The Flower

   

The sun was high over our heads as I stood in the turret of the RG-31 Mine Resistant Vehicle. Our platoon had been tasked with conducting route clearance, or clearing the improvised explosive devices, from the roadways of Sadr City, Iraq. The route was named ‘Bravo’ and we had stopped at its entrance to await further instructions from our higher command. My vehicle was the lead gun truck so I had an unobstructed view of this once grand city. The streets were flooded with water from a ruptured water line creating an image that we were about to drive ourselves into the Euphrates River. Several buildings lining the streets were burning and shattered lending me a feeling that Satan had only half constructed his hellish domain before we arrived. I noticed that there was not a soul walking the sidewalks for the rough mile to the next intersection and voiced my concern to my vehicle commander.

“Yeah? So?” He said annoyingly.

“So, if they ain’t walking the streets then there is probably an I.E.D. or two out there. Or maybe under the water.” I shouted over the sound of our running vehicle.

“Reed, there are I.E.D.’s all over this city. That is why we are here. Just make sure you find them before they get you. And watch them roof tops and windows for snipers. Second platoon said there is an ol’ boy out here with a .50 cal sniper rifle popping off gunners so keep your head low.”

I shook my head and lightly kicked the back of his seat to show that I acknowledged his orders. I stood silently scanning the empty streets and watched the billowing clouds of smoke climb from the market buildings towards the heavens. Months of trash was piled along the curbing and in some places five feet high providing a perfect hiding place for the enemy to hide their I.E.D.’s. My nose was saved from this horrid smell only by the slight breaks of diesel that wafted from my vehicle. For the first time I noticed the emptiness in the pit of my stomach; a place that normally would harbor a family of butterflies to dance and let me know that I was not comfortable with my situation. This situation somehow seemed different; more deadly, more life threatening than any of the other I had experienced in combat. My hands had begun to shake, the sweat poured from my body, tickling little trails across my torso and down my legs. The city had gone from being just another mission to a tomb of certain death that I could not escape. The anticipation was eating me alive.

            Frantically, I turned my head from side to side, expecting to find an IED or more correctly an EFP (explosion formed projectile) nestled like a viper next to my vehicle poised ready to strike and kill me, yet I found the opposite. There, among the ruins of a building, stood a small yellow flower; much in shape and color of a sunflower. The brightness of its pedals seemed more extreme in contrast of the grey bricks that lay as its neighbors. In that flower, I found comfort and I smiled. See, my wife’s favorite flower was the sunflower and in seeing that flower I caught a glimpse of the many smiles I had brought to her face when I would surprise her with one of those gems. The emptiness in my stomach began to ease. As I let my eyes gaze up from my wife’s flower I found that there was two white boards nailed in the shape of a cross leaning against the far wall of the rubble. I could not remove my eyes from that cross and found myself once again comforted; this time by the sweet hands of God. It wasn’t clear if I would make it out of that trip alive but at that time there was only one thing I wanted. I quietly thanked God for yesterday, today, and hopefully tomorrow, and asked him to comfort my wife while I ventured into Hell...

The Stories That Surround Us

The Stories That Surround Us

 

            I know it has been awhile since I have made any blog post for my horror or this hunting and fishing blog but that past few months have been pretty busy for me. I have been working on my first book which has been slow going but I think it is turning out to be a great story that surely at least one reader will find amazing. Today I am going to write a bit off my normal topics. Just in the twenty minutes that I was in the barber shop today I saw something today that really made me proud to be an American and a soldier.

            In the military we have to keep up our military appearance which means every week I need to get a haircut so today was my first chance to get this done. As I was walking in to the building to the barber shop I watched an elderly couple ahead of me. There was a set of automatic doors and a set of manual doors at the entrance, the man was feebly prying the manual doors open while the woman shuffled through the automatic doors quietly calling, “Herbert, this way is easier.”

“I can do it.” He said. Some people would look at this as the woman was smarter, I looked at it as the man was hard headed and stuck in his ways. I smiled at the elderly lady and she smiled back as her husband shuffled into the barber shop and found a chair. He had forgotten to grab a number before he sat down so I had pulled one from the machine for him and his wife told me thank you as the old man growled at me and said, “I could have done it.”

“I know you could buddy. I’m just helping.” I said. His wife smiled at me again and said, “It is ok. His brain ain’t right.”

            I had to laugh. I don’t know how many times my own wife has used this to describe me to others or even to our own children when something happens. “Oh his brain is just squishy, he’ll be fine.” The old man’s number was called and he fought the shakes to get to his feet the shuffled to the barber chair and then once again fought to sit in the slightly spinning chair. Though the man was confident in his movements, he was sure that he could do what he intended he could do, I caught him stealing a glance back at his wife as if to see if she was still there. Whether the man meant it or not, I had this quick thought race through my head as if he was being detached from her. It seemed as if she was his lifeline, as if she had been helping him for so long and this trip to the barber chair was going to be a long journey for him without her. As he sat in the chair the barber asked him what type of hair cut he would like he began to look very confused and started to shake. Apparently the barber had cut the man’s hair before and looked towards his wife who stood and walked to him.

“Herb? You want them to just trim it like usual right?” she said in a way that instantly made me smile. The man’s mind had to have been slipping for a while because she had already mastered her methods for dealing with daily speed bumps. By asking the question in this way she made it seem as if he was still doing things his way, he could still do it.

“Yes. The usual will be just fine, thank you.” Herb said as the confusion left his face and he sat a little straighter.

