Bayou Outdoors: A River Runs Through It

by Dan Chason

When I was younger, I never understood why older people were in bed by 8:30 and up at the crack of dawn. Now that I’m officially there, I fully understand it. I have tried many times to “sleep in” but I find that when the morning sunlight comes through my window, I need to get up. My back hurts. My hips hurt. My knees hurt and it just takes a minute to gather up and get going. This ritual is very noticeable at my deer camp. Everyone (younger folk) is up before the crack of dawn, shaking off hangovers or the fact they stayed up too late. My son-in-law is fired up and looks at me crazy when I tell him “I’m not hunting.” That is because the camp is more to me than just a place to sleep, it is a ritual. As I get older, I find that piddling around the camp gives me joy. I don’t need to walk into the darkness every morning in hopes of killing a trophy. I have killed many a critter and the fact is when I see a shooter buck, the first thing that goes through my mind is “I gotta drag this thing outta here and clean it.” Don’t get me wrong; I love venison, but a couple of does a year is all I need. Let the grandkids kill the big bucks as it gives me more joy to help them harvest one than if I were the shooter.

I am not a big movie buff. I have a few favorites and one always makes me very nostalgic. It always has because of the dichotomy of the movie. That movie is called “A River Runs Through It.” You see, my dad was a preacher and I have an older brother. The scene in the movie that melts me is when the father (minister) and the oldest son are watching the younger (writer) son fly fish. It is a thing of beauty. They sit up on a ridge just watching as the artist with the rod paints his picture. In my mind, that preacher is my dad and that older brother is my older brother, Steve and the angler is me.

My dad always had compliments for us. He was a giving and nurturing parent who always had time to shoot hoops and go fishing (and play paper ball). But the one thing that always made me smile was the look on his face when he went fishing with me. I always said, “The Lord blessed me with a few things. I am a good husband. I am a better Dad and a great grandfather. But I pride myself in knowing that I am a dang good fisherman.” My pop and my dad used to say, “That boy could catch a fish in a bathtub.” I just knew at an early age that there was something there that most people didn’t have and it was encouraged and cultivated by my pop and dad but most of it came from one thing….. tenacity. I would fish anytime, anywhere and in any conditions. I remember the days when i was pursuing ducks. Getting up at 2am, being in my duck hole by 4 and hunt ’til noon. Only to leave there, report for work at 4pm and work til midnight. I was mad at them. Fishing was the same. Jon Miller and I would work at the West Monroe A&P, get off at 7 or 8pm and be in Bayou DeSiard when the sun set and fish well into the night. It was a cycle. We loved it.

But as I got older, the desire didn’t change. It just evolved. I still love to hunt and fish but I decided to do it smart instead of hard. Normally I scout 90% of the time and fish or hunt 10% of the time. Call it laziness or bad knees or a bad back but I don’t see the point.

When I see this movie, my mind swirls. Mainly because dad and pop are gone to heaven and I miss them terribly. I can see them fishing today, sharing laughs and rejoicing in the glory that someday I will enjoy. But the thing I long for is to again join them and see that look in my pop’s eye the first time I landed a bass solo. Pop was a tenacious angler and was well known for his fishing prowess on Lake Seminole in southern Georgia. I remember the times I spent with him with great joy. But no joy can touch my memories that I see in the old man’s face at the end of the movie. The thoughts of my dad, my brother and me. Just us fishing. Fishing the Tombigbee River for catfish or Spring Bayou for anything that would bite. It was always a competition but usually friendly. My dad’s favorite saying which usually followed him out fishing us was pretty clear. “Boys,” he would say, ”you gotta live right to catch fish,” while he laughed and laughed. Or the days we would start to leave the house to fish and our black lab, Smokey, would follow us and swim out to the boat to join us. Daddy never scolded him, he was part of our family. The same is true today, almost 50 years later as I write this piece with my old lab, Buddy at my feet. It has come full circle. And it has because my father and grandfather planted seeds. They took the time to take me hunting and fishing and for that I am forever grateful .

One day I will sit on the banks in paradise to be with the ones I love. There will be no sorrow, no pain and no grief. And like my favorite movie at the end, I will again put on a casting demonstration for the two men who molded me. I will be completely happy and at peace, because ‘A River Runs Through It.’