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.

A Brand Spankin' New Boat

A Brand Spankin’ New Boat

 

 

 

            While on my first deployment to Iraq I found a wonderful thing that I never really knew existed. Buying fishing equipment on the internet! A good friend of mine helped me set up an email account (I had only had a cell phone for a month before I deployed) and poked fun at me for not knowing how to use the internet. “You can look at anything on here. Just type something on that search bar.” I typed in ‘fishing poles.’ I was blown away. There was way more fishing poles online then I would ever find at Wal-Mart! It was amazing! That is when I found Bass Pro Shops online and any thought of saving money while deployed went out the window. Every pay check went towards new fishing poles, reels, lures, hats, whatever I could find, I bought it. Even though I knew that I would not see this stuff for at least another six months, I didn’t care. I was buying all the things I ever wanted. Then I went all out. I bought a boat.

            I know my mother was not pleased with my spending; she was the one handling my bills back home. Which, come to think of it, if my mom can improve my credit even though I was spending money on fishing gear and boats then they should hire her to get the government through this fiscal cliff thing. Anyway, I called home right before I got to leave Iraq on two weeks R&R, and told her I had bought me a boat and I could pick it up in St. Louis when I got home. She said Woohoo but I could hear the undertones in her voice that was saying, ‘Boy, if you were home I would slap you upside the head.’ Dad was excited anyway.

            My brother and I were the first to use this magical craft. Both of us were as giddy as a boy with his first red wagon. We chose to hit Wappapello for our first of many fishing adventures in my new Bass Tracker 175 because I would be able to use the big motor and get to really open her up. After launching the boat, parking the truck, and now sitting idle in the water we did some quick checks.

Fishin’ poles? Check.

Tackle boxes? Check.

Cooler? Uh…well we have the cooler but forgot to get anything to put in it. OK, check.

Life vest? Check.

We are ready.

I should note that at this time, I had never driven a boat. I had seen plenty of fishing shows and I had seen that the driver had slammed down the throttle and went skimming down the water like Wile E. Coyote on an Acme rocket. So that is what I did, we put our hats on backwards because that is what you do in a boat, and slammed down the accelerator. The boat roared to life with the nose pointed straight at the sky, water rushing in behind us in the boat, nearly sinking us, and we shot down the river. Both of us let out or own rebel yells as we tore thru the No Wake zone ( I didn’t know what that meant at the time and was the only time I broke that law) cheering and hollering with our nose standing straight up like we were popping wheelies on the water until my brother yelled, “Man this is awesome! I can’t even see where we are going!” I started laughing and yelled back, “Me either!” and kept laughing as shock fell on my brothers face. Apparently it was awesome if he couldn’t see but not if the driver couldn’t. We stopped the boat and played with the trim until I got the boat to run like it was supposed to down the river. We played for nearly two hours before we realized that time was slipping away from us and we were losing precious fishing time. That is about the time my brother also remembered he was supposed to be at work.

            He pulled out his cell phone and told me to be quiet he was going to call in sick. I told him ok as jet boats tore across the water around us and pitched a Texas rigged rubber worm along some brush.
“Serious. Be quiet for a second.” I smiled and said ok.

“Hey, yeah it’s Steve. Yeah, I ain’t feeling too good.” He paused for a second. I got a strike, a good strike. “Yeah, I think it is that stomach bug going around.” The bucket mouth struck again. I set the hook. I had him. “FISH ON!! IT’S A BIGGIN’!” I screamed. “GET THE NET STEVE!” He did not find this funny and said he would be at work the next day and got off the phone. Somehow the fish that I thought was on the other end of my line vanished but I hoped to get a shot at him again. Maybe when Steve called back to see if he still had a job the bass would hit again.

            Besides the big one that got away, we didn’t get anymore bites where we were at and decided to troll to the other side of the cove we were on. “Hey! Look at that big cotton mouth” Steve said. It was a big one. The problem with being brothers is a lot of times we do things that are not too smart. This was one of those times. I started laughing and trolled the boat alongside this 20 foot cotton mouth. (I am not exaggerating the size of this snake. We think that it was part boa constrictor or python or something) I don’t remember which one of us struck first but we began flogging this snake with paddles trying to rid the world of such a nasty evil creature but the snake launched a counter attack, trying to climb into our boat and striking wildly. Us being the brave men we were screamed like terrified five year old girls when the playground bully shoves a worm in their face. We then began to beat the sides of my new boat with whatever we could get our hands on trying to fight off the cotton constrictor. Finally the snake gave up on his attacks because he was well over matched by our abilities to defend our vessel and headed back into the cove…straight for a pontoon boat full of girls in bikinis and buff dudes swimming. They had been watching us, laughing at the two idiots in overalls and their hats on backwards fighting a snake in open water. They were not laughing now thou, our angry python had noticed the weak target and was making a beeline for their position.

