THE BEST BUY I EVER MADE

You grizzled old veteran outdoorsmen out there might have gotten the wrong idea about me after I wrote that last column about hunting ducks. I mentioned having a hunting coat from Cabela’s. Owning a coat from Cabela’s sporting goods store is something of a status symbol. It can put you in a higher tax bracket with the IRS and cause the county assessor to increase your personal property taxes. You can wear a white shirtand a tie under one and go to one of the town churches. Just after that column, the guys at the local pool hall voted to not allow me to sit on the front bench any more.

When I was a kid, I really did go to the local army salvage store to buy my hunting clothing and a variety of items used in my hunting and fishing forays as a youngster. At the time, I was so poor I had to get used haircuts. I was so poor that I had a burlap bag for a lunch pail, with a hammer and a handful of walnuts in it.

And things haven’t gotten a whole lot better, so I don’t go to Cabela’s for hunting and fishing gear. I go to Wal-Mart like the rest of you, and look for a sale. Therefore I need to explain this Cabela’s hunting coat of mine.

Three years ago I was driving through Camdenton, Missouri and noticed a very large second-hand store off the road a bit. I thought maybe they might have a few good old fishing lures. When I got in there, I saw several clothing items lying on the counter, and a camouflaged coat beneath them caught my eye. It was a Cabela’s hunting coat, one that looked nearly new and most likely had never been worn. In a Cabela’s store, I imagine it may have sold for well over two hundred dollars. I didn’t even give that much for my bass boat!!

I ask the lady how much it was for, and she said she hadn’t checked it in yet. I figure some doctor or lawyer or congressman had got it for Christmas and it didn’t fit, so he brought it in there.

I asked the lady if she would just sell it to me without going through the procedure of checking it in, and she thought about it. She saw the name ‘Cabela’s’ and wondered out loud where the brand came from. I realized she had no idea what that coat amounted to, so doing some quick thinking, I told her it was an Amish clothing store over by Seymour.

She looks it over and says it ought to be worth 20 dollars. I tried to act like that was pretty high and I was reluctant to pay it! That’s sort of like trying to look surprised when the waitress notices that all the sugar and jelly packets that were on your table before you ate breakfast have disappeared. I dug a twenty-dollar bill out of my billfold with my trembling fingers and hit the door running, thankful that most second hand store employees don’t hunt ducks.

It has been the greatest hunting coat I ever owned, and when I hunt now, the only things about me that darn near freeze are what I can’t get under that coat and hood. This spring I will take it to a cleaner in town and stay with it until they’ve finished it. I would sorta like to be buried in it, if they allow that kind of thing.

I’ll probably be wearing it when I cash in my chips somewhere in Canada or South Dakota or Wisconsin, caught in a blizzard while trying to catch a walleye or shoot a goose. But now that everyone knows the whole story, I hope I can get all my readers back. Folks who normally buy a Cabela’s hunting coat don’t ordinarily read my column, so I hate to lose the fellows down at the pool hall.

We are planning another big Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal swap meet. It will be held on Saturday, March the 19th, and all I have to do is find a big gymnasium or events hall we can rent. We usually have our spring swap meet in the Nixa Community Center, but this year construction will make it unavailable. If you know of a centrally located church gymnasium or community center in the Ozarks that we can rent, call me.

My old friend and Canadian guide-bush pilot, Tinker Helseth intends to come down and tell folks all about fishing in Northwest Ontario. On that day he will give away by drawing a free stay at his lodge on Lake of the Woods, and a free guided fishing trip for a party of Ozark fishermen. We’ll make available about forty tables for vendors who have fishing gear/outdoor gear to sell, and it will be a very enjoyable day. So put it down on your calendar and I will give more specifics in later columns.

Should you want to catch some nice fish in January or February, you might remember that this time every year down on the White River in Arkansas, the brown trout finish spawning. I know it seems awfully early for spawning fish, but trout do that, unable to tell the difference between spring and winter. You can look at a trout and see it doesn’t have the intelligence of a smallmouth bass or a crappie. That’s why in the summer time they are so easily caught by fly-fishermen!

Trout, of course, are not native to the Ozarks, but decades back, fishermen who noted the extreme cold of our flowing springs and spring branches rightly figured that the cold-water species of trout would survive in selected spots.

When big impoundments like Norfork, Bull Shoals, Beaver, Table Rock and Greers Ferry Lakes were built, the outflow, coming from the bottom of those deep lakes, was very cold, even in the summer. Native fish could not live there, but trout could.

Rainbow trout have to be stocked, because even though they try to spawn, they do not have enough success at it to replenish themselves. Brown trout, on the other hand, do spawn successfully, in December and early January.

After the spawn, they feed voraciously, and you occasionally catch one from ten to twenty pounds out of the White River below Bull Shoals. Most of the browns aren’t that big of course, but there are plenty of three- to four-pounders caught, and an abundance of browns in the river’s first twenty miles which will go between five and ten pounds. My biggest was eight pounds, and I catch them on six- or eight-pound line with spinning gear, casting white jigs or six-inch suspending rogues. While fishing for the browns you usually catch plenty of the smaller stocking-sized rainbows too. I have a friend on the White, by the name of Bill Shinn who guides trout fishermen.

Guides are never as busy in January and February as they are the rest of the year, so it is a good time to call him, or any of the other guides along the White. Bill’s number is 479-477-0335. But any of the docks along the river can give you the numbers of fishing guides, or just rent you a boat so you can try it yourself.

You can call our office number, 417-777-5227 where my executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins can sufficiently confuse you no matter what information you are seeking. Or you can write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613, e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net or see my website at www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com