See Rock City. Visit Ruby Falls. Coming up on Chattanooga, seeing these billboards along the highway reminded me of the drives with my parents on our way to Christmases in Sarasota, Florida – eight people in a station wagon on a 24 hour drive straight through. This was a solo drive, fifty years later, and I wasn’t going to Florida. I turned off the interstate south, onto state roads, then county roads, then a thirty mile winding track into the Alabama woods to a log cabin situated along a lake. I was searching for a few days of mask-less solitude to fish, read John Baxter’s humorous Paris memoir, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, and think about my next book to write. I wanted remote, and I got it.
As dusk approached, I unpacked my fly and spinning gear, and dropped an oversized sleeping bag on the bed. Looking out the window, I noticed I had company. Stepping onto the porch, I watched what would be a daily event – dozens of deer quietly emerging from the woods to feed along the lake shore before dark. My neighbors. The yearlings stayed close to their mothers, and the bucks kept a wary eye on the unexpected intruder.
Although the weather was warmer than in Indiana, the temps from a northern snow storm made it into Alabama, so the abrupt change in weather drove the fish into the depths of the middle of the lake. Meaning, the fishing was a bust, thought I gave it my best shot. Artificial lures, live bait, surface fishing, depth fishing. Nothing worked, but I was consoled by the peace and beauty, and the fact that I had SPAM in the larder to slice and fry instead of fresh fish. At least I wouldn’t starve.
On my last day, I was fishing off a pier when a state trooper came up in a speed boat to check my fishing license – the first time in all my years of angling that I was asked to produce one. It was the first time I’d had to talk since I arrived, and I had to clear my throat. The trooper offered, since I was leaving the next day and wouldn’t be able to reveal anything, his favorite spot for crappy, or croppy, as he called them. Three miles later I was under a bridge, and casting into shallow water. On one cast, an American bald eagle soared in from my left, wings majestically open. He dipped toward the water, talons forward and poised, and touched the water just where my lure fell. Immediately he rose with a crappy and flew off to enjoy his dinner. Did he take my fish? I think so, but the Chamber of Commerce moment was worth it.
#lakeguntersville #johnbaxter #solitude #fishing
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