Nature Journal

9/19


The fine art of bridge climbing is made easy at Lytle's Landing on the Black River.  The broad rusted girders are like monkey bars for the old, set off from the main trail-riding planking and hand railings by only a foot.  You can park your bike, climb up the railing and twist on over to the other side, walking yourself down slowly, one foot on the railing and the other on a massive bolt, the size of a golf ball, on one of the towering girders.  As you look down from this perch, the river is just below, shallow, and under a mid-afternoon sun. Although brown and brackish it is see-through, where little minnows scuttle across the top in unpredictable rhythms.  A few feet away from the channel is the sand bar spit that is set in the middle of the river like a street boulevard, extending at least another 50 yards to a point where only a single sandpiper stands with long legs in soft sand.  We lower ourselves this time by the sheer strength of our arms until we can see our feet are dangling only a foot above the last shelf of metal, then let go, pushing off to get proper distance.  From this level, nothing more than a hop onto the sand; behind now the great structure of the historical bridge like monument to history, old, brown, rusted, metal – the green of trees and slide of blue framed inside a hand full of angled frames.  As we walk out towards the point, a few shots ring out from the nature preserve and a man carries his .22 over his shoulder above across the bridge.  The resident of the house at the bank shoots arrows into a target in the backyard.  Another man and his son slowly glide by the deeper portions on the other side close to the bank tossing worms near the underbrush.  A large strike surfaces and we can see the slapping back of what looks like a mammoth catfish.  The man holds his pole with his left and awaiting the approach of the fish with the black net in his right hand.  He pulls up as the pole bends and in an instant the fish slips and disappears below the top line of the canoe.  Very little is said.  The current takes them out into in the last of an afternoon sun patch which makes the brown water look blue.