Fishtales Library
December 22, 1997
Trees are part of most every fishing trip but do we ever really look at them?
What a Tree
Jim Pope
While fishing a local bass tournament in 1976, I found it. Actually, I didn't find it. No doubt hundreds, maybe thousands, of fishermen had fished around and under it. It stood there in its magnificence, cantilevered four feet out over the surface of the creek.
With an Ambassador 6000 and a Lew's worm rod, I made a side armed cast. What I was attempting to do was very difficult for me, but luckily the 17 pound test line remained neatly spooled on the reel after the cast. When the bait hit the water just in front of this freak of nature, I thumbed the reel spool, only to let it go for another fraction of a second. The big topwater bait skipped the desired four feet and came to rest within inches of where the land and water intersected.
No sooner had I engaged the reel, a good fish engulfed the Chugger. Sweeping the rod in a horizontal motion, I was able to drive the hooks home. The first thought was to get the fish out from under her lair, but she had other ideas. She immediately shot out of the water and stuck her head into the entanglement of wood and bark just six or eight inches above the water line. There she was, dangling vertically, under tons of structure. Within another second or two, her strength overruled her apparent destiny, and she pulled loose, leaving the Chugger suspended in the maze.
Six years later, it was still there, but it was larger and more amazing than I had ever taken time to notice. Having, countless times, fished that creek which flows into the Tennessee River, I was amazed that I had not really noticed it before. In retrospect, I was able to recall the many times I drifted by, shooting a spinnerbait or a worm under this massive structure, and I always thought of the big sow which took the Chugger, but for some reason, this time was different.
Since I was fishing alone, the pressing need to keep the boat moving seemed less important than usual. Prior to making my first cast, I leaned back and admired this magnificent wonderment of nature. The huge sycamore tree stood, at least, eighty feet tall. Its branches stretched outward and upward in order to provide sunlight for the countless numbers of oversized food factories attached. Over the years, the water had tried to destroy its home, but it had survived. How did it know to alter the growth of its roots to compensate for the erosion of the earth beneath it? How could it still be standing?
Having somehow struggled through five years of engineering school, and having a reasonable understanding of forces, the very existence of this survivor of nature was totally amazing. The massive tree had to be at least twenty-four inches in diameter. From a point in dry, stable ground, the moment of inertia of the vertical force directed down through the center of gravity of this structure had to be a phenomenal number of foot- pounds. Why had it not turned up a truck-size piece of earth and stretched itself out across the creek?
As I sat there gazing at this apparent indestructible tower, my thoughts roamed throughout the plant kingdom. Most flowers have developed a shape which insures their propagation. Once seeds are produced, most plants have a unique method of transferring them to a growing place. Some attach themselves to animals as they brush by; some are blown by the wind; some are eaten and survive the harsh climate of the digestive tracks of animals; some take a ride on the currents of streams and rivers; and some just seem to happen. Should the unnatural growth pattern of this tree be so amazing?
On that day, I didn't make a cast to that tree. For some reason, I placed any fish, which found security under its protection, in a position of nobility. Maybe another day; maybe a day when the wonders of nature were a little farther back in my mind.
