Being one with the water

Rivers run through me.

I was born and raised in a city that sits on a bend of the Ohio.

I fished the Wabash when I was a kid, and watched my father help pull a net full of catfish from the Embarras in Illinois when I was too small to help.

I fished the St. Johns, Lopez and the Loxahatchee in Florida. I floated the Suwanee, Santa Fe and the Ichitucknee in the same state.

When I moved west I fell in love with the Yellowstone. From its humble beginnings high in the mountains above Yellowstone Lake to its confluence with the Missouri, the Yellowstone has called to me.

I was part of a group effort at the Chronicle to float the river from Gardiner to North Dakota. I learned to row a drift boat on the Yellowstone. My grandchildren were baptized in its waters. I still hike into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone every summer to catch fat cutthroat trout.

I’ve fished, floated and swam in most of its tributaries including the Big Horn, the Shields and the Stillwater.

I still think of it as my home water, even though I live on the Milk now, and have a cabin on the dammed Missouri.

I’ve fished and floated the Missouri’s three forks, the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson, rowed down the Big Hole, and motored up the Swan and the Flathead. I’ve hunted along the banks of the Powder and the Tongue.

Right now I’m traveling up the Danube.

It’s a different kind of trip. I’m not at the oars. But a river is still a river.

Last year Barb and I took a trip down the Rhine and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It had sounded a bit too civilized, but I discovered I really don’t mind being pampered. As much as I like camping on a sand bar at days end, sipping wine on the deck as Europe passes by sufficiently fills that void.

When the ship is underway, however, I can’t help but pick the line I would take if I were at the oars or the tiller. I also look for places to camp, and for eddies and current lines where I might catch fish.

I don’t tell anyone this. Who on the ship would understand? They’re here for the castles and windmills and quaint riverside towns.

I’m here for the river.

And if I squint my eyes a bit, this one looks a lot like the Yellowstone.