A Day On The River

 She is lurking there in the Rainbow, all green and mottled black lines, shading herself from the noonday sun beneath a cypress tree. Slowly, she fans her pectoral fins in the current, watching the small bream that swim just beyond her reach. A canoe glides along overhead, it's paddles cupping the water and leaving little ripples in their wake.

  She has seen many years in the river, many winters, and many summers. She has escaped gators, mudfish, herons, hawks, and all the other predators that inhabit the river. Many children has she, numbering in the millions. Alas, most are gone now, but some still survive.

  Now, in her old age, she has no enemies. She is too big for the birds to bother, too fast for the gators, and too smart for the fishermen. She lazes about during the daylight hours, keeping to the cool recesses of the tall reeds that cover the river bottom, waving like green ribbons in a breeze.

  At dusk she will find a meal. A bream, perhaps, or even another bass. Time was when she would consume birds, frogs and lizards, but her tastes now ran almost exclusively to other fish. She is particularly fond of the little wild shiners that skitter around in the mornings. She can eat quite a few of them at a sitting.

  Old Cut Tail swims slowly above her now, his stumpy legs hanging down like useless appendages in this water world. He appears huge; as well he should, at just over 14 feet. She has known him all her life, and was even chased by him a time or two, but always managed to escape his long rows of jagged teeth. But then, he is a stupid gator, not like the gators from down-river. He is also slow, as evidenced by the piece of his tail that is missing, lost to another, faster gator.

  She watches Old Cut Tail cruise away, leaving that musty gator smell behind. Suddenly she senses a commotion in the water just upstream, heading her way. She angles upwards in the reeds to get a better view of what is causing the disturbance.

  Why, it's a wild shiner! And quite a large one, at that! Well, she thinks, it's not dinnertime yet, but...

  Perhaps a snack will tide over her hunger till then, and it's such an easy ambush from where she lay.

  She waits until the shiner swims just above her position, then with a great lunge she is on him, her massive bucket-mouth engulfing the shiner in one inhale. As she drifts back to her lair in the reeds, the shiner in her cavernous mouth, she is brought up short by a tug. Then another. Finally, she is being pulled from her resting place by some invisible force. She thrashes her huge head back and forth, trying to dislodge the force. She makes a mad dash to the bottom, trying to reach the safety of the reeds, only to be dragged back toward the surface.

  As she breaks the surface, she sees the boat, the rod, and the fisherman holding it. She jumps clean out of the water, throwing her head and body from side to side, and splashing water ten feet in the air. She dives again, hearing the whine of the fisherman's reel as the drag pays out more line. Once again she is dragged to the surface.

  Exhausted, she rolls on her side beside the boat, her dark green glistening in the midday sun. The fisherman reaches down and takes her by her lower lip, gently lifting her from the water.

  "She's a twenty-pounder, Harry!" says his companion.

  "That she is", says Harry. "Get the scale and camera."

  After a weighing and a quick photograph, she is gingerly returned to the water by the fisherman, who holds her head into the current to revive her. Slowly she can feel her strength returning, the rushing water giving her more oxygen. Gently, he releases his grip, and she slowly swims back down to her spot among the cool reeds.

  It has been a good day on the Rainbow.