            The old woman came back over and sat next to me and said, “I worry about that old man. He used to be so strong.” I noticed that she wasn’t looking at him anymore; she was looking past him as if she was looking far into her past to different times. “He would never let another person cut his hair when he was in the army. He had his own clippers that he would shave it down every Sunday and he would look so handsome. Then he got them shakes and started loosen a bit of his mind and I wouldn’t let him use them no more so we come here every Tuesday because the line isn’t so long.”

“Yeah I like coming on Tuesdays too. The weekends are always so packed and I really don’t like being around people.” I said.

She laughed and said, “You sound like Herb. When he came back from his third tour in Vietnam he told me he just didn’t understand people anymore. He just got to where we didn’t want to be around anyone but family.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I do the same thing.”

“I don’t know how you guys do it.” She said.

“Do what?” I asked her.

“How you guys live this life. I look at Herb now, knowing the man that he used to be and what he is now and I can’t believe what all he gave for his country. It makes me sad that a man as great as Herb can live out the rest of his days like this, unknown for what he has done for freedom, for his country, for America. Does it seem fair?”

“We don’t do it for the glory. We do it because it is our job. I am sure Herb would say the same thing.” I said.

“Yes he would. You sound like my Herb. You know what else he would say?”

“What?” I said with a smile.

“It is what it is. He says that all the time. It is what it is.”

This Herb was starting to sound like my kind of guy because I have been known to say that from time to time.

“Your Herb sounds like one heck of a man, ma’am.”

She smiled and said, “He is.”

            About that time Herb was done with his haircut so I stood and helped him get down from the barber’s chair to which I was awarded a growl and witnessed some of that fire in his eyes and then he stopped and stared at my chest and pointed with a shaking finger at my combat action badge.

“Combat action badge ain’t it?”
“Yes sir.”
“What you get it for?”

“Combat.”

“Good answer.”

Herb smiled and patted me on the chest and walked out with his wife, his head held high, with a bit of a shuffle but I am pretty sure that shuffle was an airborne shuffle. I am not sure why my conversation with the elderly woman, who I never learned her name, and Herb seemed so huge to me today but it did. I think that maybe it was because it seemed like it was a glimpse into my own future if I am granted a chance to live that long. Maybe it was just my connection with a warrior from another generation, I don’t know but I figured I would share this with you all. Thank you for reading and hopefully here this week there will be another fishing story up for you all to read!

Lucky Baits, Jeremy Wade, and Rituals

Lucky bait’s, Jeremy Wade, and rituals

 

            Just about every outdoors man has a lucky bait, rifle, hunting or fishing area, or any other ritual that they believe is what brings them game on any given day. Along with those rituals, there are those that believe there are things that bring bad hunts and fishing trips. My grandpa Reed for one always believed that if there was fog on the water or if there were gar in the area you will never catch a fish. For him that may have been true but my opinion was if I wasn’t on the water then I wasn’t going to catch fish anyway so I might as well try. More times than not, I caught fish. They may have been small and they may have been gar but it was a blast!

            Several years ago my dad found his lucky lure. A small, shallow diving crank bait he found dangling from a tree limb while we were wadding a small river in Missouri. I look at found lures two ways. One, the person who lost it didn’t like the lure much anyway because they made no attempt to retrieve it, or two, they used it so much they were bound to eventually lose their favorite lure.  This small crank bait however became dads go to bait and I am not kidding when I say he has caught hundreds of small mouth with a lucky lure he found forgotten at the edge of that river. But, what is good luck without the fishing God’s throwing bad luck in our direction!

            While home on leave from my first deployment to Iraq, my dad and I went on a short fishing trip, wadding the same area he found his magical bait. My dad, brother, and I are competitive when it comes to fishing. We keep track of our catches of the day, size, numbers, species, and the stories grow as we tell them throughout the day. This day, needless to say, dad was dominating me on the water. Normally, the 10 bass that I had caught in the hour and a half of fishing would have been enough to keep me in the game but dad had already landed 50 small mouth and other species of fish on his evil little lure. Two rules that we have when fishing are, you talk trash to the other anglers that are not catching fish and for the fish to count as a catch, you have to touch it.

            Every fish that dad caught, he would lightly touch it on the head while it dangled from the hook while he danced in the water singing what number he was on.

 “Nuuumber fifty-ooone!”

“Nuuumber fifty-twwwo!”

I was getting frustrated. Lord, please stop his gloating. I get the point, he is the superior fisherman.

Dad began to laugh as a two pound small mouth slammed into the magic bait, fighting hard back and forth and jumping from the water. Triumphantly dad raised the fish from the water holding the line rather than the fish and using his index finger pointed at the beautiful green fish.

“Nuuuumber fifty-thre..”

SNAP!

Dads’ line snapped and the small mouth splashed back into the river and swam off with his lucky crank bait firmly stuck in the corner of its mouth with dad running through the water behind it screaming, “No! No! No! Give it back!”

“That one don’t count. You didn’t touch it.” I said as I laughed while dad stared disbelieving at the calm water.

When I returned to Iraq dad searched online and was able to find the exact lure at a bait store up north. He sent an email to the owner, along with his order of three more lures, and told him about our fishing trip. The man sent an extra lure with dad’s order that said, “Give this extra lure to your son so that he may be able to keep up with you the next time you guys hit the water!”

            Another good luck charm, I found out recently, was talking to my folks on the phone while I am fishing. I have long had the feeling that large fish use small fish as spotters. Much like a big brother will tell his little brother to watch for mom when he is doing something wrong, I could always picture a little fish swimming next to the bank, keeping an eye on an angler, and as he turned his head or walked away from his fishing pole, yelling to the big fish that tugs the pole into the water. This always happens to me. I could be extremely focused on my pole and line for an hour straight and nothing will bite. I turn my head to take a swig of Mountain Dew and BAM! The beast strikes and I miss them because I have a mouth full of mountain goodness.

