As children, we spent a considerable amount of time down by the river. Exploring along its banks, we would find arrowheads and other evidence of encampments by the indigenous people of an earlier time. With the raisings of the Rock Island Dam, most if not all of those areas are now submerged.
One of the things we used to do was go spearfishing for carp in an area behind the old Keokuk silicon smelter. In the picture, to the right of the buildings, you can see a small inlet of the Columbia River. It wasn’t so deep that you couldn’t see the bottom all the way across to the small isthmus on the river side. For some reason, carp would congregate there, maybe to bask in the sun-warmed water of the little estuary. We would take our bows and hand-made spears, and attempt to spear them.
I don’t recall us ever having any great success, but in our minds we were mountain men, catching what we ate and eating what we caught. Of course, had we ever actually caught any, it’s not likely we would even have attempted to eat it. Based on the location, I doubt if those fish could make it through a TSA checkpoint at the airport without setting off every alarm in the building. That’s if they were of a mind to travel by air rather by water.
Just Plain Bud 