16. Surf and turf in Urbana-Champaign

Central Illinois is not prima facie sawed-off sportsman territory. Oh, I think those guys sitting on six inches of ice spearing pike through a hole are onto something but I never got a chance to try it. In the whole two and a half years I was there I don’t think I saw a single snake outside. The waterways were not obviously life filled and their names did not encourage close inspection: Salt Fork of the Vermillion River, Saline Ditch and my non-favorite – The Bone Yard. The latter flowed around Urbana-Champaign and some civic group started a campaign to “Save Our Bone Yard”. I’m thinking, OK, Step One…change the name! I suspected there was an Indian connection which made it all the worse because it sounded like a stream flowing into, or out of, (or both) a Stephen King novel.

There was a small park in town that I gave a fishing try; adventure opportunity is often closer than most people realize. Rod, reel, bobber, worms (Illinois had plenty of worms) and one and a half ham sandwiches later – zip. I Frisbee-ed a slice of white bread onto the water and before I could pack up a four pound carp surfaces and starts chewing on it. I says to the carp….”Oh; you.”

In the 20 years ensuing since my cane pole had been dragged into the lake my relationship with the carp had the tenor of Jeremiah Johnson’s relationship with the Crow in the last third of the movie. I had shot them (spear gun, bow & arrow), knifed them (hunting, paring) but mostly half-ounce barrel sinker + 2/0 hook + bread dough-balled them. Initially, this city park looked like a standard tactics theater.

Setting aside the fact that the best bait turned out to be French fries, events unfolded predictably. Carp were running around 4-6 pounds and I’d try different spots from trip to trip. I finally ended up sitting in a small grove of trees, with something to lean against, while I read a book and waited for a carp. It was a pretty pastoral image until the rats came marching in.

Generally speaking, when the rats come marching in, most people find something else to do or some place else to do it. To the sawed-off, however, this represented a pinnacle of sporting opportunity – Surf & Turf; a fishing pole in one hand and a gun in the other!

I already had a nice pump-up, .22 caliber, pellet pistol so all I had to do was bring it. Although sometimes brazen, real rats are fairly skittish especially when surprised (and I was planning on surprising them). Consequently there was not going to be time, and too much movement, to load, cock and pump the pistol if rats showed up again. Hence, on the next trip I sat leaning against a tree, carp rod baited and cast, reading a book with the completely ready pellet piston in my lap. This sort of thing usually doesn’t work out but darned if a rat doesn’t come trundling along the water line.

It was the shot of a life time; not from the hip, from the lap! The pellet hit the rat dead center and knocked him two feet into the water without skipping. He quickly did two complete medial/lateral barrel roles, paused briefly right-side up, and then did a surface-dive worthy of a water ballet. I knew they were ready swimmers. I did not know they would deliberately dive and swim under water.

I figure the rat ended up with a nice bruise from the encounter. I didn’t try again as it was going to take a real fire arm which would likely not have gone over well with the picnic people. I do wonder if the rat swam by a carp who mused “Well, at least he’s not just after us.”

ML
7/18/07