Natural springs are the rushing gems of the Ozark Mountain Range.

Appreciation of springs


By Ron Kruger, NEW ERA Outdoor Writer

Water that suddenly appears, whether it trickles, rushes or roars from the ground, is fascinating natural phenomena that people call “springs.”

The water usually is cold, glistening with a pure brilliance and a force that emanates from some mysterious source. They are the architects of subterranean caves, the parents of rivers and streams, but most of all, they are peaceful places that inspire spiritual serenity while the rest of the world seems to scream.

Moving water moves me in profound ways. I’ve spent considerable time floating on the currents of freestone streams as they carve their way though hills and mountains, and even more time wading with the force of the current tugging at my legs.

I’ve done this with a rod in hand and the capture of smallmouth bass or trout as my primary purpose, but when I think about it, it is not fish I see. I see the mountains as the muscles and the streams as the veins of the living world in the peak of its physical shape.

I’m moved by mountains and haunted by the good spirits that bubble and gurgle in streams. Often I realize this as I pause from paddling or rest on a stream side rock. These are fleeting moments, breaks in the action, when I realize the deeper significance of why I’m so magnetized by outdoor pursuits.



But when I happen upon a spring, it’s a different thing. All pursuits and purposes, all the problems of life, drain from me, and I often find myself sitting in quiet reverence, not thinking about or meditating upon anything in particular — just watching the water roll.

I’ve always been fascinated by springs, but my appreciation of them grew most intense during the couple of years that I lived completely off the land in one of the most remote and rugged reaches of the Ozark Mountains. Maybe I was drawn there to become a modern day mountain man in the first place because of the abundance of springs.

Objectively speaking, the Ozarks would be about as charming as a woman without lips if it weren’t for the springs, but the proliferation of these rushing gems makes the Ozarks a natural beauty queen. No other area in the world contains more natural springs of first magnitude (over 65 million gallons a day). Nowhere.

The larger springs form the headwaters of rivers, such as Montauk Spring, where the beginnings of the Current River rushes from a rock. Others, such as Meramec Springs on the Maremec River and Rainbow Springs on the North Fork of the White River where I lived, double the size of what already are respectable flows.

Water rushing from the ground is a mysterious thing that they’ve studied most extensively in Missouri. By pouring harmless dyes into various sinkholes and such, they’ve determined that the recharge area of a spring often is drawn from a 200-square mile area and that the water often travels underground for weeks before erupting from the rocks or the mouth of a cave.

Spring sites are truly special places, but they are by no means restricted to Missouri, western Kentucky, Tennessee, southern Illinois and even southern Indiana are loaded with them, because what few people realize is these areas actually form the outer reaches of the Ozark Mountain Range.

Large volume springs are impressive, indeed, but I’m especially fond of smaller springs tucked away in remote places where tourists never tread, such as the one I found the other day here in western Kentucky while hunting coyotes.

That’s one of the grandest things about hunting and fishing. They take you off the beaten paths and show you special little spots that you own so completely, they become a part of you — at least for a little while.

Or maybe you become a part of them.

If you happen to find one of these mysterious outlets, take a little time out to watch it flow. I don’t know where the one I found recently came from, but I do know where it took me.