TheBanyanTree: Way Down Yonder on the Chattahoochee - Part VII

[B Drummond]

Oxbow lake:

        n : a crescent-shaped lake (often temporary) that is formed when
            a meander of a river is cut off from the main channel

As I approached the island I had the feeling that I had made the  
wrong choice.  I glanced again in the direction of the sand bar, then  
back again.  I tried to turn the boat around and head toward the sand  
bar but the current was too strong.  I ended up going to the right of  
the island and down a channel of water that sped up briefly, then  
gradually slowed down.

Soon it was clear that the main flow of the river was to my left and  
was a part of the water that cut the island in half.  I was to the  
right of it and the boat slowed down to complete stop.  There was no  
current at all and the water had that foamy backwater look to it.

I thought about the trip I made a couple of weeks ago from down  
around Valdosta up through the back roads to Dublin.  In Telfair  
County, in Jacksonville, GA, just a wide spot in the road,  I came  
across a road marker.

"World Record Bass:   Caught by George Perry in Montgomery Lake, an  
oxbow lake off the Ocmulgee River a few miles from this spot."

The placard had an old faded photograph of George Perry holding up  
the biggest bass I had ever seen.  It weighed in at 22 lbs 4 oz and  
was caught in June of 1932.

I'm on an oxbow lake, I thought.  One not too unlike the waters the  
world record bass was caught in.

I paddled down a bit more and found a likely looking section of  
water, picked up a rod and began to fish again.  I needed the break.

I fished for 15 minutes or so and never had so much as a minnow  
following the lure.  I picked up the paddle again to paddle a little  
and then fish a little.  Nothing.  If there was another world record  
bass in another Georgia oxbow lake, then this was not the one, at  
least as far as my luck went.  I put the rod back down and took  
another drink of water.

It was then I noticed that the waters were getting very shallow,  
shallow enough that I could easily see the bottom.  I maneuvered the  
boat away from the shallows but there wasn't much deeper water to be  
found.  The sun was just above the tree line and the temperature was  
slowly coming down.  And the waterway that I was on was getting wider  
and more shallow as I paddled back in earnest again, noticing the  
time and starting to worry about having to spend the night on the  
river again.  This time I was out of food, unlike the night before,  
and now had family worried about me.

Then there it was again.  That sound that at that point in the trip I  
felt I could not stomach hearing again.  I tried to deny it but as I  
paddled on it became clear that there was yet another set of shoals  
to go through and this set was the real thing.  I hadn't heard  
anything as loud as the roar of rushing water directly ahead of me.  
By the time I could determine the full scope of them,  the river  
seemed a mile wide and so full of granite rocks popping up above the  
water, so full of swirling, roaring water that I could not believe  
for a moment.  I quickly scanned the entire width of the river but  
couldn't determine a decent place to shoot the hooch.  I couldn't  
even find the hooch to shoot.

Because I entered to the right of the island I put myself in the  
worst case scenario to go through these shoals.  I was entering them  
at their most shallow and most rocky.  There was no way that I could  
paddle across the wide and shallow river to the other side to check  
it out for a better location to go through them.  I was stuck with  
this side of the river.  I desperately tried to paddle further to the  
right side but the current was so fast, the rocks too many and I  
crashed and banged my way down to what looked like the worst possible  
place to negotiate this set of mega-shoals.

As I steeled myself for the worst I heard someone shouting from the  
shore and looked to see someone waving at a beach area in front of a  
very large newly built house overlooking the shoals.

What was that they were saying?  I could have sworn he said, "You  
can't make it through there"   and maybe "Turn around."

But I AM sure that he said,  "Are you crazy?"

That I heard distinctly.

I looked at him waving and then looked back to where the boat was  
heading inexorably now toward the increasing noise, foam and angry  
waters. I desperately tried to find the best possible place to shoot  
the hooch but this set of shoals was easily 5 times worse than that  
the one I had to do portage over earlier in the day.  I really didn't  
have much choice.  I could jump out, stay with the boat or maybe try  
both -- stay with the boat at times and get out of it if I had to to  
allow the boat  to pass over the rocks and shallowest of waters.

I felt the boat scrape heavily against rock and then lodge on an  
underwater obstacle and thought to myself,

I just may be.



End of Part VII


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