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Recollections of An Old Fashioned Angler

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---Finally I have finished the book I have worked on for so many years, entitled, “Recollections of an Old-Fashioned Angler.” It is being printed this week. I am numbering and signing the first 100 of those books to come off the press, and will inscribe one to you if you’d like.  The book is 40 chapters, 288 pages and dozens and dozens of old photos.  The cost, including postage, is $15. To get your copy, you can call 417-777-5227 to pay with credit card or you can send a check to Recollections, Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613

Charlie Hartman Jr.

       In October of 1958, I turned eleven years old. Dad had promised that when I turned eleven I could go with him on a duck hunt down the Piney River. And there I was, the first Saturday in November, sitting on the front seat in his wooden johnboat, looking through the blind he had attached to the bow, shaking with excitement.. I was to watch and listen and learn so that when he thought the time was right I could sit there actually hunting with my own gun.

       We put in that morning at the Dogs Bluff bridge. Downstream an hour later, in the Paw-Paw bottoms, I saw a mallard hen swimming amongst falling leaves in the midst of the eddy, and Dad paddled slowly forward, finally turning the boat sideways so he wouldn’t have to shoot over my head.  The mallard flushed and Dad’s old 97 Winchester roared and I was elated. We’d have wild duck for dinner that week.

       Downstream about an hour later, a young fox squirrel climbed high into the branches of a riverside maple, and Dad shot it. No river duck hunt took place back then without 2 or 3 fox squirrels being part of trip. This fox squirrel though, fell dead into the crotch of tree limbs and stuck there, about 20 feet above the river’s edge. That was an historic site for me as I grew older, because it was just below where the old Lone Star Mill house had once stood, the place where my grandfather had spent many years raising a family. Dad had grown up there. In the book “Little Home on the Piney” which I wrote about my dad’s boyhood, there are many pages about, and many pictures of, that old mill from the 1930’s when he was a kid. 

       Dad thought he was a better climber than he was, and he wasn’t about to let a squirrel he killed go to waste. So he climbed the tree in hip-wader rubber boots and as he reached for the squirrel he slipped. I still remember that awful sight. The bank was steep and large roots grew out above the water. Dad’s body crashed against those roots and he fell into the water, unconscious for a few seconds. Back then I was so small, only about five-foot tall and less than 100 pounds. Dad was six-foot-three and more than 200 pounds.  His face was bleeding badly and he was in tremendous pain from several broken bones. But the water was only about two feet deep and as he reached out and grabbed those roots, I got into the water and tried my best to help him. 

       Somehow he crawled up to a level spot above the water and just lay there on his back, blood all over his face, moaning and gasping. You cannot imagine my fear. I just knew I was watching my dad die, but he was able to tell me how to get to the highway a mile away. I was very fast back then, and a good fence climber. I couldn’t find the little lane that came down to the old mill, but I didn’t need to. I remember dashing through a hundred yards of woodland to a green field, where I easily cleared a fence, seeing a big bull with horns there that just increased my fear.

 

       He headed toward me but no bull that ever lived could have caught me that day. Thank God the first car stopped, a green 1950 Ford driven by someone my dad had considered his enemy. That in itself is one of the most amazing stories which came from that day. I’ll tell it later! The man knew of the old lane to the mill, and in a matter of minutes we were getting my father in the car and heading to the doctors office in Houston. The way he was grimacing in pain stretched across the back seat, and all the blood on his face made me sure he was about to die, and no eleven-year-old kid ever prayed like I did that day.

 

       While I waited outside the doctor’s office, Mom assured me Dad was not going to die, an assurance that didn’t help much, with all the tears running down her face.

As I waited and prayed, a tall man with a big smile came in and knelt down beside me and asked if I would go with him to retrieve our boat and dad’s shotgun. His name was Charles Hartman Jr. I had seen him before, he was my dad’s friend and they fished together and he and his wife and young son had been at our house many times. But I didn’t know him, really. Charlie knew perfectly well how to get to that boat, but he wanted me to show him where it was, I think he knew I needed to get my mind off of dad’s plight. He and I, he told me, had to float it all the way down to Mineral Springs ford where his wife Evelyn would be waiting with dad’s pick-up. It was a trip that took a few hours, but one I will remember forever.

 

       That day Mr. Hartman took the tears off my face by talking about everything I needed to hear… how tough my dad was and how he’d be back on the river with me, likely the next week-end. With strong sure strokes he paddled us over swift shoals and through quiet eddies and talked about the beautiful day and how wonderful it was to have a day on the Piney in the Fall. He was not at all quiet or sad. I don’t know that he even knew how bad my father was, but he quickly convinced me that if my Mom would have let him, Dad would have been with us right then, floating down the river. Everything was going to be alright.

       By the time we arrived at Mineral Springs, the tears were gone, and I knew a man who was to become one of our family’s greatest supports, my father’s closest friend and brother, and the only man I would ever put on the same level as my Dad. The only one!

       So fast forward to the first Saturday of November, sixty-one years later. I was in Houston to attend the funeral of Charles Hartman Jr. Don’t you know my mind kept wandering back to that Saturday exactly sixty-one years ago. There isn’t enough room in the allotted space for this column to continue with what I want to say about that special man… so I will conclude this column next week. I hope you can make it a point to read it.

