116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
A Wapsipinicon River tale of fishing, outdoors life
Wild Side column: Orlan Love speaking about a river that is a 10 most days ... some days are 11s
As I write this on Wednesday, I’m thinking about what I am going to say today (Sunday, June 23) when I speak about the Wapsipinicon River at 2 p.m. at the Center Point Historical Society Depot Museum.
My relationship with the Wapsie goes back 65 years when I and other Quasky boys used to skip school to fish for bullheads in a backwater we called “the bayou.”
We justified our dereliction of duty in much the same way Augustus McRae in “Lonesome Dove” justified his cheating at cards with Miss Lorena Wood. To paraphrase Gus: Anyone who wouldn’t skip school to go fishing doesn’t want to catch a fish bad enough.
The Wapsie, like all Iowa rivers, carries excessive loads of silt, bacteria and nutrients, but it’s much healthier than it was in my youth. Thanks to the 1972 Clean Water Act, which curtailed industrial and municipal pollution, and the 1985 Farm Bill’s water-cleansing Conservation Reserve Program, a degraded river once dominated by pollution-tolerant fish species such as carp and bullheads now hosts thriving populations of game fish, which attain trophy status in the forage-filled river.
As with most other Iowa rivers, high, swift, muddy water too often renders it unfishable. But when it’s right, as it has been for much of the recently ended nearly 4-year-long drought, perfect outings — 10 on a 1-to-10 scale — are commonplace.
You always have the scenery, solitude and wildlife. Combine that with pleasant weather and water flowing as clear as a trout stream. Add a gentle current that doesn’t hamper your wading and sandbars as smooth as sidewalks to take you from one hole to the next, and all you’re missing for a perfect day is the fish, which are dependable.
So a lot of outings are 10 out of 10. And sometimes you get bonus points. Maybe you catch a lot of fish or a big fish or a lot of big fish.That can turn a 10 into an 11.,
Maybe your fishing buddy gets a Nantucket sleigh ride when a big foul-hooked catfish tows his kick boat a quarter mile downstream before succumbing. Maybe, on that same outing, you catch 12 smallmouth bass on 13 casts and, a little while later, six more on seven casts.
Maybe you find a beautiful agate or chunk of petrified wood or a shapely piece of driftwood or a perfect beaver-cut walking stick while traveling from hole to hole.
Maybe you see and hear a pair of sandhill cranes singing their wild clackety song as they fly up the river. Maybe you startle a white doe and her two white fawns drinking at the river’s edge. Maybe you see and hear an osprey smack the water as it dives from on high for its prey.
Maybe you see a brilliant red cardinal flower glowing in the shadows beneath a shoreline silver maple. Maybe you find a perfectly symmetrical 12-point whitetail deer carcass being picked clean by a trio of bald eagles.
Maybe you see a flotilla of bare-naked ladies coming toward you in their kayaks. Actually they were just topless, and we had a pleasant conversation. I regaled them with Wapsie stories until they’d heard enough and shoved off. I wasn’t carrying a camera and probably wouldn’t have used it anyway, except maybe for a bareback shot as they paddled away.
Visit a river today if you’re seeking a 10-plus experience. If you’re content to hear a river rat talk about 10s, come to the Center Point Historical Society this afternoon.
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