            That was about the time we decided we had had enough fun for the day and made our way back to the boat ramp to load our chariot. That was in 2006 and I still have that boat. It has been a good rig for me, my dad and brother and am sure we are going to have plenty of more stories that revolve around it. I just hope it is the only one that involves a 20 foot cotton mouthed boa constrictor.

Yoga and the Catfish

Yoga and the Catfish

 

 

          Having a bum back restricts me from a lot of activities and sometimes makes me feel like the fragile child whose mother doesn’t allow them to play with the neighbor kids out of fear that he will get hurt. Here at Fort Knox, everyone who is part of the Warrior Transition Battalion has to participate in one hour of extra activities a week. They have several activities for us to participate in ranging from spin classes on the exercise bikes to swimming pool basketball but, like I said, I am the fragile child and am not allowed to do these fun activities. What I can do, well somewhat, is yoga. Yep, the tree loving, hippie stretches that you see people doing to the sounds of rushing water and birds chirping. This activity as far as I’m concerned is the complete opposite of who I am. I don’t like hippies, or stretching, or the sound of rushing water (makes me want to pee), but I do like birds chirping so I agreed to do it.

            I immediately fell in love with yoga when I seen what our first stretching position was. Lying flat on your back. Yep, that is a stretch, and I have to say, I am pretty good at it. I am sure the instructor was pleased to see that for a beginner, I was working at an advanced level. While totally mastering “road kill possum” (not an official name, that is what I called this position) the instructor started saying soothing things like different body parts to relax, take in the noises around you, and other things like that and I started thinking about a big old catfish laying on the bottom of the river. This 80 lb flathead catfish is just relaxing on the slick river mud, letting the cool water run over his slimy skin, waiting on some stupid little fish to swim in front of him so he can chow down. Then I realize that I am day dreaming and we have changed positions.

            Now we are lying on our backs with our knees pulled to our chests, still relaxing, and still taking in the noises around us. That is when I realize that I have a case of bubble gut brewing and with my knees pulled to my chest I am just making about to turn this position into a “startled skunk” (also a name that I have given to a yoga position.) Luckily we change positions again without a negligent discharge from my body. We rotate thru several different stretches, some that hurt my back so I revert back to “road kill possum” until we move on to something else. After going thru all the yoga positions I can handle she puts us back in “road kill possum” and starts talking all soothing again. Starting with our feet, she goes thru each step until we are totally relaxed and I am once again a fat and happy catfish lying on the river bottom. Then I remember a video I seen on fieldandstream.com of some big catfish lying next to a rivers edge watching pigeons on the bank. As these pigeons would get close to the water to get something to drink, the catfish would spring their attack like killer whales on waddling seals and drag their feathered prey back into the murky waters.

            I start seeing myself as this catfish, the pigeons are getting close to the edge and I am hungry. My belly rumbles. Man I am starving; I hope that pigeon gets a little bit closer. The pigeon does get closer; he puts his little beak into the cool water and gets a drink. Time for me to spring my attack. I watch as the catfish curves its tail, coils its muscles, and shoots out a stream of bubbles behind it as the jet propulsion sends it forward…wait a minute. Bubbles in the water? I suddenly notice that I have fallen asleep and something stinks. I open my eyes and look at the guy next to me and he is sitting up with a disgusted look on his face.

Crap! I have just used the dreaded “startled skunk.”

            I start to laugh as the smell gets to the instructor and she has to end the class early. I try to blame it on a skunk that is possibly outside or maybe the guy next to me may have stepped in dog poo on his way to the class but she does not agree with my ideas and knows that I have created my own yoga position. All in all though, yoga really wasn’t that bad. I got to relax, my sore muscles are stretched out, and I got to see myself as a pigeon eating catfish. Though, I am sure the instructor will not want me to return to the class, most likely because I have mastered her skills as well as creating some of my own.

Red Ear’s, Bluegills, and White Hot Anger

Red Ear’s, Bluegills, and White Hot Anger

 

            There is a certain time in the spring that the red ear (shell crackers) go on beds and it is right about the same time the bluegill do the same. It is the first or last full moon of the first or last week in May or April…I really don’t keep track of when exactly this natural phenomenon happens, I just wait for dad to say, “Shell crackers are on bed.” Then I know to buy a couple tubs of worms, a tube of crickets, and plenty of Vienna Sausages and Mountain Dew to last us a day on the lake. For you readers who have no idea what I am talking about right now, I am talking about fishin’.

