A letter to the MDC

 

  

I wrote my last MDC column about how a man and his son had a 19-point buck confiscated by an MDC agent name Clare Burch. Here is the letter he sent to the MDC chief of enforcement with the form they require. This is his attempt to recover the valuable set of antlers after the whole charge and citation was dismissed in court. Want to know what MDC’S wardens are like? Read this letter... from Joe DeAngelo

 

 

To whom it may concern... After my son's deer was loaded on the truck we were going home and past Matthew Gingrich (an Amish farmer) on the road. We came home to start getting the meat in the cooler on ice because it was almost 60 degrees and couldn’t hang overnight. So we got it all cut up and was getting rid of the bone and carcass. And right before we got back Matt called Ray and told him he called the MDC on him because if he (Gingrich) couldn’t get that deer he (Ray-my son) shouldn’t have it either. We got home and Clair (MDC agent) was waiting there. She asked about the deer and where it was. I told her we had to process it and was in the cooler in my garage. She went in my garage, opened up the cooler and then was asking why we processed it so fast. I told her because it was way too warm to let that deer hang. 

            When she was standing in my barn, I watched her key the radio and call for a thermal drone. There was 3 of us that heard and seen her do it. So then she asked us about what was going on and where the rest of the deer carcass and remains was. So I took her out there to it. When we got to where the carcass was, the officer from Lafayette County came out there also. I didn’t get his name. And at this point we had been up for two and half days with no sleep. They were calling me a liar for cutting it up so fast. I would think your agents would know better. It was 60°! You can’t let something hang. So the 2 1/2 hour interrogation went on and on asking us the same question 10 different ways. They knew we were worn out and exhausted. That shouldn’t have happened till the next day. We went back to where she took the meat and the hide and the head. She put all that good meat in a scented garbage bag. 

            She asked why we didn’t tag the deer when we got to him and Ray told her because there was no service there. When he got service, it went through. Nope she said that wasn’t true and we were lying. I told her go back over there and she would see there was no service but nope. The Lafayette County agent was calling us liars about the broad-head shot through the shoulder and was ready to take me down with a severe attitude because I was telling him it was shot with an arrow through the shoulder. So I finally called Raymond after being called a liar multiple times he seen Raymond coming over there and started screaming him to get back in the truck. I said hey man, he’s the one that shot the deer he’s the hunter he need to show you something so that changed his attitude. Raymond showed him the video of the deer with the arrow clearly protruding out of its body and then that changed his tone after us being called liars multiple times I was just about done with them at this point. I’m a businessman in Ray County. I’ve lived here my entire life. I’ve hunted for 32 years with never having a problem. I’ve run a business for almost 18. I have never been dehumanized and called a liar like that in my life not even close. I was ticketed Sunday for illegal transportation of a carcass and for the use of a drone. I’m sure you see all the charges that they liked to pile on. 

            My problem with the whole thing is when Clare got down to my 17-year-old’s face and told him this was gonna sting. Wasn’t it losing that deer she tried provoking an altercation with a minor… I know two other people she has done this too, and then she tried pressing charges on them for intimidating a law-enforcement officer when they blew up on her this is her game. Pretty disgusting and sad! We were harassed for 12 days with a drone. I called Clair. She denied having a drone that wouldn’t stop so I finally called the Ray County sheriff and made a report and then it stopped. I had called Jade I guess in Northeast Mo he denied that you guys had a drone two days straight. The drone was lined up with my living room window. My kids saw it one evening from my living room. 

            Sunday morning I went back out to Calvin‘s where we hunted at 5 AM and there were drones in the sky. I seen two and MDC denies it. So if the MDC does not have drones, she had to call in a third-party because three of us heard her do it and seen her do it, and we all witnessed the drones and harassment. I have video of them over my farm and house. People here are sick of the double standard. She violated and abused the fourth amendment right for sure. She had no right to enter my garage. Our privacy was violated for days and days. my advice to people to ask me is to plead the fifth not tell your agent a word and get a lawyer because all they do is dehumanize you and make you look like a monster that you’re not. Not only did she keep the deer that was tagged in before she took it. So that Ray lost his buck tag also and couldn’t hunt the last 3 weeks of the best part of bow season too.

