river rat: Poling Places In shallow water, few boats can go all the places a fisherman, trapper, or hunter wish to fish, trap, or hunt. Canoes and kayaks are great if you have only a slight amount of gear and there's only one or two persons traveling. To access all the points we wanted to travel on the river we poled wood or aluminum john boats wherever we wished, with few limitations and lots of capacity for cargo.
Poling a boat on the river was and still is the most practical and romantic mode of transportation. My father poled boats with his friends. He poled my mother up and down the river to picnics and swimming holes. And when he remarried after our mother's passing he took his new bride on a trip to the islands and poled her home upstream despite being in his sixties.
His father poled the river to fish and enjoy the wide, slow water with a smoke and a drink, whenever he could. His father knew of a time when canal boats hauled goods up and down the river's edge as polers paced the mule drawn canal boats' progress. We of this modern age can hardly imagine a place and time where we're not plugged in and going four directions at once let alone having time to glide up and down the waterways for pleasure.
Whenever I think of poling I am carried away to thoughts of the gondoliers of Venice. Stripe shirted men with black or red scarves and Capri pants are poised on the backs of elegant, hand made gondolas lacquered black and richly upholstered "bordello style". These elegantly rustic men pole tourists and lovers through narrow canals for small piles of Lira, unaware of their kindred laborers in the rivers and streams of the Americas.
A john boat is no gondola and I have yet to see anyone on the Susquehanna river wearing a gondolier's outfit. If one were to dress that way, there's a good chance that he would never be heard from again. Civilized as we are, river rats have limits and, honestly, that Venetian gondolier's outfit is just a tube of greasepaint away from being a mime.
A john boat is any boat with a flat transom at the stern and a platform seat at the bow mounted the same height as the other two seats, but abutting the bow itself. A john boat also has to have a flat bow which is the termination point of the bottom of the boat. The smooth curve that defines the belly of the bow starts at approximately two thirds the distance from the transom and ends attached to the bow deck.
The pole is the method of locomotion, and nowadays a good pole is hard to find. One and a half inch doweling used for clothes rods in closets will do if the real thing can't be located.
The real deal pole is a two inch diameter, southern yellow pine, smooth stick; approximately twelve feet long with aluminum or tin wrapped around one end. Many a Campbell's Soup can worked wonders pounded onto the end of a pole and tacked in place with brass pins. The end with metal banding is used during the day or when sound isn't an issue, while the bare wood end is used for more stealthy pursuits like sneaking up on a flock of ducks or pulling into a quiet fishing hole.
The best work of poling is done standing on the seat at the front of the boat, although sometimes seated at the back of a canoe can be a relaxing and fast way to get around as well.
In the boat, one stands with both feet planted firmly and spread to just beyond the width of one's shoulders, facing the back of the boat. The pole is then carefully set on the river bottom, just behind the poler and pushed, hand over hand to provide propulsion. Standing on the bow lifts the rear of the boat so that it's easier to push and control by shifting one's feet. Also, standing at the bow instead of the rear is a good way for a poler going solo to balance the weight of the boat more efficiently.
Balance is crucial. Even the best polers get pulled overboard once in a while when the pole gets stuck between hidden crevices in ridges or mucked in deep, soggy, and often muddy grass patches. When the pole is stuck it's necessary to make a decision to stay with the pole or the boat. Either way one is likely to be headed into the water to reunite the two.
Although I had seen my brothers and father pole numerous times it was a friend of mine who taught me how to pole. Cleat Taylor was a few years older and from a family that was long time friends of our family. His given name was Ivan but we all knew him as Cleat or Cletus.
Just admitting to having been taught anything by someone named Cletus probably gives away the true redneck nature of my upbringing.
Cleat's older brother and my brothers were river rats who paved the way for our generation to get away with a lot more than we could have without the benefit of their bad assed pioneering.
The first time Cleat tried to show me how to pole, his pole got stuck in an area with a little bit too much current to allow him to wrangle the pole free. So Cleat opted to stay with the pole which left him wrapped around it hanging in mid air, sticking out of the water like a fireman sliding down a station house pole, sans fire station.
Cleat slid down slowly into the water as my brother Curt and I slowly figured out that we needed to stop the boat from rapidly running downstream if we were to see Cleat and the pole any time soon. We jumped out into the three or four feet of current and waited for Cleat to swim and wade on down to us. Thus the ballet of learning about poling and falling into the water continued.