            Friday evening was warm here so I hit the lake for a little catfishing. Armed with two poles, a tub of chicken livers, and a bag of super magic stink bait I went in search of my River Monster. Every time I head out on the lake or river I feel like a little kid. There is a spark that dances in me that just knows that this day will be the day that I catch a 500 pound catfish. After sitting on the bank for an hour without a bite I decided to call my mom and see what she was doing.

“Hey mom. What ya doing?”

“Ironing. What are you doing?”

“Fishing. Oh man, getting a bite! Call you right back.”

            I set the hook and reeled in a three pound channel cat. Sweet. I rebait the hook and cast it back out, and wait. And wait. And wait. A half an hour later, without a bite, I called my mom back.

“Hey mom. What ya doing?”

“Ironing. You get that fish?”

“Yep, three pounder it looked like.”

“Good job.”

“Yeah I know. Oh man, getting another bite! Will call you back.”

            These are the times that I am sure the small catfish are watching. They see me distracted and tell their big brothers,

“Hey Fishburt! That dude is on the phone! You can pull the bait off the hook now!”         

I missed him. This fish was crafty and worked fast. So I rebaited my hook and casted back out and again did not get a bite so I called mom again, and starting to believe that mom was my good luck charm. This time dad answered the phone and I was half tempted to tell him to put mom on the phone so that I could catch another fish. Before I could act on this impulse my line jerked and my pole bent, I set the hook and the river monster of the Lower Douglas (the lake I was fishing) exploded with energy and about pulled the pole from my hand. I threw my cell phone down and began my epic fight. I was using a rebuilt reel that I had worked on last month and was instantly terrified that this old reel may not have the power to fight in this behemoth. The fish fought back and forth and once came to the surface flashing its white belly skin at me. I immediately assumed it was the 500 pound catfish I had been after! Though I was by myself, I began yelling, “Fish on! Fish on!” in a British accent like my fishing hero Jeremy Wade from the show River Monsters.

            In my head I could hear his cool voice becoming the narrator of my fishing trip, “After many hours of frustration, the calls to my folks finally paid off. With this dangerous river monster on the end of my line, I could only wonder if this was the beast that was responsible for killing so many villagers?” The beast broke the surface next to the bank and I finally seen what I had been fighting.

Though only 400 pounds, this River Monster was the biggest I had caught.

(Note: This fish was not really 400 pounds, was around 350)

 

A carp.

A nasty ol’ sucker fish.

Not a catfish.

            But I didn’t care; the instant disappointment for it not being a 500 pound catfish was quickly replaced by the joy of catching the largest fish I have hooked as well as knowing that the reel I had worked on had stood up to the task of fighting in this large beast. I picked my phone up from the mud and told dad the story of me catching the beast on chicken liver and the fight on an old reel. As I released the carp back into the lake Jeremy Wade began speaking as the credits rolled, “I had spent long grueling hours searching for the Kentucky Toe Sucker and I had found him. It was not a river monster but a misjudged gentle giant of the deep, a beautiful beast. But, I could not shake the thought that this plant eating Goliath now had a taste for chicken flesh. Is this a change in their biological make up? Did the introduction of bull sharks, piranhas, and killer whales have something to do with their change in eating habits? Would little kids eating chicken nuggets to close to the bank become meals for these carp?” I would never know. But I did know that if I was going to catch any more fish, I was going to have to keep my mom and dad on the phone and they were going to have to sleep in shifts to keep me and Jeremy Wade fishing.

Snakes

SNAKES

 

            Snakes; nasty stinky little slithering creatures that God cursed to crawl on their bellies for the rest of their days. I am not sure why God punished us by keeping them around instead of sending them to the fiery pits of hell that they deserve but if he did, I wouldn’t have had so many fond memories of my dad dancing jigs and screaming every time he seen one. There are so many stories I can tell about our experiences with snakes but I have decided to tell a few now and save the rest for a running series of snake stories that I am sure that my dad is going to love! (Not really. He really does not like snakes.)

            Along with being scared of snakes, dad is also very jumpy or goosey as we call it. I have seen him back into branches that poke him in the leg and he will jump and squeal as if an 80 foot python has just latched ahold of him. This makes for fun times when he is working intently on something and we sneak up behind him and pinch the back of his leg and hiss. We think it is hilarious but should probably quit such acts so that we can still hang around with him.

            Several years ago me and my dad were fishing one of our favorite holes of water, trying to catch a few spring bass. The day was going pretty good, we had caught a few bass but for the most part we really didn’t care as long as we are on the river fishing and swopping fishing stories. We came up on a hollow log that was hanging out over the water and dad happened to notice that there was a possum tail dangling out of the end. Now, one thing about being a Reed is that we do things that are not always smart but you can guarantee that when we do these stupid things that there will always be a story for us to tell and others to laugh over. This was one of those times. I was running the motor on the boat and dad was sitting up front.

“Hey, ease the boat over by the end of that log. I am going to grab that sleepin’ possum’s tail and toss him out in the river!” Dad said giggling like a school girl.

“Oh man this is going to be funny.” I said giggling like the little school girl’s best friend.

I pulled up alongside the log and dad reached in to grab that sleeping possum and he froze. His legs start shaking like he was a dog pooping a peach pit and he started whispering something I couldn’t understand.