             Also last January we were checked three days in a row by Clare on the same farm with the same truck. She actually came a fourth time to check us and my brother called her and asked her if she was just harassing us so not really sure what her problem has been but she’s never had a reason to have a problem. we are not law breaking poachers like they want to make us to be. We have abided by the law, our entire lives. I feel like fair is fair if you’re gonna make the people walk this straight and narrow with no common sense used in any situation than the people should make sure the MDC is also walking straight and narrow by the law. Both my grandfather’s were US Marines, and then went on to be New York City police, which they both retired. Always had the most respect for law-enforcement. But not gonna lie after being scrutinized like this I know how the minorities feel now and understand why they feel the way they do sorry to say. You would never understand until you were treated in this way I never understood either until then.

 

The White and the Browns

 

Gaston's Resort guide, Frank Saksa

         

         Every year at this time I mention the great trout fishing found on the White River… where the brown trout reach gigantic sizes. Brown trout are more active in January and February because it is their spawning time in waters where they are native, mostly in Germany and Scandinavian countries.   Browns are not native to the United States. They have been stocked in the White and no one would think they could successfully spawn there, but when the water is high this time of the winter, they actually do to a lesser degree, but not to any great extent. To thrive there they must be raised and stocked.   

         They, and rainbow trout, have to be raised in hatcheries then   released into the White when they reach a certain size.  This year a disease devastated the trout in those hatcheries and so in January the stocking was limited to a fraction of what was normal. White River fishermen were not allowed to keep any trout at all because of it… catch and release only.

         I talked with Arkansas guide, Donald Cranor, who told me that in February the catch and release plan is still going to be in effect, but fishermen will be able to keep two trout only.  He says most of his clients this time of year are after big brown trout and they are a fish that are mostly released anyway.  Fishing with him, anglers often catch ten-to-twenty-pound browns and it is possible to land them in the thirty pound range.   Rainbows that are stocked    do not reach sizes often that are above 12 or 14 inches.

         I suspect the disease that has infiltrated the hatcheries is something called whirling disease, which causes trout to swim in circles on the surface of the water before dying.  There is no real   estimate as to when the white can be fully stocked again with trout.

         Guide, Frank Saksa, who guides fishermen out of Gaston’s Resort, told me that because of the brown trout, and even the diminishing numbers of rainbows, he hasn’t seen a big decrease in  winter fishermen, as catch and release fishing has never been a big problem in the winter with the type of fishermen that come to the White and seek guides.  But if the situation continues into the spring, I think it may really hurt the resorts along the river.  In a future article I will interview some Arkansas biologists to find out   more about the situation.

         In the winter I have fished for brown trout with Saksa, and once I landed an 8-pound brown.  I fished once with Cranor, and   wrote about his experience with another outdoor writer from Arkansas. They were using some horny-head chubs to try to catch a   big brown trout and the writer got confused. He wrote in his article that he and Cranor were using horned toads!           

         If you want to fish the White, I certainly recommend hiring a guide like Cranor.  Saksa too is a great guide for browns but he is now in semi-retirement.  If you want to hire Frank, you have to call Gaston’s Resort.  That resort has the distinguished honor of selling more of my books in the last twenty years than anyone else, including the big national bookstores.  To meet or talk with Frank Saksa, go to Gaston’s Resort sometime or call 870- 431-5202.  You can call Donald Cranor at 870-430-5484.  These two guys can tell you more about the situation on the White than anyone I know.

         I urge you to also read my website concerning a theft of valuable deer antlers… larrydablemontoutdoors.  My email address is lightninridge47@gmail.com

Visiting the Od Homeplace Covey

                             

Visiting the Old Homeplace Covey         

 

    Reprinted from the book “Dogs and Ducks and Hatrack Bucks”…by Larry Dablemont-- published in 2003

               

 

            Old Luke had found them and there wasn't any doubt about that.  He stood there in the woodland cover with his tail high and head forward, his body twisted slightly with one foreleg lifted, drinking in the mesmerizing scent of bobwhite quail. The three of us moved in quickly and the air was filled with the explosion of brown birds.  There wasn't much time to find a target and intercept it. I clobbered a small oak with a charge of number eight shot and then missed the same bird clean as he sailed past it.  Tom and Kent did the same thing I did and we stood there talking about how tough it was to hit a quail in that heavy cover.  The first covey of the afternoon and we hadn't pulled a feather.  But Tom Goldsmith had seen his first covey rise.

