Casting Forward by Steve Ramirez

Author:Steve Ramirez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2020-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Blanco

Men may dam it and say that they have made a lake, but it will still be a river. It will keep its nature and bide its time, like a caged animal alert for the slightest opening. In time, it will have its way; the dam, like the ancient cliffs, will be carried away, piecemeal in the currents.

~WENDELL BERRY

THE BLANCO IS A RIVER THAT FEELS AS I DO; WE COULD BE BLOOD brothers. Born in the sky, we fell to the Earth and reemerged from beneath limestone caves where we tumbled over rock and root toward the sea, wild, free, living within the eternal circles of the universe. It is the way of things. Over time, we have both let the artifacts of an uncivilized civilization slowly, almost irrevocably, take away our freedom, separating us from the universe.

Recently, I flew out of San Antonio International Airport, and as the plane banked north toward Dallas, I could see the river below. I could see the place where the Blanco meets the San Marcos, and I recalled the images of the bass leaping at the end of my line in that place. He is still there, where a dying river joins a healthy one and, in this way, continues toward its destiny, at least for now. As we flew northward, I followed the Blanco with my eyes and felt saddened by what I saw. I saw stagnant pools of water in between long expanses of exposed bedrock. Like a long, curving stone snake, it still cuts through the Hill Country as it once did, except now the river hides beneath the rock, only rising here and there as humanity demands. The Blanco is damned.

The first time I looked upon the Blanco was at the crossing in Wimberley, Texas. I was on my way to a meeting for the work I did at the time, and so it was only a quick look at a lovely river that in that time was spilling across limestone and under massive old cypress trees. I couldn’t wait to come back. When I did finally make it back to the Wimberley crossing, it was dry. Only the limestone remained, the same limestone that contains the tracks of dinosaurs.

The first time I came to the Blanco with fly-rod in hand turned out to be more of a reconnaissance trip. I drove along the river road east of the town of Blanco looking for a good place to fish. All along the road were crossings that were illegally fenced and posted. All along the riverbank were signs that read, “Private Property—No Parking.” The river in these posted areas was lovely, often deep where the dams were placed with shallow, fishless stretches below each dam. I found an un-posted crossing where I could stand upon a dam and cast into a pool containing native largemouth bass, but I didn’t do it. Instead, I watched as a blue heron hunted in the shallows and a banded water snake swam away from me and toward the hungry heron.

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