The best, most fast paced, adrenalin pumping, fishin’ on the face of the planet!

Well, not really. It is pretty laid back, a cork in the water, a worm drowns, and a minute later your bobber goes under and you will have the prettiest pan fish you have ever laid eyes on, not to mention the best eatin’. So anyway, a few years ago, in-between my deployments to Iraq, dad said the magic words.

“Shell crackers are on bed.”

            So, we loaded up the boat, along with all the gear and goodies and headed out to Crane Lake. We always go to Crane Lake to do our shell cracker fishin’ cause we know where all the beds are so it saves us time and gets us right into the thick of the heart racing action that is panfishin’. That day we were pulling them in the boat as fast as we could get our worms wet. Every time we lifted one of these little titans into the boat, we would lift the metal fish basket out of the water and place the unlucky booger in with the rest of his family that we had already imprisoned. By midday, the basket was nearly full and we still had plenty of bait. The problem with catching so many fish is that you have to clean so many fish, but this thought did not bother us because it was turning out to be one of the best fishing trips we had been on in a long time.

Then it happened.

            The problem with finding a honey hole of a fishing spot is that some dipstick is going to see you catching those fish and want his piece of the pie. Normally, I am a nice guy and will make an effort to give the guy a little room to fish where they are hitting. Not today though. But it wasn’t because I was hording them all for myself, no, it was because these two dim-wits parked their dad gummed boat right over the top of the fish beds!

“Hey! What the crap is a matter with you!?” I hollered and dad started laughing. I looked at him and said, “Do you see what those idiots did!”

“Yep. Wasn’t very sportsman like.”

            I started digging around in my tackle box; I needed ammo to defend my Garden of Eden from these evil fish thieves.

“Whatcha doing?” Dad asked smiling even though I knew that he knew what I was doing.

            I started crimping on every lead sinker I could get my hands on to my fishing line. Dad started laughing again. With nearly 50 lbs of lead now securely attached to my 8 lb test line, I launched my assault. I casted in the direction of their aluminum boat; the rig sailed like a projectile launched from a cannon and collided with the side of their boat with a crack that could have doubled for a gun shot. Not to mention, my plastic bobber exploded sending plastic shrapnel in all directions. The two dummies ducked their heads down and started hollering at me. I don’t know what they were saying but I think it was something along the lines that I wouldn’t do that again. So I did and got the same result. Though this time they must have assumed that the next cast was going to hit them so they tucked tail and paddled to another cove. Me and dad laughed and did not catch another fish out of that stinking hole of water. Apparently, shell cracker and bluegills do not like the loud noises of combat and we were forced to find a new spot if we were going to catch any more fish.

Laughing we decided to cut across the lake and try some of the coves on the other side. While heading across I hear dad say, “Uh oh.”

I said, “Uh oh what?”

“Where’s the fish basket at?” He said.

            We couldn’t help but laugh. Everyone one of those fish that we had caught was now trapped in a metal basket somewhere thirty feet at the bottom of the lake. Dad started laughing and said, “Boy, who taught you tie a knot?”

“Wo wo, hold on now, you tied that knot!” I said, we both started laughing.

Dad smiled and said, “Well, we don’t have to worry about cleaning all those fish now.”

We didn’t come home with a mess of fish after all but it still was a good day fishin’ which beats a good day at work.

A Scream in the Dark

A Scream in the Dark

 

            At ten years old, I had the huntin’ bug bad. I used to beg my mother to let me skip school so that I could hunt with my dad in the Carolina swamps. The deer were far from trophy sized, more like large swamp rabbits, but to me it didn’t matter. A trophy for me was a deer on the ground with my foot triumphantly resting on its shoulder as I posed for my picture. Dad would normally take the first week of deer season off from work while me and my brother slaved away at school praying the time would fly by so the weekend could begin.

            One Friday night my dad sat down at the dinner table still decked out in his hunting gear and began eating. Of course my brother and I were waiting intently to hear what type of day hunting he had.

“Man I stink.” Dad said sniffing himself.

Me and my brother still sat quietly, yet to touch our meal, waiting patiently for his story to begin.

“Babe, can you bring me the pepper?”

We continued to wait.

He stabbed at his dinner and then shoved in a mouth full.

Still, we waited.

He took a long pull on his iced tea.

Seriously dad?

“Sooo, did you see any?” I asked excitedly. We would be getting up early in the morning; dad always took us to the best spots to hunt, so my brother and I were dying to hear which area we would be hunting on in the morning.

