One rainy November evening a few years back, I drove from my office to Reliance Tennessee. Set off by itself in the cleft of a steep wooded hillside sat a small cabin full of people I had met on the internet, but in truth, they were strangers. Nervously I unloaded my modest assemblage of fishing gear and walked through the front door. Little did I know that I had stepped into my own future, and a litany of friendship.

Large congregations of folks can sometimes be a disjointed mess. So many different personalities and diverse walks of life mingled together always have an element of discord…or so I thought.

Walking through that door I stepped into a very unique brotherhood. I dare say that my growth as an angler would have been a slow laborious process had it not been for these men. I was still “green as a gourd”, but it mattered not to them. I was there, and by my appearance, I became one of them.

Many months have passed since that day, and the friendship, fellowship, and brotherhood has only grown. We have met on many different waters, and our adventures in that span of time have been the source of connection, both to one another and to our sport.

Soon the icy chill of the mid winter will call us together. From all across the region we will load up our gear and converge on a river that for me is a magic place. Miles from Reliance, but that same feeling will be there.

God has blessed me with more friends than I deserve within this group of men. I know of hardships, victories, life changes, and struggles as they are discussed amid the gurgle of the stream. My life, both in and out of the river is made fuller by having known them.

For every soul there is a river…and for me…every river resonates with the power of our unique brotherhood.

Ice is the greatest of all of natures liars. It looks smooth, wet, accommodating. Snow, though beautiful, is dangerous without concealing the hazardous potential it controls. Ice hides, giving itself names that denote the potential for betrayal. Black Ice, the greatest of all the winter liars. Today, the black Ice converged upon my little corner of the world, turning normal roads into demolition courses, and sending untold numbers of people to either the hospital or the morgue. Black Ice is a killer, of that you can be sure.

I waited until the majority of the carnage had been exacted before venturing out. My path to the office riddled with broken vehicles that were fooled by the Ice into a false idea of ease before it reached up out of the darkness and took tons of metal and with one little swish, turned it from a vehicle, to a carcass. Broken bits of fenders and bumpers jutted up from the sides of the road as if they were reaching out form benevolence. Benevolence is something to which Black Ice holds no claim.

I drove with my hands at ten and two, kept the radio volume down low, and looked far ahead along my chosen pathway. I did this not because I do not trust my own driving skills, but because the killer was obviously out and about and would strike without any warning. When dealing with the uncontrollable, it is best to set your sights and move forward knowing that the potential for mishap is always looming round the next bend.

Tonight, as the darkness of night settles along Riverdale, the Black Ice will dance; running its cold touch along places reclaimed by water and salt during the day. Tomorrow the light will once again try to penetrate the clouds, and in the darker places the killer will be lurking, waiting for the bravado of those who fail to recognize that when paired against the harsh reality of creation itself, nature will always be there waiting for the one foolish mistake in which it pronounces its ownership over the world.