                Tom is the talented wildlife artist from Coldwater, Ontario who illustrates my books, and he owns a pair of English Setters back in Canada where he hunts grouse and woodcock with enthusiasm.  He spent several days with me this week, anxious to see what quail hunting is like.  Since my little Setter died a few years ago, I have been without a pointing dog.  But I knew who would have the very best, and I called him.  Kent Caplinger lives in Ozark, Missouri, and he grew up hunting quail as a kid in Howell County.  I met him at the University of Missouri when we were both about 18 years old and I have always counted him as one of my closest friends.   Little wonder....Kent is one of the most enthusiastic outdoorsmen I have ever known.  He and I once hitch-hiked home from the University of Missouri to hunt ducks on the Piney, thumbing a ride with cased shotguns hidden behind the suitcases. There has never been a time in all those years I've known Kent that he hasn't had two or three good bird dogs.

                Luke and Sadie aren't just good, they are great!   They both sat in my boat while we motored across Truman Lake to a hard to reach spot where Freckles and I found quail years ago.  And in the high cover along the lake, they disappeared for awhile.   Three wild gobblers flushed before us, only yards away, and I heard Kent groan.  "Not this again," he said. "Old Luke just loves turkeys!  And they seem to be more of them than quail anymore."

                I took them up just into the woods and we walked past the foundation of an old homeplace, through skimpier cover and briars and buckbrush with small groups of cedar and scattered hardwoods.   We talked about how often coveys are found around an old homeplace like that.  And just moments later old Luke found a covey.   It was their good fortune to leave us there with nothing but spent shotshell hulls and excuses, but it was our good fortune to watch many of the birds, 15 or 18 in all, sail out into high grass and a sunflower field.  

                Tom downed his first bobwhite 15 minutes later in front of Sadie's staunch point and as he did, another bird flushed beside me and sped toward the sunflower field just skimming the weeds, never higher than my waist.  That's the kind of shot I can handle.  Moments later Luke pinned a bird next to Kent and we all had some weight in our game bags.  But we left them with only the three birds to our credit and motored over to a spot where I thought we'd find another covey in less difficult conditions. 

                Topping a rise 150 yards from the boat, we watched Luke working birds before us.  He moved into the wind with head low and tail moving nervously, something bird-dog men recognize instantly, a clear message that a covey is close by.   Kent cautioned his dog to go easy, and sharply commanded Sadie to hold.  She hadn't scented the quail yet but she heard the command and looked for Luke.  By that time he was frozen before her and she honored his point.

                 This covey rise was in shorter cover and we each dropped a bird.  Someone got two.  I said it was me but I don't think it was. I don't think it was Tom either or he would have argued with me.  Kent didn't claim it, the gentleman today he has always been.  The entire afternoon he situated himself where the shot was least likely to be, putting Tom and I in the best of positions.  But none of us were there for the shooting.  We talked about how, as you grow older, you walk in slower... not wanting the moment to end.   You know that any second the birds will take to flight and the wonder of the magnificent scene before you will be gone.   I just want to stand there and drink it in, absorb it to the fullest while the dogs are statue-still before me.

                "Some people think I'm crazy to keep going with my dogs in a time when there are so few quail," Kent told me.  "But I can't give it up, not ever.  Even if we only find one covey, it's a big day for me.  Anyone who has ever hunted over good dogs knows why, you can't explain it to anyone else!"

 

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DeAngelo's Antlers and the MDC

 

         A few years ago the Missouri Department of Conservation paid out one million dollars as a result of a lawsuit brought about because two agents violated the law by entering a barn without a  search warrant.  Another agent has done the same thing, and added theft to a possible charge.   

         Back in October, Joe DeAngelo and his 17-year-old son went bowhunting on land he paid to hunt. His son shot a big buck with his bow late in the evening and they had to track the deer, finding it about 10:30 that night.  It was a very big deer, with 19 points and wide-spreading antlers.  He notched his tag and tried to call in the kill but was in an area where his cell phone wouldn’t work.   He and his father loaded the deer and then called it in via the tele-check system the MDC has instigated.  A little after midnight they took the deer into their workshop and began to cut up the meat because it was still 60 degrees. They left the entrails and hide and head in the pick-up bed.

