Though the term “bushwhacking” might initially call to mind images of grueling humps through brush-choked, trailless forest with nothing aside from a faint game trail for guidance, in this day and age, when everyone, everywhere just wants to get away from everyone else, everywhere else, I wonder if the term could use a bit of an update. Bushes aren’t the only things that get whacked on the way to and from a particular piece of water.

One might “mudwhack” their way to a carp flat on the Columbia River—or any other slow-moving stretch of stream, impounded or not—depending on the actual bushwhackability of the shoreside vegetation. I can personally attest to the fact that, in some cases, a quarter-mile slog through knee-deep mud in hip-deep water is an easier option than the tangle of blackberry brambles, head-high stinging nettles and assorted schizophrenic undergrowth that is often the alternative…

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