The Glory of Indian Summer

 

There really is an Indian Summer. It’s not on the calendar, but it exists just the same as all the other seasons. It’s a period of mild and hazy, dry, perfect weather sandwiched in between brutal summer and brutal winter. I used to know why it is called “Indian Summer,” but I couldn’t tell you now if you promised me a fistful of $20 bills.

We’re in it right now, and I’ve been knocking the fish dead everywhere I go, making my hay while the Indian sun is shining. Nothing big, but lots of “pull harders”, line stretchers, that threaten to knock a rod out of your hands in spite of their size.

I’ve been doing real well walking banks and wading windy points all over Keystone in the late afternoon for bass and sand bass, and fishing for “everything” when power is being generated below Keystone Dam into the Arkansas River, but the other day I talked Pam into putting the grandkids down long enough to take a four hour drive with me up I-44 to Lebanon, Missouri and Bennett Spring for the trout fishing there. Bennett Spring is much like Roaring River’s trout fishery two hours closer to Tulsa near Cassville, Mo.

Both Bennett Spring’s Niangua River, and Roaring River’s Roaring River are formed by powerful, cold-water springs that gush from the ground at a near constant trout-fishery-cold 50 to 55 degrees the year around. Section off the flows into plunge pools with low rock dams, dump in the trout, collect the money for the daily trout permits, and stand back. Something fun is going to happen.

Over the years, I’ve fished both probably a hundred times. I like Roaring because it’s closer. I prefer Bennett Spring because the plunge pools are bigger which tends to thin out the fishing pressure. Lots of people like these two places. Six of one, half a dozen of the other as they say. I’m done on that.

Few fish jump higher, or glow more gorgeously in your hand as you unhook them, than a muscled-up rainbow trout. Crappie and walleye “eat” better, but the moist, salmon-pink meat of a rainbow that’s been in the river long enough to absorb the energized nutrients of the crustaceans that live there ain’t bad either, Pilgrim.

There are lots of places to stay, motels and RV parks, between Lebanon and Bennett Spring to the northwest of town scattered along State Highway 64. I like Vogel’s Homestead Motel (1-800-353-4097) just outside the State Park entrance on 64 because Weaver’s Tackle Shop is right across the street, Tony Perkins doesn’t live there, and it’s as comfortable as an old shoe. Their prices are unbelievably reasonable for what you get (stove, fridge included) but I stiff ‘em for the senior discount, anyway. There are not many good things about being old. Don’t begrudge.

There are days when the trout there in the river are picky, picky, picky. But if you stay with ‘em, use line no stouter than four-pound test, and preferably two-pound if you can do it without screaming, you are going to catch your limit of four, fat rainbows. Then you can put them in old man Vogel’s freezer, and either charcoal steaks on the grill in front of your cabin and bake big Idaho’s, or let your wife twist your arm and drive back into town and pick and choose from a larger board. Dealer’s choice.

Here’s the secret weapon: A little white micro-jig with about a 64th ounce lead head, so small they let you fish it in the “flies only” section of the river. All the tackle shops carry a version of the same, and why the trout like it is anyone’s guess. Something white they’re used to eating floats down that river at a fairly regular rate would be my guess. Some days every drift with the white micro brings a good strike; others you will average only a strike or two an hour, for no apparent reason.

They still call it “fishing” and not “catching.” You came here to fish, right? Tie something else on if you want. The white is all you need. Be patient, Grasshopper.

Pam and I were up there last weekend. We slept late, which did not hurt Pam-the-babysitter’s feelings any. Then we made good strong coffee which we drank slowly until our eyes opened fully. Then we made breakfast, or ate one out, or did neither and ate just a lunch. Sometime around noon we’d head for the river. What we did was whatever we wanted to do, which is what the Indians did during Indian summers long ago, right?

Pam reads books like I eat kolaches: whole, at a time. You have never seen such concentration. Mysteries, always that. Whodunits. Altogether different from her everyday life as “Nanna.” Someone should write a novel about a murder-solving Nanna, that finds inspiration in the bottom of a dirty diaper.

She picks a shady spot under streamside sycamores, pulls an aluminum lawn chair out of the back of the pickup, opens it and the book at the same time and takes off, into another world, watching me fish out of the corner of her eye.

My world is out there waist deep in the river, eyes focused on the end of my rod, watching that micro-jig drifting and dancing three feet down under water as clear as vodka, a cherry-red strike indicator holding up the enterprise, hoping against hope.

See those trout? Pink-sided sharks they are, six or seven in a pod, olive backed, black spotted all over polished silver sides.

I know I have friends high up in tree stands, hickory trees, maybe, that glow like a light in the forest at this time of the year, scattered about the country, hoping against another kind of hope. It’s too hot. The meat might spoil if they do get one.

They should’ve gone fishing. God’s most perfect season, stuck between brutal summer and brutal winter.

It’s Indian Summer.

Copyright © 2010 Conrad M. Vollertsen