“Huh? Grab that ol’ possum and fling him in the river.” I said still laughing.

“Snake…” Dad said whispering again. “Back the boat up. Go forward. Go left or something. He’s lookin’ at me.”

“What? A snake?” I started laughing. “You want me to stay right here?”

“Boy!” Dad whispered loudly. “Get me away from this snake.”

“Fling him out into the river dad.” I said laughing.

Dad did not find the humor in his situation and I guess I shouldn’t have either cause it was a pretty big cottonmouth in there but I couldn’t help it.

            On the same hole of water on a different day dad got one of his favorite crank bait’s hung in an oak tree hanging over the water. It was full of green leaves and the hook was buried on a branch so I eased the boat up to the branches hanging over the water. Dad didn’t think it was funny when I plowed him right into the branches so that he could get his favorite lure out of the tree. It looked like the tree had eaten him; they wrapped their arms around him and tangled the line from his pole up.

“Dadgumit! What’s the matter with you?” Dad yelled. I laughed.

“Ahhh! Snake! Back up! Back up!” Dad shouted.

I started laughing and backed the boat up so dad could get out of the tree and noticed it was just a four foot green snake. Not poisonous. So I put the boat in gear again and we plowed back into the tree, which happened with enough force that the little snake fell down a few limbs and was right over his head.

“Ahhh! Back up! Back up dadgummit!” Dad shouted over my laughter but as I backed up dads line broke leaving his favorite lure hanging among the tree limbs with that green snake.

“Dad your lure is still in that tree. Here, let me ease you back up there so you can get it.” I said laughing.

“I am going to come back there and beat you with the boat paddle!” Dad shouted though he had started to laugh as well.

            The best snake story though has to be about my dad and my brother. For a couple of years there was a running prank between the two dealing with dead snakes. Dad doesn’t mind dead snakes, well as long as he is scaring someone else with them that is. Dad had shot a copperhead that was in the yard one day and went to pitch it into a brush pile when he realized that he could scare my brother with it. At the time he was living with my mom and dad and was working a late shift. So, dad laid the copperhead right under his driver side door so when his dome light hit it that night he would see it right between his legs. The plan worked perfectly, my brother screamed and almost peed his pants. But, what dad had not counted on was Steve using the dead snake against him.

            Steve took the snake back down to the house and coiled it up next to the front door in my mom’s flowers as if it was still alive and hiding. At the time dad still smoked and every morning he would step out on the front porch, stretch and look at the woods while he enjoyed his early morning cigarette. Well, while enjoying this smoke he happened to turn and notice a copperhead lying in the marigolds ready to strike. He ran into the house, grabbed his shotgun, ran back outside and blasted my mom’s flowers sending mud and rocks against the house and scaring the crap out of my mom. When dad told Steve about the snake he had killed right next to the house he couldn’t help but laugh and then told dad it was the same snake that he had gotten him with the night before.

            Episodes like this played on and on with the two until one day Steve was in a hurry and didn’t have time to set dad up with the snake that was coiled up on the top of Steve’s car so he just pitched it in the woods. Little did Steve know but that was the best place to put it. Dad lived in fear for three days while he tried to figure out where Steve had put the snake. Dad was convinced that it was in the house and mom swore that if it was in the house that both Steve and dad would be sleeping outside. Every time dad opened a cabinet he would do it slowly hoping that the dead snake would not shoot out at him. He searched his Jeep, looking under the seats and in the engine compartment and could never find it and finally said, “Okay, I can’t take it anymore. Where did you put that stupid snake?”

Steve started laughing, “Is that what’s wrong with you? Man, I threw that thing in the brush three days ago!” Dad didn’t believe him and figured it had to be somewhere around the house.

            Needless to say me and my brother have had our share of snake scares but those will be saved for another blog entry, for today we will just reminisce on the ones that scared dad.

The Joys of Taking Your Wife Fishing

The Joys of Taking your wife fishing

 

 

            When my wife and I had first gotten married, she had asked to come with me fishing in my bass boat. I agreed and we headed out on Fredericktown City Lake for a day of bass fishing. I don’t know if you other fisherman have the same problem I do (well, I don’t really think it is a problem) but I have a way of thinking that other people are not as skilled and great at fishing as I am, even if that someone is a family member. I like to break things down Barney style and explain to them why bass do what they do and how to catch them and I always start them out with baby steps. Things that I know will work, they may produce small fish, but they will produce a lot of fish and fun for whomever I take fishing with me. I took this approach when we set out on our fishing journey.

“Ok baby, you are going to use this beetle spin. It’s real easy to use, just cast it out and reel it in and I guarantee you are going to catch some fish.”

“If it works so well then why ain’t you using one?” Sandi asked as she pointed at the ribbon tailed worm I was getting ready to pitch along some brush.

“Well, these work too, but they are a little bit harder to use. Like I said, that one is easy, you just cast it out and reel it in.”

“Well I want to use what you are using.” She was making this difficult already and we had been on the water for five minutes.

“I want to use that rod and reel you are using too. You can cast farther with that one.”

I had rigged her up on a Zebco 33, once again a very simple outfit to use, just push the button and cast. I on the other hand was using my Diawa Super Duper Bass Catching Bait casting rig that was waaaay to advanced for such a novice fisherwoman.

“No baby. You will be frustrated all day backlashing and not catching fish. That Zebco will work just fine.”

“If it works so well then why ain’t you using it?” Geeeeezzz!

“Because I have been using them for a while and I know how to use it.”

She mulled up and I could tell that this fishing trip was not going to be as fun as it was supposed to be.

