--Jean-Paul Sartre
The quote above is approximate, but what I remembered of it came to mind yesterday when I thought some more about the stuff in water that bites you, or might, at least. I said that the depths of the rivers were "creepy," but I'm not sure that's the best word. "Hungry," "grabby," or even "anxious" might be better. Underwater, humans are more likely to become prey than on land. We're used to thinking of predators as large beasts that may run us down and rip us apart, but few of us take that possibility seriously because we're unlikely to encounter one, even in the areas they inhabit (and truthfully, few of us go to those places. But leeches will quickly attatch to you, and small fish will nibble at your skin. As I mentioned the other day, large fish like pike will also take a swipe at you in some cases. The air can be pretty hungry too, if you consider mosquitos, black flies, and such things, but I think most people see those as a nusicance more than a threat (at least outside of malaria zones). A few years ago, some women were wading into a river just below where I was fishing. I caught a small rock bass, and as soon as they saw that, one said "ew, he just caught a fish, out of here," and they both left the water, looking worriedly at me as I unhooked the rockie and released it. The Anishinabe Indians who inhabited the Great Lakes area believed that potentially dangerous spirits inhabited waterways, and crossed the waters in silence out of fear of waking them. Whatever fears inspired those beliefs appear to have endured into the supposedly more rational times.
I'm not particularly squeamish about such things (especially because I'm usually wearing waders), but I do keep a close eye out for watersnakes when I'm wading. Our Northern brown water snakes aren't poisonous, but they are quick to strike if you get too near them. They are the "anxious" things below the water.
The stream I grew up fishing near Kalamazoo was thick with them. Occasionally, some did nip at my legs when I waded up on them without seeing them. Sometimes I backed off from fishing certain spots because I saw one curled around a branch between where I stood and where I wanted to fish. These days, when I'm usually fishing larger rivers, I sometimes see them swimming at some distance from me, and I enjoy watching them smoothly undulate their way across the surface.
Once, the night before I left for a fishing trip, I had a dream in which a dead water snake floated past me as I waded a river. Guess what drifted by the next day while I was fishing! Now THAT was creepy.
Tags: Fishing; Nature
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