunday fishermen.
I had been quiet excited and shouted over to the other boat “Hey, look at the eagles.” I was proud I had spotted them and they had been sitting there all along and had not seen the big birds. I thought my old eagle eyes were back. The guy who could always spot animals before everybody else was back on his game. I was kind of puffed up about it.
I reached a curve in the river and was surprised to see fifteen or twenty Eagles flying around the ridge and river. Then I saw another ten or so on the river bank just standing around something. Uh, oh. What a fool. Now I was close and my suspicions were becoming reality. Turkey vultures. Dammit! I revved up the little motor and moved down the river as fast as the little boat would carry me. I didn’t dare look back to see if the locals were falling out of the boat laughing. I could just hear them laughing at that old cheechako who didn’t know a buzzard from an eagle.
There was mercy in the noise of the little engine. Thankfully I couldn’t hear any laughter at this speed. The redness in my face was not sunburn this time. Oh well, another day, another little adventure.
Next up Buffalo City and a little commentary that’s been a long time in coming.
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