A Very Tragic Outdoor Story

It is hard to decide what to do sometimes, when you are an outdoorsman who likes to hunt and fish and a fall day is pretty close to perfect. Rich Abdoler and I were faced with that problem in late October… should we fish for bass or hunt turkeys. We decided to do both.

Along one stretch of river there are wild turkeys that roost in the big sycamores just after sundown, and in the river itself, there are big bass. In a situation like that you take your shotgun and some shells and a turkey call, dress in camouflage clothing, and then add a tackle box and your rod and reel.

There are always problems to deal with while fishing the river in October. Fall leaves lie along the surface, and gather in the quiet spots where deep water promises awaiting bass; hard-hitting, hungry fish fattening up to get through the winter. It isn’t exactly the same as hibernation, I don’t reckon, but something similar. Those fish will move to deep water in the dead of winter and snooze a lot, waking up on occasion, yawning, looking around for something to eat, just to get them by until spring. And so you can catch them in the winter, we all know that. You just have to fish for them when they decide to eat something, and it is hard to know when that is.   You have to fish for them when they are awake, just after they have yawned and stretched and said to each other.. “Boy wouldn’t a nice crawdad taste good!”

You can do that on occasion if you aren’t too miserable, sitting there in your boat, bobbing around in a cold wind, thinking about how good the duck hunting might be, or wondering if you wouldn’t be happier deer hunting. So the time to catch the big bass is in the fall, when they aren’t as interested in sleeping, and more likely to be eating most of the day. I know it is that way, because when I am home in late October, I have an urge to eat everything in the refrigerator and then go to McDonalds and get a couple of cheeseburgers and some French fries. It is my body telling me that I need to fatten up for the winter.

I know my theory may not pass any scientific analysis, but I figure fish are like we are. They have to sleep on occasion, or they wouldn’t have eyelids! It seems to me that under a warm rock in deep water is a good place to sleep when it is January, and the river is froze over. Anyway, when it’s cold I am always hunting, so what would I know about it.

When it is October, there are all those leaves on the water to contend with, and it is so exasperating to make a good cast and hook two or three sycamore leaves with the spinner bait. That’s what kept happening to me, as I looked up at the timber-line, wondering how many turkeys might be in the woods. About that time Rich caught a big Kentucky bass, also known as a spotted bass. This one fought all around the boat, and when Rich finally landed him, he was fat as a groundhog, probably the crawdad population in that area’s biggest problem for most of October.

Kentuckies do not often get much bigger than two or three pounds, but that one would have made four pounds I believe. Rich decided to take him home and eat him, making life easier on the crawdads, and creating less competition for smallmouth bass in the river. It is a good thing to do, releasing the smallmouths, and eating the Kentucky bass, which are every bit as good to eat as a big crappie.

Eventually, as the afternoon wore on and I kept catching leaves, the woods around the river began to look too inviting, and I figured I might do better hunting turkeys. So we tied the boat up to a maple tree root and made a little foray out into the forest to look for turkey sign. That sounds poetic doesn’t it.. a forest foray?

What I found on that forest foray to find feathers was, a little oxbow slough a little ways from the river that looked like it might have been a scene from an old time postcard. Huge oaks and sycamores and maples surrounded it, the water was green and filled with logs which appeared to be the home of all sizes of bass and crappie and bluegill and catfish. The sinking sun backlighted the yellow and red and orange leaves in the still branches, and there were very few leaves on the surface of that still green slough. I forgot my shotgun and went back to the boat to get my rod and reel and spinner bait.

Rich and I fished that slough for about 30 or 40 minutes, pulling those spinner baits up over logs and stumps, just knowing that any minute some monstrous bass with a mouth the size of an Alabama cantaloupe would engulf one of them and break our line. But it never happened. There must be something big and ominous living there in that deep green slough, like an alligator or the creature from the black lagoon, which has wiped out all the fish.

So we explored a little more, and found a couple of buck scrapes under some low hanging maple limbs, where a nice buck had chewed the twigs and pawed out a washtub-sized bare spot in the dirt beneath it. In a little pocket of water just off the slough, several woodducks flushed, with one old hen crying pitifully the way they do when they take to flight. You’ve heard them yourself I am sure, if you are a grizzled old veteran outdoorsman like Rich and me.

It was a place I hated to leave, as I love to explore wild and unaltered woodlands.  There were some wild turkey dusting spots and feathers here and there. I thought it might be smart to go back and get my turkey call and shotgun, and Rich agreed. So we headed back to my boat as the sun sank to just a few feet above the horizon, sitting low in the western woods, peeking through the big trees.

And I know there are some of you folks out there who aren’t going to believe this, as some outdoor writers are prone to make up stuff so they have something to write about.  But I am not one of them. Most of you who have been reading this column for many years will vouch for my almost complete honesty, and I am telling you this with my hand up and crossing my heart, hoping to never to eat wild turkey again if I am lying… Two wild turkeys flushed from the underbrush before us not 25 feet from the boat, one in front of Rich and one in front of me. They flew across the river as I aimed my fishing rod at them and wondered why in the world my shotgun was in the boat!

Sometimes it just don’t pay to get up in the morning!Rich ate bass that night and I had a boloney and cheese sandwich.

Write to me with any sympathies you might want to express, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613 or e-mail lightninridge@windstream.net. The website is www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.