“Well crap!” Sandi said under her breath after making a beautiful cast along the rocky bank.

“What happened baby?”

“I am stuck.” Here we go. A day of getting her unstuck from the brush and listening to her question my bass fishing expertise.

“Hold on, I will get you unstu..” Before I could finish my sentence Sandi screamed, “I ain’t stuck I got a fish! Woohoo!” I watched as the two pound largemouth darted from the brush and began her beautiful dance on the water, shaking her head trying to free herself from the beetle spin that had lodged itself in the corner of her mouth. Sandi laughed the whole time she reeled in her first largemouth and laughed even harder as I lifted it from the water for her.

“That was fun. I want to catch another one.”

“See I told you that thing works.”

“Yes you did. Hey, I have caught one and you haven’t caught any!” She said and started laughing.

Oh, she done did it.

She made this a competition. I began casting harder along the bank, working lure after lure with every presentation I could think of for the situation we was fishing. Nothing was hitting what I was throwing and on top of that I started backlashing my reel about every other cast and had to spend precious minutes picking out the bird nest of line. Several more times that day I heard her squeal and laugh as she reeled in bluegill and perch, one after another as she gave off a count of what fish she was on and how I was still at zero. I tried to save face by saying bluegill and perch didn’t count; making up my own rules as we went only to have her point out that she had caught a bass and I still hadn’t caught anything.

“I guess I am just a better fisherman than you are huh?” She would say. It was embarrassing and I was ready to say I was taking my ball and going home when I got a bite. Finally the fishing God’s had felt that I had taken enough punishment from my wife and would grant me the fish that would tie us up and I wouldn’t have to hear how she was a better fisherman than I was. The fish nibbled again, I set the hook and missed.

“Dadgummit!” I shouted at the water as Sandi giggled in the seat behind me. “Did you miss one honey?” She asked mockingly.

            We eased our boat around the concrete dam to where a small log jam had formed after some heavy rain we had had several weeks back. I watched as my wife made the most beautiful cast I had ever seen. That beetle spin gracefully soared thru the air, landing in the crook of a log without a splash as her line lightly touched the water without even catching on an overhanging limb. “Crap, that isn’t were I wanted it.” She said. Whether it was or wasn’t it was a beautiful cast that would have made Kevin Van Dam proud.

“Dang it! I’m stuck.” Hahaha finally the great fisherman had fallen I had thought to myself.

“No, wait! I got a fish! Holy cow he’s huge!” Dang you fishing God’s! Whose side you on here!?

It was a good bass, probably pushing four pounds.

“Looks smaller than the one you caught earlier.” I said.

“No it’s not! He’s huge! It’s a lot bigger than the one you caught.” She said giggling and laughing loudly as she studied her catch.

Luckily it was time for us to head home so that we could meet the kids when they got home from school and I didn’t have to take anymore bashing on the lake. She smiled the whole way home, poking me in the side and telling me about how much fun it was to catch those fish. I am not sure what she had more fun doing, razzing me for not catching a thing or actually catching the mess of fish that she did, but it didn’t matter. She was happy and had enjoyed doing something that I love to do. As we got out of the truck to unhook our boat at the house Sandi said, “I am glad you showed me that beetle spin that is all they wanted to eat today.” And just like that she made me feel victorious again. She was right. I did show her what to use and she caught fish so the day wasn’t a total bust for me; I was able to show her how to use the basics to catch fish and she had fun spending time with me catching fish. I was still a fishing expert. I puffed my chest out a little bit, walked a little bit straighter and said, “Yep, just wanted you to catch some fish baby. Wasn’t really worried if I caught any you know?” I lied.

“Uh huh. And I am sure you let me win too didn’t ya?” She said with a smile.

“Yeah that’s what it was; I let you catch all of them so you would have fun.”

“You’re so full of crap! I out fished you! Woohoo! I am a better fisherman!” She shouted as she walked to the house.

I hung my head again and laughed.

Making Money to Keep on Fishing

Making Money to Keep on Fishin’
 

 

            My brother and I have spent our lives making money where we could so that we could purchase more hunting and fishing gear. This is a trait that we have inherited thru our red, white, and blue DNA from our old man and am sure goes farther back than that. When we were kids we would spend our summer days mowing lawns around the neighborhood and then have our dad take us to the local sporting goods store to get new lures, hooks, and if we had enough saved, a new rod and reel. My first job was working at a Subway on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. The great thing about that job was I could cash my check in the Post Exchange (like a Wal-Mart for military personnel) and the cash cage was right next to the outdoors and fishing goods. It was a sign that I needed to spend every dime getting new fishing gear as fast as I could rather than pay for gas so that I could get to work the next day. When we got older, we stepped away from mowing neighbor’s lawns and did larger projects like tearing down old sheds for people, cleaning up brush, scrapping metal, and selling chickens and other critters. Raising money in this fashion always seemed to give us as many wild stories as the fishing trips we went on with the money we had made. My brother reminded me of several of these stories today as we headed to a scrap yard with the old man to sell off some junk that had been collecting around my dad’s property. Here is a couple.

