A solid, stalwart riverman

July 05, 2008 10:48 pm

— By Larry Dablemont
Readers told me they enjoyed the column last week about Uncle Norten’s memories of a storm on the river in 1934, so I thought you might enjoy another account of river floating from the old days, this one written a few years ago by my dad.
Dad and Uncle Norten were three years apart and as different as night and day. Folks often ask how I became such a stalwart, solid citizen with such a rounder as Uncle Norten as an influence on me. Well, my dad was the reason for the stalwart, solid side of me. When I got in trouble, Mom always blamed it on Dablemont genetics, and it was Uncle Norten she was thinking of. When I did anything right, she figured it came from her side of the family, but actually it was Dad who should have gotten the credit.
Dad was seven inches taller than his older brother at 6-foot-3. He was strong and quiet, hard-working and dedicated to his church and community. He was too young to fight in World War II, but when he was just barely 17 he joined the merchant marines and wound up on the high seas in liberty ships, which took a tremendous beating during the war. High numbers of them were sunk by German U-boats, and thousands of merchant marine sailors were lost at sea.
Actually, it was my dad who taught me to fish and run the river when I was just a little tyke. I was floating the river with Dad when I was only 6 or 7, and I caught my first fish when he was teaching me to cast an old open-faced Shakespeare casting reel. It was a hefty green sunfish … what we referred to back then as a “black perch.”
The following is an account of my dad’s experiences as a guide when he was just a kid on the Piney, following in his brother’s footsteps, helping earn money for his family. This is just part of an article he wrote years ago for my magazine, The Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal, and it is his memories of long ago days on the river….
What fishing there was in those days! The river was full of bass and goggle-eye and black perch. My customers were mostly nice people and I enjoyed working for them. I had one man who insisted on standing on the front seat to fish. I warned him if we hit a submerged rock or stump he would fall out. He told me he was a gymnast and an expert on balance. So being a dumb kid like I was, I decided to see how good he was.
Going down a deep riffle, I saw a small stump just underwater and I built up a little steam and hit it head on. I can’t describe how he looked flailing in mid-air with both arms and legs while he fought to keep his feet on that boat seat. But he wasn’t the expert on balance he declared himself to be. He went in with a big splash. For some reason he never used my guiding services again, even though he caught a good mess of fish.
Then there was a man from St. Louis who wanted to photograph the river . He was to come early on a Saturday morning but on Friday we had a heavy rain. He showed up the next morning with his wife and sister-in-law after the river had risen 15 feet. I told him it was just too high to float.
“I thought you were a riverman?” he said. “I just want to take pictures. Couldn’t we make it?”
“If you will all wear life jackets and stay sitting down, we’ll try it,” I answered.
So the four of us set out in a 16-foot wooden johnboat. I knew the river and all the dangerous bluffs and crooked places. So when the river was straight I stayed in the middle and in the main current, and where it was crooked I took to the edges and through the fields where the water wasn’t as fast.
Boy, what a ride we had! There were some tense moments, when my passengers were hanging on for dear life, but we made it. We covered a distance of 20 miles in less than four hours and we even stopped twice to climb hills and take pictures.
The gentleman paid me well but now that I’m older and wiser, I would never do it again, and shouldn’t have done it then. We were all risking our lives.
As a fishing guide I have seen strange things on river floats. I remember one time, a gentleman threw his lure over a limb and it hung about a foot above the water. A 16-inch largemouth bass jumped way up out of the water, grabbed it and pulled the line from the limb. Quite a fight ensued, but we landed it. No one ever believed him, because he was known for taking a nip on occasion and letting the influence of alcohol affect his recollections.
I also took two lawyers from Springfield on a few trips. I remember one trip in particular when they had done well in the morning but by noon they had downed most of a whole bottle of Jim Beam. One threw a wild lure and caught the other one in the lobe of his ear. He wore that lure in his ear for the rest of the trip, taking a drink of his antiseptic every so often. After that, I asked that fishermen take no alcohol on float trips. It was one of the smartest moves I ever made.
I have seen grown men cry when they lost a big fish. One got so mad he broke his rod over his knee and threw it in the river. I recovered it, and later after he calmed down, I made another rule … no temper tantrums. Unfortunately, that was an unenforceable rule.
I am so than thankful l that I lived the life I had as a kid, in a time when the rivers were clean and clear and God gave me the privilege of watching so many people catch big fish while floating through beautiful unmarred hills and valleys, which were then still much as He created them. And I’m thankful he let me be a part of a vanishing breed — an Ozark river guide. Only those of us who remember it the way it was then, know how bad it is now — and what God-given treasures we have lost forever.