It began to rain, lightly at first. But from the dark clouds building to the northwest I knew what was coming. I pulled my johnboat up on a shallow gravel bar due to that promise of coming bad weather, just minutes away. The temperature was in the low thirties, cold and wet. I picked up the pack on the boat seat before me, grabbed my shotgun beside me and hurried up the incline before me to a rock ledge about 20 feet high. Facing the east, it jutted out about four feet, a shelter from the wind and rain.
As the rain increased, I gathered some dry sticks around me. Even a small fire would help. I pulled a small vial of kerosene from the pack, and poured it on the layer of dry sticks. I dug out a lighter from my pocket and lit it, watching the flame burst forth and grow. I pulled the thermos from my pack as the rain began to pelt down. The coffee I had made hours before was still hot as I settled back on the layer of dry leaves against the rock wall and pulled my old goose-down coat up around me, tying down the hood.
The rain was steady now but with little wind, thank goodness. I was content to watch it from the dry shelter. I was in no hurry. My pickup was only three eddies and two shoals downriver and there was three hours of winter light left, even with the heavy cloud layer. I could make it in about an hour if I paddled straight through.
But I would wait, so that I could stay dry. I had rain gear in a dry box in the seat, but when it rains hard you don’t stay real dry with any rain gear. Especially when you are paddling a boat. And it was too cold to get damp.
I leaned back and watched the rain slack off a bit and out above the river I heard the sound of wings. Under that overhanging ledge, I just glimpsed the flock of mallards heading down river. They circled above the trees across the river and out over the field just beyond, then headed back to the big eddy downstream. I watched them circle and funnel down into its protective slough, maybe a dozen or more.
That made me happier than the fire and coffee. In a little while I could float down toward that slough and paddle right in beside them. Maybe I could add a couple more greenheads to that one old drake I had picked up earlier. He took to flight behind my boat as I drifted past and he was the only duck I had seen all morning besides the ever-present hooded mergansers, which would skim along above the river surface before me.
It rained for about a half an hour and then I began to hear the patter of ice particles around me, at first mixed with the rain, then in a few minutes, there was an onslaught of nothing but sleet. I just sat there finishing my thermos of coffee and a half a sandwich. It was something to enjoy, being so peaceful and dry there beneath that rock overhang watching it sleet. Shortly the fire burned down and I let it subside into small coals and ashes. The sleet didn’t last long. About that time I saw something big coming up the gravel bar and past my boat. It was a lone otter, likely a big male. He had skirted the shoal and was about to slip into the eddy above me. I was surprised that he didn’t get my duck inside the boat. Otters are efficient killers… the scourge of the river. They are the biggest enemy of smallmouth bass, rock bass, catfish, you name it. If it swims, they will kill it to eat. What lives above water, they may kill that too. They have been known too kill fawns by pulling them into the water. They kill ducks and geese, turkey poults, mink, muskrat, rabbits, etc.
Otters are one of many embarrassments of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Young, inept biologists stocked them years ago without any knowledge as to what they were and what they would do. They moved from our rivers to upland waters to become a devastating predator of stocked fish, and ruined many fishing ponds and small lakes, far from the rivers.
The MDC traded wild turkeys to Wisconsin for the otters they stocked. Today there’s an abundance of otters in the Ozarks and wild turkeys become fewer each year. Had I a rifle, I would have killed that one and taken him with me. But in a moment he was gone, and with him went the sleet. Suddenly it was snowing.
I headed for the johnboat, adjusted my bow-blind and pulled the boat out into the river. The snow began to really come down and for a moment I just stood there watching it drift down between me and the high bluff downstream, so beautiful it was hard not to stand there in awe, and I thanked God he allowed me to see it. It was so quiet you could hear snowflakes hitting the leaves along the gravel bar. Eventually, I swung my hip boots over the side of the boat, adjusted my shotgun beside me and reached a gloved hand for my paddle.
There were ducks downstream a ways. I thought I heard an old hen quacking. “Be patient” I said beneath my breath, “I’m coming!”
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