Scrappin’ for Cash

One day my brother called me and said he had some scrap metal he was loading up and was going to haul off for some cash and asked if I wanted in. I had a little scrap but he agreed to pay me half of what we made as long as I helped him load up all his metal. I also found out that he had four tires with aluminum rims on them. These four little gems were going to bring us a pretty penny but we needed to get the tires off of them. Being that we were working a get rich quick scheme, we didn’t want to take the time to properly remove the tires; we needed to do it quickly so we could be rolling in the dough. Sooo, in our infinite wisdom we decided to use a circular saw with a blade for cutting metal to just cut the rubber right off of them rims. Yeah, I am sure there is someone reading this right now that is slapping themselves on the forehead saying, “What an idiot! Don’t do it!” Well, I did it. I revved the little motor up on that saw and drove that blade right down onto that tire. Did I mention that these tires still had air in them? BLAM! The tire exploded sending the hot rubber I had just created in the cut right into my face and hair. I screamed and flopped around on the ground holding my face while my brother howled in laughter.

“I can’t believe you really did it! Wow, I never thought you would do it!”

He kept laughing as I tried to peel the now sticky goo from my face and hair. A glob the size of golf ball hung firmly in my hair like a wad of demonic flaming chewing gum, which we had to remove with a pocket knife, leaving me to look like Daffy Duck after Elmer Fudd had shot him in the face. I don’t remember how much money we made off that load but I do know that all the pain was worth the fish finder and cushioned seats I bought for my little john boat so that we could pretend to be professional bass fisherman. The following weekend we fished a small bass tournament with one of our uncle’s bass clubs. We pulled up to the ramp with our john boat in the bed of our truck and parked next to a row of fancy bass boats with 200 horse power motors on them. There was collective laughter from the club members as we drug our beat up boat from the truck and pushed it off into the water. They laughed even harder when they seen that we had converted an old cooler into a live well to keep our bass alive while we were fishing. Decked out in our bibbed overalls and working boots we smiled and waved as we trolled out onto the lake while they all gunned their beasts up into the river channel. We probably had one of our best days bass fishing and quit an hour early so we could go up to the truck and eat our lunch. The fancy boats came back one at a time, some smiling, some sad from a bad day fishing but they all still had the energy to laugh at the two redneck brothers and their raggedy aluminum boat. We tied for first in the tournament and I missed big fish by one ounce. Not bad for a couple of dumb country boys; we collected our cash and told them if they felt like giving us their money again to let us know and we would be there.

Roosters Lay Eggs

My brother is more of a farmer than I will ever be; he actually paid attention to what my dad said about taking care of animals and growing vegetables while I spent my time chasing butterflies and picking flowers. Well, one night my brother called me and said he was going to need some help getting all of his critters to a big sale for such animals and like our scrapping job, as long as I helped him get the animals there and sold them he would give me half of the cash. We arrived at the sale and I found that I am quite the salesman. I was working the crowd like a used car salesman suckering the masses into buying Hot Wheels. “We got rabbits! Four dollars apiece or three for twelve dollars! That’s right! It sounds crazy, so jump on it while we still have them!” I don’t know if the people couldn’t work the math fast enough in their head or they were just trying to get me to shut up but the rabbits went faster than donuts in a Weight Watchers Clinic. We were selling chickens and goats, pot belly pigs; we even bought several guinea pigs from a lady at a dollar a piece and then sold them ourselves for three dollars apiece to kids as they passed by. The day was going great, but we had one rooster that just would not sell. This thing looked like it had crawled out of a pet cemetery, both eyes refused to focus on anything giving it a look of chameleon and it may or may not have had both legs. For whatever reason, I don’t remember why, but we moved this zombie rooster into a new cage that just happened to have an egg lying in it from some of the laying hens that we had already sold. That is when a little light bulb burst over my head as I screamed Eureka!

“Looky here folks! Got us a Rooster that lays eggs! Selling it cheap! Just five dollars!”

A man stopped and looked at me disbelieving.

“You want me to believe that this here rooster laid that there egg?”

“He did. He is in that cage ain’t he? So he had to have laid that there egg.”

The man shook his head; he couldn’t fight with my logic and handed me five dollars. I even let him keep the cage the rooster was in to sweeten the deal and he walked away a happy costumer as me and my brother scrambled to load all of our empty cages to make a break from there before he found out that he was had!

           

 

In Search of Fishable Waters

In Search of Fishable Waters

            Where ever I go, I have to scout out the fishing waters. If there is a drainage ditch with a couple of tadpoles in it, I will find a way to get a hook in there and catch them. You laugh, but me and my brother have done that, and I will save that for another post. Like some of you know, I am stuck here at semi-beautiful Fort Knox, Kentucky and the urge to fish is killing me. We had a wicked ice storm yesterday and like the weather of Missouri, today it was in the upper forties and beautiful. So I spent the better part of the morning tearing into 3 trusty fishing reels and making them work again. If you are familiar with fishing gear and have been doing it for a while then you know that the original Zebco 33 fishing reel is pretty much the most trusty piece of fishing gear ever made.

            I remember using these when I was a kid and the models that we had were old because they were dads and he was old. As a matter of fact, the reels that I was working on today were the same ones I used when I was a kid and they were looking and running a little rough. They were easy fixes though; a little cleaning out, grease, and oil and they were running like they were brand new. Holding those reels in my hands really took my mind back. I don’t remember things to well but the feel of twisting the handles on them reminded me of sitting on river banks with my brother and dad, drinking Mountain Dews and eating peanuts while we waited for some ol’ catfish to take our bait. Or standing in my back yard practicing casting and asking mom to untangle my line from the cloths line because I couldn’t reach it.

            They are great memories, all wrapped around those little pieces of metal and gears. The oldest of the reels I am going to give back to dad because he is old and he likes to use them. (Haha ok that is the last time I say your old dad haha) And the other two I plan on putting on new poles for my boys. It just feels right to have those reels get past down in hopes that they have just as much fun and hiliarious moments as we did with them. So after my little trip down memory lane I was dying to find some water. I don’t have a fishing license here so was just wanting to burn some gas and see where all the spots around base were so when I did get a license I could head straight there.

