My portion of the river is heavily un-fished, most of the time. But on holidays I run into zombies in the river. These are people that come out of the woods on the other side of the river. There is a small campground there.
They come out with lawn chairs and beer coolers. They sit in the river all day - it's only knee deep - and drink beer and get sunburned. You'd think anyone would know better. In several years of watching this I've seen exactly one person smart enough to bring and set up a sun umbrella. Unfortunately some of them are slobs and throw their beer cans/bottles into the river. They are sneaky about it though, you won't see them doing it, just find the empties full of water in the river bed later. They bring boom boxes and play extremely loud music. If they could figure out how to watch television out there they would, I guarantee it.
Other than the litter and sound pollution they aren't a problem. It's the so called fishermen among them that are. These are almost always men in their teens and twenties. A few women paired with a man, but very few. Never any women fishing alone. Here's the problem, they have no respect for anyone else fishing.
I have had any number of them wade right into my casting radius, and then act upset when the fly whips around near them. They have no compunction about casting into the area I am fishing, I've had several wade right in front of me, through the water I'm casting to. Try to start a friendly conversation with them and they act like they can barely speak the language. They are sullen, maybe because they aren't catching any fish - these zombies rarely do.
These are not real fishermen, they are people who have a fishing pole and three lures that they brought with them to the camp. I have pretty much given up fishing on holidays near that camp, it's not worth it. If I fish I go far downstream or upstream - they are pretty lazy and don't go far from their boom boxes.
There are sometimes fly fishermen that use the camp as a parking spot. These guys don't come out on holidays, mostly during the week and some weekends, usually in small groups. They wander far up and down the river, are quiet and always courteous and a pleasure to talk to. Occasionally a gear fisherman will do the same, but not many. I guess real gear fishermen are more interested in boat fishing, which is the stock style around here.
It's a sign of the urban times, these zombies. They have no sense. They try to bring the city with them when they escape the city. A few years ago the zombies started bringing four wheelers down into the river bed, driving up and down it. Strictly illegal here. I called the game warden, he called the campground owner and that stopped. I don't think he was all that caring of the environment but was caring of the $500 dollar per incident fine. Haven't seen one of those four wheelers in the river in a long time since that call. Had I not called I'm sure the place would have turned into a four wheelers favorite place to tear things up, over the course of a couple of weeks their numbers were increasing fast as the word spread of a new pristine playground. Now they drive it down to the edge of the water and park it. They use the four wheeler for beer runs between the river and the camp.
Am I just carping? No, I've been fishing this portion of the river since 1971. It's only getting worse over the years. Each generation seems to be devolving, a reverse evolution of common sense and courtesy. The good news is that most of them get so sunburned that they don't come back into the river the next day. One three day weekend started out with about forty of them (a much larger than normal group) sitting out in the sun in the middle of the river and drinking - all day. Next day? Two came out for about ten minutes then high-tailed it back to the shade of the camp. On the third day they had all gone home, no doubt to cool their burned skin under air conditioning.
Unfortunately they often bring small children that also get sunburned. Another sign they can't think, I feel sorry for the kids, but not the alleged adults.
I fled the city to be away from those kind of people. They seem to be following me, as zombies are known to do. They spoil wherever they are, then leave. The leaving part is the only good part about them.
Last night, the fourth of July night, sounded like the invasion of Iwo Jima. I don't mind fireworks when they are far off, but having drunken zombies blowing up explosives a hundred feet from my house all night long is irksome. They aren't allowed to blow them up at home anymore, all of the city's around here ban them - so they come here to do it. OK, I am carping now, it's probably wrong to complain about celebrating the fourth of July with fireworks, a truly American tradition. But...I wish they would go somewhere uninhabited - it only takes twenty minutes to go up or down the river to a place where no one is living and the only thing disturbed would be cows and small animals. But I guess those boom boxes are just too heavy to carry that far.