“Yeah, seen a little doe but couldn’t get a shot. She was in some thiiick stuff.”

“We hunting there tomorrow?”

“Ain’t sure yet. Maybe.”

We started eating our meal. Odd that he didn’t bring up anything else of his trip. Something would always happen to him while he was out; whether it be falling down a hill, getting bit by a snake, or having ten thousand squirrels overhead that he would threaten to shoot out of the trees with a 12 gauged slug.

“Man I heard something weird this morning.”

Here we go.

“Scared the crap out of me.”

Wait. What?

This perked our ears up. Dad was invincible, he was a Marine. Nothing on this earth would bring the fear out of him.

“What was it dad?” Steve, my brother asked.

“Ain’t sure. Was sittin’ next to the swamp waitin’ for them deer to come out when the sun come up and there was this God awful scream out there in the swamp. The sun wasn’t up yet, so I just kept sittin’ there and waiting. A couple minutes later I heard that scream again. Sounded like a woman was out there just screamin’ like she was in one of those spooky movies when the maniac is chasin’ her. Creeped me out.”

Me and my brother looked at each other reading each other’s minds.

We hoped that wasn’t where we were hunting in the morning.

***

 

            The next morning we stepped out of dads’ Jeep and began our slow walk through the dark to our stands. The morning was overcast so not even the light from the stars and the moon were shining on the ground for us to see. Dad was using his red lens flashlight to navigate through the dark as my brother and I stumbled along trying to keep up. The thought of getting lost in the woods with the screaming terror about was enough to keep us on our dad’s coat tails.

            We finally reached a small oak grove where the trees opened up around us. Dad walked me down next to a large white oak and we went to work clearing a small spot for me to sit. He had taught me early to clear the leaves from around my position so if I had to move I did not make any noise. It also stirred up the dirt and would cover my human scent so the deer couldn’t smell me. We then broke off some small trees at the ground and made a quick blind around my area to help camouflage any movements my young self may do. My spot was set. I sat and got myself comfortable against the tree, ready for the herds of deer that I knew I would see. Dad double checked my little blind and then started walking away with my brother but stopped. He leaned over to me I assumed to wish me luck on the day but he said, “Hey, I almost forgot to tell you. This is about where I was at when I heard that scream. Good luck.”

 

What?

           

I listened to the sound of my dad and brother walking away from me until I could hear them no longer, left only with the sounds of the early morning and the beating of a drum in my chest. Every noise that I heard in the dark sounded as if someone was sneaking up on me. It was as if I was surrounded, movement was everywhere and everything sounded like it was out to get me. I couldn’t breathe, I was going to be drug into the swamp by the ghost of a dead woman and my family would never see me again. Oh Lord save me from the spook that is watching me from the swamp, I prayed. All the sounds seemed to die down at once. It became eerily quiet. She was here, I could feel it.

            A scream pierce the early morning air and caused me to jump from my blind and stand up. I wanted to run, she sounded so close, but I didn’t know where my dad and brother had gone. I slowly sat back down on the damp earth. Maybe she would go away and leave me alone. She screamed again. I closed my eyes tightly, I was going to be eating by this specter and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I did not hear her scream again after that. The sun slowly rose and lent its warm rays to me so I could stretch out my tensed muscles. No deer ever made their way up thru the swamps though I thought I did hear one crashing around off in the direction I had seen my dad and brother disappear in. About 8:00, dad and my brother came back over to where I was sitting to see if I had seen anything.

“I heard it dad!” I whispered loudly.

“Heard what?” Dad said, obviously playing me along.

“That woman screaming! She did it twice!” Dad started to laugh.

“Son, that wasn’t no woman.” He said smiling. “It was a bobcat. Let’s go get some coffee from the truck and warm up.”

I couldn’t get up. I wasn’t sure if ghosts were real, but I knew bobcats were real and I knew they had to be man eaters. Most defiantly man eaters and dad had left me by myself at its front doorstep! Like the walk into the woods, I hung tight to dads coat tails so the mad cat would not snatch me from behind and drag me into the swamps.

Later in life I found out that the crashing that I had heard was actually my dad. He threw a large rock out into the swamps to create some noise for me to react too. He was sitting in a spot that he could see me. He had always taught me that you only point your rifle when you are ready to shot and you are never ready to shot until you have identified your target. I had passed his test, rather than point my shotgun in that direction, I chose to sit terrified because the ghost of a woman was out to eat me and I knew a 12 gauged slug wasn’t going to stop her. But I had passed his test and learned my first lesson in telling a good huntin’ story.

Thanks Dad.