            I hopped in the old Jeep, opened up the window, put a fat chew in, cranked up some classic country and started cruising the strip in search of fishable waters. I don’t know how I do it but there are two things I am good at finding. Trouble and fishable waters and I found both of them today. The first road that I blindly turned down had all kinds of signs that told me, DO NOT ENTER, MILITARY VEHICLES ONLY, and the last one said MILITARY PERSONEL ONLY.  Well I am in the military so I felt that I was allowed to be there but the young private with a 9mm on his hip disagreed with me.

“Sir, I am going to have to ask you to turn your vehicle around and depart the area.”

“Hey buddy! How you been?” This is a technique I use quite often to deter angry people wanting to fight me or people trying to keep me from fish.

“Sir, I do not know you.  You need to turn your Jeep around, you can’t be here.”

“What, ya’ll got a UFO back there?” Wrong thing to ask cause his buddy got out of the MP car and started walking to my Jeep.

“SIR! You need to leave. Now.” His friend wasn’t very nice either.

“Alright, alright. Hey, ya’ll know where any ponds are at around here?” They didn’t answer me; they just stared at me and pointed the way I came.

“Well nice seeing you again buddy. Hey, wrestling is on tonight if you wanna come by. You know, wrestle around like we used too? Haha, yooou know.” I turned my Jeep around. I could hear the private thru my open window telling his Sgt., “No, I swear I have never seen that guy…”

So heading back the way I came I just so happened to see a dirt road that had a sign that said, STEEP HILL USE LOW GEAR and right next to that there is a smaller sign that says Sander’s Lake.

Eureka!

I found me some water. The hill was really steep as the sign said so I put the Jeep in low gear, then I realized that at the bottom of the hill, there was really thick sheets of ice were a creek used to be, over really jagged rocks leading to a cliff…oooooh crap.

I tried to hug the right side of the road but even with the four wheel drive going, my Jeep hit the jagged rocks, lurched into the air, and started sliding towards the edge. Patsy Cline was blaring on the radio but she could not be heard over my shouts of, “HOOOOLY CRAP! DON’T ROLL! DON’T ROLL! WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!” I slid right to the end of the ice and continued on down the road singing I Fall to Pieces.

            At the bottom of the hill I found a good sized lake and to my surprise there was an old couple with lawn chairs and poles already in the water, but I didn’t see a vehicle. I pulled down next to them.

“How ya’ll doing? Catching any?”

“Nah, just got here. Hey, uh, that other road over there is a lot easier to get down.” He said laughing and pointing up the pond bank. There was a beautiful, paved road and a nice parking lot with one car sitting in it. I started laughing and said, “Yeah that looks a lot easier than the way I came down.”

The old man smiled and said laughing, “Yeah we heard you coming down the hill.”

            After making friends I went up to the Game Shack was if I would have to go to get a license and talked to the lady behind the counter to find out what the base rules on fishing were.

“Hello, how much is a fishing license?”

“A Kentucky license is $24 and to fish the ponds on base you will need an $8 license as well.”

“WHAT!”

“I said a Kentucky license...” Apparently she thought I was hard of hearing…

“No, I’m sorry. I heard you I just didn’t believe what I was hearing. For that amount of money the fishing better be freakin’ awesome here.”

“I wouldn’t know I don’t fish.”

“You guys have a map that shows where the fishing ponds are at around here?”

“Yes, sir. They are $5.”

“What!?”

“I said, they are $5.”

“Never mind.”

You would think with the price of maps and fishing license they would have better signs for their lakes and have much better roads!

The Perfect Bait

The Perfect Bait

 

 

          Every fisherman has their ‘secret weapon’ in their tackle box that they break out in desperate times to put beautiful green fish on their stringer. Others have that one live bait; crickets, night crawlers, minner’s or as the city folk say, minnow’s. I have heard all kinds of homemade baits that folks have concocted to bring them in by the herds as if an underwater dinner bell was rung for them. There is a guy from my town that uses strawberry gelatin and corn flakes to make a dough bait to catch carp, which does work, and another that swears that if you use hemorrhoid cream you will catch catfish. If you have used the last item as bait, leave me a comment and let me know how you did, though you will not hear me admit to trying it. Sometimes I wonder if my fellow fishermen tell us these stories just so they have a funny story to tell their buddies the next time they are on the lake.

“Hey Merle!”

“Yeea?”

“I had that stupid Reed boy believing I use my ‘roid medicine to catch these here whisker fish!”

“Do ya?”

“Shoot no! I ain’t wastin’ it on whisker fish! I need it for my ‘roids!”

          I had decided to create my own stink bait a couple years ago in hopes of catching a few channel catfish with something I had created. I did research online; what information I could find was vague, most fishermen wanting me to pay to read their long passed down family recipes. I of course refused to pay the 5 easy payments of $4.99 and chose rather to create my own bait that would soon be stocked on the shelves of every fisherman’s favorite bait and tackle store. As the days passed, the idea’s grew in my head, along with the dreams of catching 300lb catfish and tossing them back knowing that a bigger one was about to bite on my Catfish Dynamite! When I would sleep I could see contracts being thrown at me from Bass Pro Shops, Cabelas, Strike King, and any other place that could want a new catfish bait. I finally decided what I was going to do.

