116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
A good year on the Wapsi
Wild Side column: But this river always is good for fishing and spending time outdoors
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
With apologies to Frank Sinatra and anyone else I may have slighted in 2024:
When I was 75 it was a very good year.
A very good year for a small town guy.
With a river nearby.
It was great to be alive.
When I was 75.
That river flows through most of my favorite memories of 2024. Fish, of course. But also picking luminous morels with my lifelong friend Arthur Clark in damp river bottom leaf litter. Finding shed antlers along its banks with my grandkids. Sifting through rock bars for pretty stones.
I’ve known that river all my life, and I see it every day. It is for the most part inscrutable but not unknowable.
As cold and indifferent as nature can be, I often feel that the river — the highest expression of nature in these de-natured parts —actually likes me.
It speaks to me in the soothing tones of water flowing over rock. It invites me to step into it and feel the pressure of its current. It reveals the secrets of its denizens.
Sunsets, autumn leaves and soaring eagles look better reflected in its surface.
It bestows more peace and joy than Christmas. It delivers more excitement than a Caitlin Clark highlight film.
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 themselves are dependable.
They were there on Feb. 10, two days after the meager ice accumulation of a warm winter disappeared for good.
They were there in March when city slicker grandkids caught their first smallmouth bass on the first nightcrawlers they’d ever picked up after a spring rain.
They were there in April when 34 photo-worthy smallmouth bass in two days provided an astonished angler with final proof that the river does indeed like him.
Even when high swift water kept me out of the river and away from my favorite holes, during the soggy months of May through July, they were still there in fishable near-shore eddies.
They were there in October when an angler who likes to count could catch a five-fish limit of walleyes in 40 casts.
They were there Dec. 28 when warm, wet Christmas weather reopened the frozen river.
As I write this on the first morning of 2025, I am confident they will be there this year, too.
With another great year gone, I look forward to this one, wishing you a happy new year and resolving as always to catch more fish and to not show fish photos on my phone to anyone who does not ask to see them.
Daily Newsletters