My oldest brother Dave is probably among the most legendary poling masters known to my family. His personality and physical power made him a natural bragger whose brawn would back up the big words he puffed out.
To this day Dave always reminds me of Burt Reynolds in all the cool Burt Reynolds' roles of the seventies where his character could kick anyone's ass in the end. That is to say, not the Cannonball Run XVIII Burt Reynolds. Oddly enough, both men have opted uncannily for similar hair styles right down to wigs that don't do justice to either man's reputation.
I will forever associate my big brother's outdoorsman suave with the character Burt played in Deliverance--ready and willing to rid the waterways of sodomizing hillbillies with nothing but a compound bow and an overwrought toupee.
I'm told that when I was only two years old, Dave poled our entire family upstream on a flat barge in the middle of summer. That's ten persons on a barge that weighed easily twice the total weight of the passengers, moving upstream in water ranging from six inches to six feet. The distance of the trip was just under two miles upstream.
I have done a similar bit of poling. At sixteen I was larger than my oldest brother by nearly forty pounds and far more athletic. My attempts at moving that much cargo upstream in a regular boat-not a barge-left me on the verge of exhaustion. Dave did it routinely. Burt and Dave were some kinda studs.
Surprisingly, poling is not the exclusive domain of men. In the seventies, a woman named Charmaine, who lived across the river in Millersburg, would pole across the river to the Ferryboat Campsites south of town. I don't recall her maiden name, but she married a man in our town named Frog Stephens.
Yes, I reveal more to you regarding the depth of my redneck roots. Pass me a moonpie and some 'possum, wouldja Frog?
My brothers tell me of the sunny days when swimming at the ferry boat landing they'd see, off in the distance, a lone figure poling in the path of the ferry channel towards them. They knew it was Charmaine as they recognized her lithe figure standing on the bow of her wooden john boat.
Sinewy musculature and long sun streaked hair flowing over a bikini and cut off jeans made Charmaine from Millersburg, soon to be wife of Frog, the IT girl of the river for years. She was an original siren gondolier and remains a vision of strength and raw female power in my mind's eye though I see her only through the accounts of my puppy love stricken brothers.
I could really enliven this story if only one of my brother's names was Skeeter or Clem.
Curt, the brother closest to me in age, who was my best friend and my near twin as we grew up, is equally possessed of the skill and power necessary for river poling. Late in the evening at a party out on the island, Curt performed an outrageously difficult task of poling when we ran out of kegs of beer.
At the ill fated moment when the kegs became painfully light, the hat was passed, over $75 raised, and Curt was off with our buddy Tim, poling into the inky black of night down to a bar south of town. I don't think anyone but myself and our brother Garth realized what this meant. Nearly all of our Island party guests would walk out to the parties or canoe through shallow waters with little care to the preparation of the party.
Curt, Garth, and I had poled and canoed many, many loads of beer kegs, ice, food, generators, and band equipment over the week leading up to these events. At least we had the good sense to load in upstream and pole down to the island through the channel islands that surrounded our cabin, dodging unknown perils and ridges that were foreign to us.
Even when a seasoned river rat who knows all rock locations on a given path towards shore or island, hitting rocks and ridges is inevitable. When the person poling is standing precariously balanced on the fore deck and a rock is solidly hit, it's sure to be followed by a nose dive into the boat unless the poler is exceptionally nimble. At night, rocks and ridges swim like smooth leviathans beneath the glassy surface and into the boat's path; where in daylight, I swear they never existed.
That particular, dark night, Curt and Tim headed for the Mountainside Tavern, also known as the Shoot and Stab. The dive was so named for an unfortunate family bar squabble that ended up with folks bleeding in the parking lot and guns discharged randomly-not in that order. Honest mistakes happen in bar fights and family members frequently made them right there in the parking lot along the river.
The owner of the Shoot and Stab was a bland, slouching, dishwater blonde, liver lipped woman named Satch. I should not disparage her. She was very good to my brother and my friends over the years and was truly a sweet person. Her appearance however fit the name. Satch.
Satch hooked Tim and Curt up after hours and even helped the boys load the kegs into the boat. I knew that secretly the Satchstress was hot for Curt. I am not one to look down on the lustful desires of any woman, especially if it helps me get more beer. Thank you Satch.
Two and a half hours after Curt and Tim left the boat's island moorings, they came back with two kegs. Drenched in sweat and smiling, they even carried their cargo up the seventeen foot embankment.
The two heroes delivered the kegs to ice filled barrels and thirsty partiers who had no real appreciation for the feat of late night poling places.