          Just like conventional bait that was already on the market, I planned on having a blood flavor and possibly a cheese but if I was going to catch the big ones I needed to think outside the box. So I decided I would mix some flavors; night crawlers, grasshoppers, and hotdogs. To mix these tasty delights I would have to use a blender and we just happened to have one in our kitchen. My sneakiness was not quite as sneaky as I thought I was because the wife stopped me at the front door with the blender hidden behind my back.

“What are you doing with the blender?”

“What blender?”

“Babe?”

“Oooh, this blender?” I said finally sliding it from behind my back. “I uh, heard it was squeaking the other day and thought I would fix it.” Not only was this a lie but it was a lie the wife seen right thru.

“You know you will go to Hell for telling lies?”

“I ain’t lying. I am fibbing. There is a difference.”

“Either way, you ain’t using my blinder to make your stinking catfish bait!”

Crap.

She knew.

Defeated I lowered my head and put the blender back in the kitchen like a five year old that was told to put the cookie back in the cookie jar. Back to the drawing board. Apparently the wife did not have the faith that I did that I was on the verge of creating bait that would have my name written in every fishing magazine in North America. It was ok, when the paychecks came rolling in we would see if she got the new fish finder she wanted…ok that is a fib not a lie, I was the one who wanted a new fish finder.

          So without a blender to use I decided to let nature do my blending for me. I knew from experience of walking up on dead things that the longer they sit in the sun, the more stinky they got as well as the elements of nature broke them down. Eureka! I took four empty glass salsa jars and filled them half full with chicken liver and garlic salt, and one I put maple syrup.(I had abandoned the idea of mixing night crawlers, grasshoppers, and hotdogs for the time being) I know what you’re thinking, maple syrup? But like I said, I had to think outside the box to get my bait in the spotlight of the fishing world. I took these four jars, twisted the lids on them as tight as I could get them, and set them on the tin roof of my shed, where they could brew for two weeks in the Missouri summer sun. As the days went by I could hardly wait to use this bait! Then a thought hit me. How in the world am I going to be able to put rotten chicken livers on a hook?

Crap.

          It was ok, I could figure this out. Cotton balls? No… add flour to make a paste?...No, didn’t want to touch the stuff…HOTDOGS! I decided to cut up hotdogs and put them in my new devil’s brew. I figured the hotdog would soak up those tasty juices and when it hit the water that aroma would float down the river right to that 500lb catfish and bring him running. So I cut up two packages of hotdogs and walked out to my shed, retrieved my hot jars, and stepped into the shade of my shop. I tried to unscrew the first jar but the lid was on too tight. I must have been eating my Wheaties the day I put them on there. Then I remembered a little trick I learned where you tap the sides of the lid on a hard surface and it helps to loosen the lid. So I tapped and then tapped again.

POW!

          The jar of rotting chicken livers and garlic salt exploded in my hands like a hand grenade, sending slimy grey livers across the floor and on my shop table. Then the smell hit me. I am sure that if a vulture was circling over head looking for a meal, he may have gotten a whiff of that concoction and keeled over dead; after he puked of course. I began gagging and running back and forth in my shop trying to figure out what had happened. I finally got all the pieces of glass picked up and the shop doors opened up so that it could air out and moved my operation outside. The second jar I opened I was a bit more careful. With a bit of muscle I got the lid to budge which was a relief being that this jar did not explode on me. Slowly I turned the lid and…

SPRISH!! “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”

          What I had not realized when the first jar exploded was that all those rotting things build up A LOT of gases in a little glass bottle. So when I opened the second one all of those gases tried to escape and brought stinking liver pieces with them, shooting all over my pants, shirt, and hands. Once again I danced around as if I was trying to bring the rain and puked in my yard. Quickly I started shoving hotdog slices into the jar and screwed the lid back on, which is a hard task to accomplish when your eyes are tearing up and vomit is shooting from your mouth. The next two containers yielded the same consequences but I got those hotdogs in the juices to simmer.

 

          A week later my brother and I went fishing and gave me a chance to try out the new bait. I had ‘borrowed’ a few pairs of rubber gloves from work so that I would not get the rotten livers on me (my last encounter with the rotten bait almost got me divorced when I walked into the house but I smoothed it over by reminding her that at least it wasn’t in her blender) and placed a nice hotdog chunk on my hook. A few feet down from me my brother was gagging and fanning the air away from him. “Jiminy Crickets what the crap is that smell?!”

“Stink bait I made. Don’t smell too bad now.”

He gagged again and put a rag over his nose. “Do I smell a hint of maple syrup?” He said laughing.

“Yep! Gotta think outside the box to outsmart these fish.”

 “I don’t think a catfish is going to touch that stuff. And, if they would, I don’t think I would eat the fish that would eat that nasty stuff.”

I smiled and said, “You say that now, but when you see me haulin’ all the big ones in you will change your mind.”

I sent the chunk of putrid hotdog flying thru the air and to the center of the lake, got myself good and comfy in my lawn chair and put a big pinch of chewing tobacco in my mouth and immediately began spitting it back out. I had forgotten to take the rubber gloves off my hands and now had rotten chicken liver mixed with my chew in my mouth. As I was hunched over puking, my brother was laughing until tears rolled out of his eyes. “I can’ breath...” He giggled as I fought to remove the foul taste from my mouth.

          Needless to say, my magic bait never caught a fish. Sad, yes, I know. All that hard work and sacrifice and not one stinking fish. I did find that if I tied a rope to the jar, poked small holes in the lid, and pitched it where I was fishing it worked well as a chum that I could retrieve later, but other than that, it was an utter failure. It was ok; it just meant that I would appreciate it more when I created bait that actually did work.