If you like to catch trout, the White
River below Bull Shoals Dam is a great place to fish in November because as it
gets cold, the fishermen are far fewer. The winter spawning season is drawing
near and both rainbow and brown trout are hungrier because of it. And there’s
an abundance of rooms available if you want to fish several days.
If you want information about trout
fishing, call Gaston’s Resort, which is only a mile or so below the dam, or
call the White Hole Resort, which is perhaps five miles below the dam. Either
of those old-time trout fishing resorts can tell you everything you need to
know and they are knowledgeable folks who don’t mind telling you all about it,
even if you don’t come to their resorts.
After the spawn, in late January and
February, the weather keeps down the fishing pressure and that’s when the big
brown trout are caught. My biggest ever was 8 pounds but you wouldn’t believe
how many brown trout are caught each winter between 10 and 15 pounds.
Fishermen don’t often keep a brown trout;
the big fish are released to grow larger. Rainbows seldom exceed a couple of
pounds, and they do not spawn successfully in the white as the Brown trout do. A
13- or 14-inch rainbow may not excite some people but if you use a fly rod or
ultra-light spinning tackle, you aren’t going to get bored fighting a rainbow
trout.
And while I have heard lots of folks say
they didn’t like trout, I think they need to learn how to clean and cook them
properly. Guides on the White teach people to quickly remove the entrails and
leave the heads on when they freeze the fish. I do that too, but when I thaw
them out I take a filet knife and before they completely thaw, I filet each
side off the backbone and cut out the rib bones. If the skin is a problem for
you, just filet it off. Then grill or fry the trout filets and see if you don’t
decide they are excellent eating.
Well, deer season is upon us. The orange
clad carnival is about to begin, a time when a man’s hunting and outdoor
prowess is determined by the size of the antlers he brings home. For the first time
ever, I won’t buy a deer tag… I will just hunt on my own place with those free
landowner permits, and most likely I will wait until muzzle-loader season when
I can hunt deer the way I like to.
I’ll help my daughter get a deer on
opening day and take care of the meat properly. But I continue to stress this,
because of the mad-deer disease which we now have in our wild deer in Missouri…do
not shoot any deer in the spine or head, and in butchering it, don’t cut the
spinal column or cut into bone marrow. The prions which make this a horrible
disease which men can indeed get from eating a sick deer, don’t seem to exist
in the meat, but in the brain, and spinal column and possibly in bone marrow.
I got three letters last week from
readers who have lost loved ones to that disease found in deer, elk and cattle.
I’ll let you read a couple….
……“My dad,
Russell Tibbs, was the best man, best person, I ever knew. He was always there
for everyone. He passed away last Thursday from Cruetzfeld-Jacobs disease. He
no longer has to suffer. Dad was an avid hunter who hunted in several states
and has eaten meat that others have given him, but he has never hunted on any
type of deer farm or near one that I know of. My dad’s doctor warned me ahead
of time that no one would want to embalm his body. He was right; everyone is terrified
of this disease. My dad was sent to Illinois to be embalmed then his actual
funeral was two weeks ago. I hope something will help in shedding some light on
this horrifying disease and some day families won't have to go through this
Hell he endured.” Farrah
And this
one….“My mom died from Creutzfeldt-Jacobs disease. It was a confirmed case with
an autopsy preformed; she too was treated horribly by the funeral home. She was
raised on deer meat. I personally think the Center for Disease Control knows
more than they are telling the general public. The doctors that treated my
mother (they are the leading doctors in the nation) said they know it is
killing more people and it is just often confirmed, but thought to be something
else. Mom too was mis-diagnosed at first. It is a horrible disease and is in SW
Missouri where she was born and raised and where she died. If anyone saw what
my wife and I saw taking care of her in the end as this disease ravished her
brain, they would indeed think twice about harvesting and eating their next deer!
There is no cure or even treatment for this disease; we haven’t eaten deer
since nor will we ever again.” Tony Grachelle
I talked on the phone with the son of John Zippro, the
Joplin resident who killed a very large strange-acting buck and then died of the
disease. I intend to do a more extensive story for our outdoor magazine, with
Missourians who have seen relatives die from the disease commonly referred to
as “mad-deer disease”.
Our conservation department fears that an
unreasonable panic will cost them millions in the sale of deer permits. And one
has to know the chances of killing an infected deer in the Ozarks and
contracting the disease from a deer is very, very slim. But that doesn’t do the
few who have died from it much good, and there is no telling how many have died
from mishandling a deer with the disease and no one knew what they had
contracted.
We have a long way to go in figuring out
how those prions can be spread. But the disease will become more prominent
because of about 100 deer-raising operations in Missouri which will never ever
stop feeding their tame deer the food with meat and bone by-products which they
believe creates bigger antlers, and a Conservation Department which never could
adequately oversee those operations, or prevent them from buying diseased brood
stock from other states.
Recently I saw a television newscast out
of Springfield in which a young lady was repeating what she had been told….
That everyone should dispose of their fallen leaves as best as possible because
if they washed into the local rivers they would pollute the rivers by allowing
greater algae growth.
I had to shake my head in amazement. There
are absolutely tons and tons of sewage solids dumped on our Ozark watershed,
sometimes within a few hundred yards of our streams, and the majority of it
comes from Springfield. We soak our gardens and lawns and pastures with every
kind of chemical and fertilizer you can think of, which runs off into our
streams and we set up feeder pens for great herds of cattle only yards away
from creeks and rivers. We have thousands of cattle standing in our rivers year
round filling eddies with manure.
All this is something they won’t talk
about on television, but now finally the T.V. crews have found a pollution they
want to talk about…. LEAVES! For centuries, the cleanest, prettiest rivers in
the Ozarks were filled each fall with those terribly destructive leaves! They
pollute nothing!
I love floating the rivers in the fall,
hunting ducks and squirrels from my boat. This time of year, the rivers look
less polluted, even if they aren’t, and except for a fur-trapper here and
there, I am alone. When it’s about 30 degrees or so, you won’t see the
chaos-and-capsize canoe crowd. But the sights on a winter river are
magnificent---wondrous….spectacular. If only the doggone leaves weren’t so bad!
Write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo.65613
or email me at lightninridge@windstream. net. See some great outdoor photos on my
website www.larrydablemontoutdoors. blogspot.com.
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