early spring day

 A cold day afield that somehow seemed to bring out parts of the long history of my part of Ohio. Fishing a small pond in the woods I caught five small bass that were probably just a year or two old and a few older larger bass. In these first few days of spring I fished slow using a straight worm of Vic's called a fish stick rigged with a very light weight. Even though the wind blew cold and chilly the calls of birds in the thickets and the bass in hand proved the new year was marching along if slowly. I left the pond and followed the small creek that flowed down hill to the blown out Little Miami.  In banks sheltered from the wind and exposed to the sun small wildflowers poked up thru the leaf litter. Small hardy wildflowers able to occupy small niches and micro environments. In the creek I found Ordovician fossils from over 400 million years ago. Here in southwestern Ohio is the only place you can find these rocks that date back to when Ohio was covered by a shallow sea and most of the worlds land mass was still connected into one giant continent. And then down closer to the river on a tiny rock bar in the creek I spied a rock that seemed out of place. Wow, notched corners, worked cutting edges, an arrowhead broken in half. More evidence of the rich history underfoot. This time much more recent but still possibly hundreds or even a thousand years old. My mind reels at the thought of the last man that held this in his hand...

dead stuff

 

A bit of a review of 2020 outside and some hopes for my year outside in 2021...

One of if not the biggest highlight of 2020 was my trip to the boundary waters in a solo canoe. The sheer solitude was amazing. I will never forget floating in a narrow bay in the north arm of Knife Lake and hearing absolutely nothing. Nothing. For some reason even the birds and the winds were quiet at that moment and unlike here there were no sounds of motors or far away construction or well, anything, just absolute silence. And then another morning right at daylight floating in the canoe listening to a big bull moose tear up the bushes with his antlers and bellow and grunt for over an hour. Moose and otters and bear and beaver plus the iconic, at least for me, animal of the north, the loon. Memories of the 20 inch smallie and the big pike might fade as the years go by but watching two cow moose wade into a bay eating lily pads as a huge bull stood guard on the bank is something I will remember as long as I live. The experience of heading out from camp every morning in the little solo canoe knowing whatever I did or wherever I went that day in the wilderness was completely up to me was an incredible freedom. 

And since the Smoky Mountains are one of my favorite places on earth and it's history fascinates me bushwacking off trail to find the remains of an old steam engine left over from the old logging days was extremely special to me. And camping beside a trout stream in the mountains tending a campfire is way way up on my list of things I love doing in this world. 

Im usually more of a smallmouth and stripey fish kind of guy but I did manage a nice variety of fish this year from brookies and rainbows and big gills and even a sculpin on the flyrod to a couple sturgeon and some huge drum and paddlefish below big TVA dams. 

Just about as significant to me as the Boundary waters trip this year was reconnecting to an old passion I hadn't done for a couple years, digging ginseng. To dig a decent amount requires you to really learn the woods and all the companion plants that go along with it. As well as just notice and get a feel for how the woods changes as you go up or down a hillside or how the woods faces the sun or how well the soil drains or any of a dozen other things. I feel ginseng hunting really makes me a better outdoorsman. And I did enough of it to end up with two and half pounds of dry roots and seriously cut into my fall smallmouth and bowhunting time. 

All told I spent all three weeks of my vacation time and several other weekends camping in the woods or on the water so Id guess somewhere around 20 to 25 nights. I'm pretty happy with that. 

In 2021 my goal is to continue that. Probably my biggest outdoor goal this year is to just be present in each and every moment. To notice the wind and the rocks, to take the time to really look at and admire each and every fish instead of hurridly throwing it back in a rush to catch another. Sometimes the best part of being in a deer stand is watching the way light beams play thru the trees or listen to the wind in the treetops, if I can make myself be in the moment that is. I've been at this so long that most of the time building a fire or catching a fish or arrowing a deer isn't usually the problem but being an authentic in the moment version of myself is. Todays world full of distraction, technology, and noise can make that difficult if we let it. Watching clouds skid over the moon while sitting by some campfire along the river helps me keep what little sanity I have left and my main outdoor goal for 2021 is to simply just do that as much as I possibly can.