Week of Freedom

Having 3 small children, I just can't leave whenever I want to spend some time on the river.  Most of my trips are the result of some planning and more than a little bargaining with the wife.  It's only fair.  I know that being at home with all 3 kids is quite a bit of work.  If I'm going to leave Michelle with this responsibility, it's only fair that I offer to reciprocate at some time in the near future.  The thing is, my whole being is screaming to fish much of the time, so all of my planning and focus is on fishing trips.  It gets old.  The wife wonders when I'm going to actually plan a little family vacation, a day for the two of us to get away, a date, anything.  I don't have a good answer for this.  There are plenty of good intentions, but admittedly not much follow up as of yet.  On my end, I do spend almost all of my time either at work or with my family.  I consider myself an active and involved dad.  Is it too much to ask to spend one or two nights a week fishing, especially when most of my time away is after bedtime? 

You're probably getting the idea that this can get pretty complicated in our home.  That is why I couldn't believe my ears a few years ago when Michelle was talking to her sister, Heather, in Boston and it sounded like they were planning for Michelle and Hayden to go out there for a week.  I was pretty sure that the grandmas would be willing to watch Luke for me (We didn't have Lincoln yet).  A full week of nothing but fishing hadn't even been close to my radar before this.  As it began to sink in that this was, in fact,  going to happen, I calmly walked into the bedroom away from the family and threw down the best white boy dance I could muster.  Until then I hadn't dared to dream of a full week of freedom, of 168 straight hours in which I could fish whenever I wanted.  Now, it was coming and it was all that I could think about.

It was 4 or 5 months between that phone call and the actual trip, but it eventually rolled around.  Luke was already up at Grandma's and I dropped Michelle and Hayden off on a beautiful Sunday morning.  As luck would have it, Michelle knew someone who worked at the airport and he was able to get me into the terminal to wait until it was time for them to board the plane.  Oh, good!  Thanks, guy!  My drop and run turned into an hour-and-a-half in a crowded airport terminal.  I was thrilled.  I was just starting to twitch when their flight was called and I was finally sprung to the river.

Murphy showed up a few days before Freedom Week and dropped several inches of rain on West Michigan.  I knew the river was high, but I had no idea what I was in for.  I pulled into the parking lot and found the launch and most of the dock under water.  The river was swelled far beyond its banks.  The current was pushing by at an extremely high rate and it was full of everything from small branches to huge uprooted trees.  I've got a stubborn side, so instead of heading to a local lake, I backed the trailor into the dirty foam that was swirling in the submerged gravel drive above the launch and got ready to head up river.

The bridge generally sits several feet above the water surface, but with the river in the state that it was I could practically touch its girded underbelly as I past by.  There was so much junk floating in the current that I couldn't go at much more than idle speed for fear that I'd run up on a bobbing tree trunk.  For months I dreamed of 18 hour days on the river filled with big green flatties and an assortment of other gamefish.  Those dreams were quickly being replaced by a sickness in the pit of my stomach.  I knew that the fish were just down there holding onto something.  They wouldn't think about eating for well over a week.  Still, I found a big snag outside of the main river channel and anchored.  I figured that maybe something was sitting down there trying to stay out of the current.  If I was lucky, it would hit a big piece of cut bait.  I sat at my first spot for close to 2 hours.  I quickly developed the frequent habit of looking over my shoulder to make sure that I didn't get run over by an errant  tree.  Three times I had to pick up anchor and move out of the way while the waterlogged remains of an oak or maple with branches still full of bright green leaves pushed through my spot.  I found too that it was useless to try to keep my lines in the water, as there was just as much stuff bouncing along the riverbed as there was on the surface.  I stayed until dark, and then went home fishless and defeated.

I kept a close eye on the water level that week and tried it a few more times as the river dropped a couple of feet per day.  Eventually, the posts of the dock were most of the way out of the water.  I used it once, but discovered that hundreds of spiders were taking refuge on those posts.  I still get a shiver thinking about  laying my hand on the post nearest to shore and having the surface go fluid as a layer of big, white spiders either moved to get out from under my hand or climbed aboard in hopes that my arm was the way to solid ground.  I sputtered unintelligible curse words and shook my hand with an adrenaline charged violence.  I could feel them crawling inside of my clothes for the rest of the night.

Eventually the river shrank back down to something close to normal.  The first fish I caught that week was a sucker.  This is probably the happiest I've ever been to see one of these dumb looking fish.  I picked up a few channel cats, but things just never got right until a week or so after the family returned.  My dad talked me into hitting a local lake during one of the evenings, but we happened to hit it on tournament night.  We stopped fishing to watch 25 boats race to their spots, and then decided to head in early as there wasn't much shoreline left to fish.

I've had a few more Freedom Weeks with the family in Boston since then.  I look forward to them with intense anticipation each time they are made available.  I probably shouldn't admit this, but by the time the ends of those weeks roll around, I'm ready to get off of the river and spend some time with the family.  I think that I'm in the best situation that I can be in.  I fish just enough to keep the hunger.  Having all of the responsibility that I do and having to work for my outings makes them all the more enjoyable.  If I could go all the time, I think that my outings would actually lose a little of their luster.  I wouldn't mind testing that hypothesis.  I don't think Michelle would go for it.

Speaking of Michelle, this Sunday is Valentine's Day.  To demonstrate some growth, I've devised a plan and I'm actually going to follow through with it.  She's been extremely busy and stressed with a new teaching position this year.  The spa is her ultimate relief.  I've saved a little money and I'm planning on taking Monday off to be with the kids while I send her to the spa.  There's hope for me yet.