Flashback: October 8, 2018

A look back at an unposted trip from 2018. The Yellowwood Slam: bass, bluegill and crappie.

"The Maldive Shark" by Herman Melville

"The Gulf Stream" -- Winslow Homer -- 1899

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,

Pale sot of the Maldive sea,

The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,

How alert in attendance be.

From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw

They have nothing of harm to dread,

But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank

Or before his Gorgonian head:

Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth

In white triple tiers of glittering gates,

And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,

An asylum in jaws of the Fates!

They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,

Yet never partake of the treat—

Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,

Pale ravener of horrible meat.

Flashback: October 6, 2018

A look back at an unposted trip to Yellowwood in 2018. October shakes itself out, the woods thin. Little bluegill want meals as big as themselves. A bass comes out of the shrinking weeds. Spiders are in all the vegetation: they walk along your hat brim and then walk on water to climb back on the tube for another go. The evenings are mellow and loud with the songs of insects. You wish it would never end.

"Fishmonger" by Marsden Hartley

"Rainbow Fish" -- African-Amber

I have taken scales from off

The cheeks of the moon.

I have made fins from bluejays’ wings,

I have made eyes from damsons in the shadow.

I have taken flushes from the peachlips in the sun.

From all these I have made a fish of heaven for you,

Set it swimming on a young October sky.

I sit on the bank of the stream and watch

The grasses in amazement

As they turn to ashy gold.

Are the fishes from the rainbow

Still beautiful to you,

For whom they are made,

For whom I have set them,

Swimming?

Flashback: October 3, 2018

A look back at a trip to Yellowwood that was unposted in 2018. It's breezy and the oaks by the boat ramp are flinging their acorns into the water like buckshot. I determine that acorns do not float. Fallen leaves are drifting on the riffles. Fall colors are popping out along the shoreline, and the bluegill and rock bass eagerly take a dry fly.