         A little later in the night MDC agent, Clair Burch, just walked in without permission and said she was going to write a citation to Joe DeAngelo for transporting an illegal deer.  She said it was illegal because even though his son had correctly notched his tag she felt he had not done so soon enough after killing the deer, even though there was no evidence he had done anything improperly.

         She took the hide and head and then went to a large cooler in the shop, opened it without permission and removed the venison it held. That is not legal either without a warrant. Burch told Joe DeAngelo that the meat and butchering of the deer was an admission of guilt. Joe pointed out that when it was that warm he would never let a deer remain unbutchered over night.  Burch gave little credence to anything he said.   It was obvious that she wanted that giant set of antlers and she was there for no other reason. 

         Taxidermists have told me that they mount deer heads of huge bucks for conservation agents who keep the mounts and the MDC pays for the work. One told me that he mounted a confiscated deer head for an agent who gave it to her friend as a Christmas gift. I was told by an employee of the Bass Pro Shop Taxidermy shop that they have mounted many confiscated deer heads for the MDC which were either sold to or given to Bass Pro Shops or one of Johnny Morris’ properties.

         Here is a point I want to make… when the DeAngelo boy called in that deer kill in October, if it had been a regular set of antlers, only 6 or 8 points, Agent Burch would have never come to invade their property without a warrant.   When he called it in the boy told how large the beam was at the base and how many points it had as hunters are required to do.   She wanted it and I would bet she has been paid for it or will be soon, and that it is at a taxidermist shop right now.  But I will also bet a thousand dollars that no one anywhere, including the governor himself, will ever know where that set of antlers is today or where it went when agent Burch walked out of the deAngelo’s shop with it.  The MDC can defy a judge if they want, and never tell what happened to it.

         The DeAngelo boy did nothing wrong, nor did his dad….  But they like others have the possibility of a lawsuit against the MDC for what has happened.  Agent Burch entered their property with no warrant and searched a cooler illegally and effectively   stole property with a false premise.  She should be fired for what she did but she won’t be because agents are held to no standards at all. They consider themselves above highway patrolmen and elected sheriffs and they are treated that way by their superiors.  Agent Burch broke the law, but that it is of no consequence to the Conservation Department.

          The entire story doesn’t in there.  Agent Burch was very smart.  Soon after the incident in the workshop she had the charges against the DeAngelos dropped, depriving them of a day in court in which they might have been able to get the deer head back.

        The family was forced to take their 17-year-old son to Juvenile Court, where he was not found guilty of anything in a matter of minutes, and the whole procedure they were forced into was therefore determined to be an admission of guilt again, and being used to keep them from knowing where the antlers are.

          Where are the deer head and antlers now. I doubt that even the FBI could find it!   I met with Chief of Enforcement, Travis Mclain, recently in his Jefferson City office, and then talked with him on the phone about what agent Burch has done.  He has required Joe DeAngelo to fill out a two-page form before he will listen to me about what happened.  And then Burch can receive no discipline that anyone can know about, because personnel matters cannot be discussed. If only the victims of MDC agents could receive such protections before a judge, however, I’m concerned that many are in the Department’s pockets.  This kind of thing involving MDC agents happens often.

          I have sent this magazine article to Mclain and MDC director, Jason Sumner, asking them to enter their own comments, allow me to interview agent Burch, or to correct anything they feel is not accurate here.  If there is a lawyer anywhere who feels he can help the DeAngelos find the antlers he might call me at 417-  777-5227 or email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com

A Haven

 

A photo I took several years earlier of Snow geese and their reflections

       My secret place is quiet and serene, and beautiful even in the starkness of full-blown winter.  There are no roads into it; I get there by boat. Sometimes in the winter there are grey skies threatening rain and waves are whitecapping out on the lake. Sometimes it is a still warm day that hints of spring. But not today. I just motor to a protected cove and I head up into familiar hills. 

       Flying south on the north wind, a big flock of snow geese come over me. Just above me only 200 feet or so, they break into a concerted, frenzied cry, as if they are tremendously excited all of a sudden.  When they sound like that, they are envisioning a place to alight and rest, and I am sure it was within a few minutes of them, a bottomland field across the lake somewhere.         

       Even tired snow geese do not often favor landing on the water when they are in large groups.  They want an open field somewhere, with vegetation too short to hide a predator.  I thought back to times in past years when I have laid in Canadian harvested crop fields, covered with concealing straw, watching flocks above me like that one, so loud you can feel the excitement in their crescendo.

