Ozarks RFD: Springtime would find me at the river

Springtime, when I was a boy on the farm, would find me at the river at least one day or evening a week.Evenings came earlier in those days before daylight saving time, getting us done with milking and on the river shortly after nightfall — just about the time catfish came out of hiding and began feeding.Ours were not long, drawn-out excursions, usually just quick trips down to the Pomme de Terre at Potter’s Ford or The Lost Bridge. Two or three hours were plenty to either catch a small string of bullheads or maybe a few big, black perch right before dark.Most often, Dad and I and my brothers staked out our spots on a gravel bar on our favorite hole just up from the Potters Ford slab. The gravel road there was well-traveled, and the place where we pulled in well-used, but only by local folk.With our lines baited and cast near the far bank, we propped our rods in forked sticks and watched by lantern or carbide lights for the lines to tighten or go slack, or the rod tips to bounce.Seldom did we head back home without at least one meal on the stringer. The best part of each trip, though, was not the fish, but just being there with Dad — usually in the middle between me and a younger brother. Sitting on upturned buckets, chunks of wood, or our tackle boxes, we listened for muskrats splashing in a slough and watched for eyes of raccoon reflected in the lantern light.Sometimes Dad would share stories of earlier trips which produced cats bigger than any we ever hoped to see; of course, those tales were of bigger, more distant waters than these, and some of them may have been true. With any luck, he never got to the end of a tale before a rod. The tip bounced, and one of us was too busy to talk or listen. “Got one,” Russell would exclaim excitedly as he frantically reeled it in.Must be a big one, I thought, from the way his rod was bowed. But in the lantern light, the truth was told — a big snapping turtle, mean-tempered, dirty green, and quick to snip the line before we could drag him in.Just as well. Tie on another hook, Russell, grab some bait, and give it another try.Another splash with that cast, and again it was quiet. Dad’s cigarette glowed red in the dark, wisps of smoke evident in the growing light.“Moon will soon be over the ridge,” Dad said as he flicked his smoke into the water. “Better start packing up.”And so it was, on that spring night and many others like it, when I was a boy on the farm.Copyright 2025, James E. Hamilton, P.O. Box 801, Buffalo, MO 65622