A Good Time Coming

This beautiful painting of Ozark smallmouth bass will be
given away at the March 19 swap meet.

Charles Duren's handmade knives will be displayed for sale...

Handpainted, numbered wingbone calls by Ed and Will Davis
will also be on sale at the swap meet.

 

Have you ever seen an old fashioned Ozark River johnboat? Well, you can watch one being built at our swap meet on Saturday, March 19. Master carpenter, Myron Nixon will be helping me build one like my grandfather and father built when I was a kid on the Big Piney River, guiding fishermen for 50 cents an hour. Boy how times have changed… now I make ten times that much per hour on a good day! Maybe I ought to say I will be helping him… but not much.

We are only one week away from our Lightnin’ Ridge, Grizzled Old Outdoorsman’s Swap Meet, and some readers have been asking about the free fishing trip to Canada for two people which will be given away that day, by drawing. Tinker Helseth owns a beautiful lodge on Lake of the Woods, about an hour north of the Canadian border north of Minnesota. He also has outpost cabins on wilderness lakes where he flies fishermen to fish for bass, walleye, northern pike, muskies and even crappie. The trip will be a four-day outing custom made to whatever the winner wants to do, and will include lodging, some meals, boats, motors and guides.

I am hoping someone wins it who has never been to Canada, because it will be an
unforgettable trip.

Tinker Helseth will be at the swap meet all day to give out literature and answer questions about fishing and hunting in Canada. You will really enjoy meeting this old-time Canadian bush pilot, outfitter and guide. He is the real deal, and can tell you about everything from calling moose to catching muskies.

But we will have a great deal more at our swap meet than Tinker and me. Our editor and outdoorswoman, Sondra Gray, will be there, along with Gloria Jean and a couple of my daughters, giving away sample copies of our magazine, the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal. I am hoping to meet readers of this column, and will sell and sign my books there, a great deal cheaper than you will find them in any bookstore. I have seven books, and the profit from those book sales will go to several charitable causes, including the Ozarks Food Harvest, which helps feed the hungry in our area, and also to a Christian camp called White Oak Camp, which is a week long experience in the summer for underprivileged children. At our fall swap meet last October, we raised 1,580 dollars which we gave to five school districts in the Ozarks to use in buying shoes and coats for some children who needed them.

I am making turkey calls, and will have those on hand. Whenever someone subscribes to our magazine, they will get a free hand-made western cedar turkey call that is so good that it will cause turkey hunters to give up the pastime of turkey hunting because it is too easy. We also intend to give away a beautiful painting of smallmouth bass at my table, a painting done by Al Agnew, about 2 feet by three feet, matted and framed, signed and numbered and very valuable.

Outdoor writer Monte Burch will be at the swap meet too, one of the best outdoor writers in the Midwest, with more than forty years of writing for top national magazines. He will have some of his books on hand which he will sign for you. There will be some of Jim Spencer’s turkey hunting books there also, and some old, old magazines, and old hunting and fishing books that are truly antiques. Sondra Gray will even have some of our older back issues of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal for sale.

We expect to have 35 tables with all sorts of hunting and fishing gear, and there will be lots of antiques amongst them. One of our vendors is a fellow who is an authority on antique fishing lures, who will appraise any old lures you might want to bring.
We will have a table full of hand-made turkey calls by craftsmen who are a great deal better at it than I am, and one of the tables has some hand-made and hand-painted wingbone calls that are absolutely too beautiful to use. Another table will feature some fantastic woodcarvings and knives handmade by Charles Duren. He uses antlers for handles on Norway steel blades, and he carves some of those handles with delicate wildlife heads or scenes. Those knives are unique, one-of-a-kind treasures. You can see one on my website, given later in this column.

There should be a number of old rifles and shotguns; some just good hunting guns, and others antiques. But I think what we will have the most of is fishing lures, rods and reels so you should be able to find a good buy on new or used fishing gear. When you throw in furs, art, camping gear and miscellaneous items of that sort, you have the makings of an enjoyable all day event with lots of bargains.

And while we have always forbidden ladies from reading this column… which I write for grizzled old outdoorsmen only, we are going to have a special place for ladies at our swap meet, a room which we will set aside for any women who would like to get away from the men and sell some quilts, baked goods, canned goods, or things of that sort.

If you are a lady, and would like to have a table in that special section, just let me know. If you want to make some cakes and pies and cookies and that sort of thing, I can’t imagine you taking any of them home with you. If you only have a few items, that’s okay, bring them and we will find a place for you, on account of, you are a lady and us grizzled old outdoorsmen appreciate that.

At 1:00 p.m. we will have a special demonstration on how to do chain-saw woodcarving, using a specially made blade and chain. When the carving is finished, it will be given away too.

Dinner will be served between eleven and one o’clock that day by the youth of the church, and I think there may be some biscuits and gravy and coffee there early in the morning for anyone who missed breakfast. The only thing you have to pay for at our swap meet is the food and whatever else you want to buy while you are there. There is no charge for admission and we are not charging for tables, but if you want one of those tables you need to let us know soon, we are running out of space.

All this is in a big gymnasium adjacent to the Brighton Assembly of God Church, which is just off Highway 13, seventeen miles north of Springfield. Look for the Pleasant Hope exit, at highway 215 south, and follow the signs. A map is on my website, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com

Anyone who wants to bring boats and motors or canoes to sell may do so; we will find a place for them close to the entrance of the gymnasium. Call in advance.

The purpose of this event is to help folks sell some of the stuff littering their basement, and have a good time. We are thankful for the people of the Brighton Assembly of God, who make it all possible, and will remember this is a church building. It will be a day that the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it, as the bible instructs us, and be reverent. Come and join us!

You may call our offices for more information, 417-777-5227, or e-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net.