I’ll tell you where we’ll go. Someplace warm only for the summer months. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where smallmouth bass instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I am talking about a little place called Kalamazoo.
Somehow, someway, we found ourselves in the clutches of West Michigan. Not Western Michigan, but West Michigan, something I have been corrected on numerous times.
Far away from the relative ease of the Interstate 75 corridor, we left the fabled trout streams in the northern stretches of the state in search of warmwater quarry. Smallmouth bass and northern pike called our names, and given our typical South Floridian proclivity for streamers, it was a destination worth exploring.
Layer on top the fact that the city of Kalamazoo has perhaps more breweries and brewpubs per capita than anywhere else on planet Earth, we were expecting a venerable cornucopia of riches. However, there is still work to be done.
The Kalamazoo River has been much maligned in recent years, as a horrific oil spill occurred here in 2010, but I’m sad to report that the history of the Kalamazoo is one that is steeped in environmental woes. A Superfund section still exists from Kalamazoo to Allegan Dam.
Thanks to the efforts of numerous environmental agencies, the river is cleaner, although wounds from the spill are still waiting to heal. Despite it’s sordid past, where it was largely regarded as a polluted eyesore, the Kalamazoo is poised to become a smallmouth fishery worthy of significance.
As I would come to find out, the ‘Zoo was ready to shed the ills of her past, a burgeoning utopia ready to awake with the euphoric promise of cold suds and determined smallies. Enter: Zoophoria.
Kalamazoo stands poised to move past its labels. Strange thing to say about a city that has been around for nearly 130 years, but it is emblematic of Michigan as a whole. In it’s past lies the paper mills of the 1960s and the myriad of closures from the Great Recession. Kalamazoo is a city anew.
It’s downtown stands in stark contrast to the stereotypical college town. Business professionals and soccer moms intermingle, breathing life into this economic centre. Art Hop advertisements promote the monthly celebration of local artists.
Breweries dot the landscape both downtown and in the suburbs, reminding us that while the state of Michigan is a highly regarded participant in the recent craft beer explosion, Kalamazoo lies at the epicenter.
Much like the city that shares the same name, the Kalamazoo River is ready to move on from its past. The fabled Grand River to the north is well known as a tremendous smallmouth fishery, but the Kalamazoo yearns to one day compete.
If not for her past, perhaps she would already be there. The oil spill has put her behind schedule. But one day, she hopes, she will be known less for her victimization by man and more for her resiliency in spite of it.
Her gradual recovery alongside the burgeoning city of the same name is what gives flight to the idea of “Zoophoria.”
What is Zoophoria? It is a state of being. Of being part of a dream realized. Of the follies of man being replaced by his new understandings. The curing of ills and wrongs as man and nature come together to help forge a better future.
It is experiencing a place that was once on the cusp. Where stale stagnation permeated from more than the waters. Where revitalization runs rampant and new truths emerge.
One cannot help but be overcome by such realizations as they pull a healthy smallmouth from waters once left to ruin. It was here, a few miles from the spill and the heart of downtown, that we were able to experience zoophoria first hand. The fact we put in near a brewery along the Kalamazoo bank’s all but solidified the nature of fishing here.
Being able to fish once dreadfully polluted waters brings a level of excitement few will ever understand. Where pristine waters are praised and sought after by all, why not the flower growing through the cracks of a concrete jungle? The waters that would not yield under the pressure of man.
Kalamazoo is a city reborn with a new identity, and the river that bears its name is very much the same. Words will never do justice to all that this waterway and surrounding municipalities have endured, nor will they ever properly convey the bright future that lies ahead.
Zoophoria is not a state of being brought forth by catching fish, nor chugging beers, although it certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s about being part of the rebirth, a part of the recovery, a part of the comm- unity. Altruistic behavior is often scrutinized, but here, in a place once on the brink, it may just so happen to exist.
While it may not be the same prolific smallmouth fishery as the river that lies a short drive to the north, the Kalamazoo is coming, ready to shed all that ailed her. And much like the city that bears her name, she has all the ingredients necessary to induce a state of intense excitement that can only rightfully be described as zoophoria.
