Fishing for more than fish

No way could this day in May be only about fishing. The afternoon is too embracing, spring’s arrival too encompassing. It comes from all directions, this season of greening and reawakening. It surrounds and saturates as I walk along a wooded trail, to where the peninsula juts into a bay, to where the southeast breeze cowers behind me.

I’ve come for crappies. I will leave with images and sounds of turtles and herons, songbirds and wildflowers, shores of pine and peace of mind. And one crappie; despite the warm sunshine, the bay water is a bit cool for crappie schools.

But sunshine on my shoulders is warm, and also on the turtles lazing atop fallen tree trunks partly in, partly out of the water. There are dozens of turtles, dark bumps on dark logs. Turtles sunbathing shell to shell, only inches apart.

Though my steps are muted by pine needles, the turtles monitor my movement along the shoreline, where understory is just beginning to show tiny leaves on hornbeam and maples. The turtles spook, but their escape is calculated. Their stubby legs reach for the curve of the log, then drop into the water with a soft ker-plunk, one at a time, like falling off an assembly line.

I reach my fishing spot where I’m alone under towering white pines. Spongy steps to the water’s edge are defined by exposed pine roots. I cast between submerged but partially visible logs, hoping my jig rig doesn’t catch on unseen branches. It does, at times, and a hard yank on the line sends a bobber to freedom. I catch one crappie, lose two off the hook.

The silence is broken only by songs of birds bent on nesting. Every now and then a fishing boat passes by slowly, carrying unanxious anglers on this weekday. Two boats meet, and four anglers agree that the panfish aren’t in the bay today. “I hope they let us know when they are,” says one guy. They all laugh.

The boats go around the bend. The quiet returns, so quiet that I can hear a soft whoosh as a great blue heron appears in my periphery of vision. It’s flying so low that at first it looks like a gray animal running on water. With wings spread and legs thrust forward, the heron braces for a landing on a grassy hump in the water.

The heron crouches into stalking position. I take photos, then see an opportunity as a boat eases into the bay, headed toward the heron. I stand my fishing rod against a tree and get serious with camera readiness. The heron is going to flush. On spindly legs it spins away from the boat and lifts off, its neck, wings and legs all extending in an awkwardness that works.

Six turtles pay no mind to the heron, which lands on a branch of their sunning log. My camera keeps clicking; the heron doesn’t know I’m here, this close. Still cautious of the boat, the heron lifts again and clears the bay.

I pick up my fishing rod. A red-winged blackbird calls “conk-la-ree” somewhere behind me. I cast into the bay, and retrieve over and over the sounds and sights of spring.

Dave Greschner, retired sports/outdoors editor at the Rice Lake Chronotype, writes about nature and the outdoors, pursues nature photography, and is the author of “Soul of the Outdoors.” He can be reached at davegreschner@icloud.com.