       In the woodlands, where giant oaks and hickories and cedars are as big as any I have ever seen anywhere, I find scrapes and rubs freshly made by buck deer.  Not far away are the remains of a fireplace and a rock foundation only about 10 by 15 feet, where an old cabin once stood.  There are the remains of a rusted iron bedstead there, and nothing more.  A cedar growing out of it has to be a hundred years old, so the cabin has been gone at least that long.  I wonder what the people were like who lived there a hundred years ago and perhaps much longer back. I hope the six piles of rock on a small flat area above the creek aren’t graves, but they may be.

       My back, recently injured in some way, has me in agony, and so I sit down against a big chinquapin oak. A shortened evening is advancing with no sunset.  My back problem will not keep me from walking where I want to go, but it will make me get there slower.   A slower hunter though, is a better hunter.  You have to make the most out of each situation you face in life. Do what you can and give no thought to what you cannot. Age has taught me that.

       In sitting, I notice that woodrats have an advanced nest around a nearby tree with a root system favoring a tunnel beneath it.  It is quite an arrangement of sticks.  These woods are filled with dens of one type or another, beneath rocks and crevices, under the roots of huge fallen giants, in the boles of standing, but rugged, den trees. There is such a variety of wild creatures here it is amazing.

This is my place, this large acreage of land set aside on an Ozark lake. It is everyone’s. There are thousands of acres of public land here.  Much of it is typical of the Ozarks, with small pockets of clearing, stretches of cedar glade and open, mature forest.  In this I can lose myself, forget whatever has been bothering me, and wonder if God isn’t behind me somewhere, aware that I have returned to marvel at the greatness of his unspoiled creation. I am hoping he isn’t upset with me for missing church, but I seek out a greater place to talk to Him.

       This secret place of mine seldom sees humans, unless it is the opening days of deer season.   Earlier in the day I picked up two recently discarded beer cans, to show me some nitwit passed here who didn’t know what he was doing. It is a sacrilege to come to a place like this and leave something to defile it.  I am convinced that most deer hunters are not like him, but nothing brings out the bad side of hunting and hunters like deer season. 

 

      Before that, along a winding old overgrown lane, I found hundreds of frost flowers, erupting from the base of stems of composite plants.  They are unique, white, fragile ice formations that form in the night as the dead plant somehow emits a freezing water vapor. Each is a piece of sculptured art. You cannot find two alike.

       In the lateness of the day, as small flakes of snow fall, intermingled with drops of rain driven by the wind, I gain my feet with little sign of the pain I had felt an hour before, and slowly head back to my boat, watching for whatever I may not have seen earlier. I know that I am far from my boat and it is so late in the day I may have to motor back in darkness.  But the sun will shine here again and I will be back.  It is something to remember, when skies are dark and grey and winter’s ominous breath is strong and cold above your collar. The sun will shine brightly here on another day!  Spring will come soon, and I will be back.

 

A 17-year-old boy recently killed a19-point buck and the antlers have been stolen from him.  Read the whole story on the  internet at www.larrydablemontoutdoors.  

       

A Little Winter Walk

 

There is a remote little gravel bar along the river where I love to camp, quite a walk from the road. I parked my pickup and headed down there, determined to see it as a new year comes, in a bleak, drab winter picture of the river. 

I came across a nice buck and doe that bounded away.  He still had his antlers and she was getting a little bit round with a pair of fawns, if I am a good judge of such things.  I was surprised to see them together, but it tells me where I might find his antlers in a month or so.

The slough where the wood ducks were in October, and will be again in April, was frozen over.  I stopped and looked at very clear bobcat track in soft sandy soil. On such ground it is easy for anyone to tell a cat track because there are no claw marks. 

There will be young bobcats born very soon, long before the fawns are born.  In the Ozarks bobcats may bear young any time during the winter, from December on.  And some are even born in late spring.  But most are born in February and early March.   

I happened across a terrapin shell, this one very old because only the white undershell was there.  Terrapins have an outer and under shell, and Ozark boys in my grandpa’s generation often carved their initials and dates in the outer shell.  When I was just a boy, I found terrapins with initials and dates, and it caused me to realize how long they lived.  I suspect a terrapin might live forty or fifty years if he is lucky enough to stay upright.  They are unusual in that they are capable of living a long time and yet producing a lot of young.  Most all wild things are good at one or the other.  A species has high ‘biotic potential’ (the ability to survive well and live long), or high ‘reproductive potential’ (the ability to produce high number of offspring during a season).  Usually, they don’t have both. 

