A Kayaker's Journal

A fish camp is a collection of recreational vehicles and/or cabins gathered in close proximity to a body of water and to each other, whose occupants consider themselves ruggedly independent and who have one thing in common: a love of fishing.

Winter residents are referred to both fondly and sarcastically, as “snowbirds.”  A second category consists of transient folk who live and work in urban areas, pay the monthly rent and head for camp whenever possible. A third category, though rather small in number, encompasses those who are simply hiding from any or all of the following: ex-spouses, ex-significant others, in-laws, parents, children or the law.

Nocturnal campers can be found with one hand wrapped around a shrimp net or a fishing pole and the other around a beer can. Diurnal folk arise before dawn, fish early and nap in the afternoon. Both groups enjoy congregating on the pier at dusk, where they may or may not acknowledge one another.

Any crisis serves as a catalyst to bring campers together. One evening, a medical crisis brewed when a camper experienced chest pain radiating down his arm. When he insisted that he needed no help, we handed a cell phone to his girlfriend and pleaded with her to call 911. When the EMTs arrived, he would have nothing to do with a trip to the hospital. Looking up at one particularly tall, muscled fellow, he growled, “I’ll kick your ___.”

With a wry grin, the EMT replied, “He’d better pack his lunch.”

Fortunately, the camper survived to don his best denim outfit and marry his girlfriend at a ceremony performed at a local bar.

Another crisis involved a man, his boat, and his dog. Rick, one of the full time residents was present when an elderly fellow backed his boat down the ramp, leaving his van in neutral. When the van began to follow the boat into the water, the man jumped free, leaving his dog was trapped inside the vehicle. Sandy, the woman on duty in the camp store phoned for help.

Meanwhile, panic flared in the dog’s eyes and resonated in its sharp yelps while the water crept up to the window level of the sinking van. By the time the deputy arrived and began to unbuckle his belt and remove his firearm, the dog was paddling frantically, scratching at the window, with its nose barely above water. A few folks had gathered around, spellbound. Rick couldn’t stand the tension: he dove. Pulling the door open against the water was enough of a challenge, but when that feat was accomplished, Rick found that the murkiness of the water obscured the whereabouts of the dog. “Once I got the door open, I couldn’t see. I grabbed the dog and he bit me!” Rick explained.

Forced to surface, Rick gasped for air and dove again. “I swam to the back of the van, grabbed it by a handful of hair and dragged it out,” Rick said. “I kept pushing it from behind toward the shore. It was coughin’up water. It was drownin’, is what it was doin’.”

“I thought that dog was a gonner,” Shelby, a fisherwoman who always brings home a catch, told me. “They gave him root beer to lap to clean the salt out of him!”

Whether the root beer did its job is unknown, but the dog lived and that is all that matters.

Animal Encounters

One night, after a late start, we arrived in Oak Hill after dark. Indian Creek Road was unpaved at that time and we rattled along, lost in our own thoughts, toward the camp gate. Suddenly a black mound reared up in our head lights and we slowed, coming to a stop fifteen feet from whatever it was. As soon as I uttered the incredulous word, “Bear?” the mound began to uncurl before our eyes. First it extended a long pointed tail; then it swung a long pointed snout forward and its devilish eyes gleamed in the headlights. By this time, I was hardly breathing, but the finale was yet to come, for the creature raised itself up on four clawed legs, opened its toothy jaws and hissed the unmistakable warning sound of an irritated alligator. We watched it lumber off into the brush with an air of reptilian distain, knowing that it could move a lot faster if provoked.

A less threatening encounter, at least as far as the humans involved, occurred one night on the dock. A bicycle, the trademark method of transportation used by Robert, one of the full time residents, leaned against the railing of the wooden walkway next to the store.  As we rounded the corner, there Robert sat on the dock, staring down a juvenile cormorant which perched on a piling a foot away from him.

“Make like an eagle,” Robert commanded, dangling a shrimp above the bird’s beak. Sure enough, the bird spread its wings in a display as r