The predators have few babies, and live long and survive well.  A rabbit or a wood rat has a short life span because of predation and a weakness to disease and parasites.  But the small ground mammals are like rabbits; they raise lots of young to ensure survival of their species.  Any species which produces a small number of offspring in its lifetime is a species that has a great biotic potential, the ability to survive.  Only man throws a wrench in that natural equation.  In next week’s column I will say more about this year-end trip to the river.

            

      As much as I love to hunt and fish, I was born a naturalist first and foremost, and I am lucky to live out here in the sticks and still write about it all for newspapers scattered about in places far from where I might be this week or next.  If you read this column and like it, let the newspaper hear from you.  I wish I could answer all the letters and e-mails I get from you folks out there who read this column each week, but I just can’t.  I will reproduce many of the letters and emails I get in my magazine, the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal, the next one due to come out in the spring of 2026.

 

      In the next few months I will write about some illegal things done by conservation agents and many newspapers cannot print those articles.  You can read them in January on a special Internet site… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.  Those articles give you an idea of what the Missouri Department of Conservation does that can affect you.  You can have property confiscated and never returned to you even if charges are dismissed. It has just happened to one 17-year-old deer hunter. 

       I don’t blame newspapers for not printing those articles but you have a right to know what this state agency does and they have extraordinary power to keep it hidden.  Please go to that website and read the articles.

 

Notify me by email…lightninridge47@gmail.com or   call my office at 417-777-5227

 

 

No Ducks, But No Worries

 

I haven’t seen many ducks but it is duck season and I can’t wait to go out with my Lab to try to find some. If you have never owned a Labrador, you have missed out on one of the greatest things in life, and if you have never watched ducks come into decoys on cupped wings, rocking back and forth with those red legs extended you have missed something. 

Recently I sat up against a tree scratching my dog’s ears while he slept beside me. I rested; watching empty skies and realizing that I couldn’t remember how much money I had left in the bank nor how old I was. Other things are more important when you’re out in the woods or on the river.

You may not believe this, but in a local pharmacy they have a blood pressure machine, and I can take my blood pressure. It remains pretty good until I get mad, which town traffic usually makes me.  If it is too high then I can set back and take it again while I close my eyes and envision a flock of wild ducks circling above me, and then dropping like fall leaves into my decoys. Then the second time I take it, my blood pressure will have dropped ten or fifteen points!

 

      It seems sad to me that we have arrived at a time when the men who truly understood and knew the ways of the wild are old men, or long passed away.  Most of what they knew, we are losing.  But this much is true; there are more self-proclaimed experts in the outdoors today than you can shake a stick at.... more pros and champions and authorities than fish in the sea.

      For an outdoor partner, give me someone who doesn’t proclaim himself a pro at anything. Someone who will slowly walk the ridge tops and the valleys from dawn to dusk and be sorry the day has ended.  Give me someone who loves it so much he can't tire of the songs of birds, nor experience enough the sound and smell of rain coming across a still valley…someone who notices the scent post of a fox as he passes, who finds the pellets beneath an owl roost and    knows what they are.  

      Put me in a boat with someone who can paddle down the river so slowly and quietly even the beaver and the mink and the wood ducks are unaware of his presence. Give me a man who leaves nothing but his tracks, and takes only what he uses and wastes nothing.  Give me an outdoorsman who has learned more from experiences beneath a hardwood canopy or along a flowing stream than from books.  Such a man needs no trophies or acclaim.  He seeks the treasures which God bestows on those who walk in wild places men have not yet ruined. 

      When we come to the end of 2025, may there still be such places, and such men.  May the values and convictions of our ancestors still be strong with us.

      I     write too much I   guess, about those days when those old men I knew were young.  Those days when being poor still had its blessings.  Why…when I was a kid, I really did go to the local army salvage store to buy hunting clothes 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.

 

This column comes out weekly... If your newspaper misses a column or two you can read them and dozens more on a BlogSpot called larrydablemontoutdoors.   My website with my books and magazines on it is larrydablemont.com. I    have written 12 books and more than 100 magazines which you can order on that last website. If you want to get in touch with me just email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com