If Boone Had Only Had a Drone..or maybe a trail camera!

         If you know how to work a trail cam, you can start feeding deer corn in late September and see what bucks are using the area, and when they are passing through.  Today’s trophy hunters know all about that.  Those are the people who start giving you antler numbers which tell you what buck is a trophy and what isn’t.  Even some of my close friends do that, and it is revolting to me, perhaps because of the way my dad raised me.  He told me often that when a man hunts or fishes he should never look at a wild creature as a trophy.

 

         Dad said that all living things we hunt or catch should be considered valuable as a creation of God.  If it doesn’t serve a purpose as such it should not be killed.  Of course when I first started observing the ritual of deer hunting back in the 1950’s deer hunting had not been allowed for several decades.  But those old outdoorsmen who came in Dad’s pool hall knew how to find and hunt bucks.  No one would think of killing a doe!! Old Bill Stalder and Old Jim Splechter didn’t hunt bucks only because they were wanting trophies, they were wanting to leave does to raise all the fawns they could.

 

         Antlers were nailed to the barn or shed back then, the hides were tanned and used and every ounce of meat went on the table during the upcoming winter.  Back then, no one was keeping records and no antlers were valuable, no matter what size they were.  I remember talking to a city hunter just a few years back who told me how the Missouri Department of Conservation had “brought back the deer and turkey.”

 

         I told him the MDC had never stocked one deer or one turkey, and I know because I was there.  It was the biologists, (who never called themselves that) of the MISSOURI CONSERVATION COMMISSION who did that.  They started stocking whitetail deer well before I was born, and the men who started it and carried it out are forgotten people, most of them dead many years.  Today’s deer hunters owe them a debt of gratitude, but their names are long forgotten.

 

         By 1960 they were still stocking wild turkey, and as a 12- year-old boy, I remember seeing some of that as they were stocked on the Big Piney and on a local landowner’s forested land.  The landowner who worked with those MCC people was Nolan Hutcheson. Landowners like Nolan made it happen and they respected the Missouri Conservation Commission and what they were doing.

         Today there are lots and lots of really big, measurable ‘”Trophy Bucks” in the Ozarks and those game cameras and modern tree stands make them much, much easier to kill than those that Ol’ Bill and  Ol’ Jim took every fall.  Now we have another device that makes it even easier.

         I have a good friend from Wisconsin by the name of Al Narveson who hunted deer with a bow in cornfields where the corn was still standing.  He told me once that big bucks in September would get in the middle of those cornfields and bed down in the afternoon and he would sneak down the rows with his bow, into the wind, and often walk right up on them.  It took lots of walking but he killed a lot of bucks that way.

         Today all that is simplified by using drones to fly over the corn and film what is in it.  You can pinpoint bucks that way, then sneak up on them.  I don’t know if any Ozark hunters do that yet, but it is coming.  Drones will make late-season hunting, after the leaves are gone, so much easier… especially with a skiff of snow.  Bedded down deer in thickets will show up like an unpeeled potato in a platter of gravy.  And you can figure out just how a buck will “score” and how to go after him. A Boone and Crockett set of antlers could be yours with such a drone.  Knowing what kind of men Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone were, I’ll bet they’d raise heck with their names being associated with many of the ‘trophy hunters’ of today.

         I have killed my share of the kind of bucks those kind of hunters want. I have long known that I could go up to northern Manitoba and take antlers in a habitat where no trees grow higher than 15 feet.  There are bucks there like no one in the Ozarks has seen.  What a hunting device a drone would be there. But when I am there the deer just do not interest me as much as the incoming ducks and geese.

 

         I will hunt no more deer.   I will hunt ducks while the woods is filled with blaze orange.  Part of that is because I know a lot about the TSE disease spreading through deer herds.  But too, sitting in a deer stand for hours and then working your butt off to dress and drag out a buck gets old as I get old. I would never ever take a deer to a processing plant, so I spend most of an afternoon cutting one up and grinding up what won’t make steaks.

         Deer season sometimes kept me from some great fishing in past years, or from pheasant hunts back in the days when southern Iowa still had some cover and some birds; and as to watching deer, or killing one, I can do that a hundred yards behind my house.  I can tell you this; nothing in the woods in mid-November can compare to the sight of mallards on cupped wings over a block of decoys.

A High Sandy Hilltop instead of MO deer and possible disease

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         This November may be the first one in many, many years in which I do not spend any time hunting deer.  I think I will drive up to northeast Nebraska’s sand-hills to talk with ranch owners and ask permission to hunt prairie chickens and sharp-tail grouse in the high hills… and waterfowl in the small waters of the lowlands.  It has been many years since I have been there, but in the fall it is beautiful, as small shrubs seldom reaching 10 feet in height burst into color.

 

         To hunt those hills, you must have really good leather boots because of the small cactus balls as thick as mice in an Ozark barn.  And my Labrador will have to have the special leather foot coverings made for dogs.  No dog in the sand-hills should be without them. The sight of my dogs trying to run and shake off those leather foot coverings at the same time was one of the funniest sights I have ever seen.

        Sharp-tail grouse and prairie chicken are seldom together; the sharp-tails are usually higher in the sand-hills, and prairie chicken much lower.  I think that hunting ducks there has perhaps given me the best waterfowling memories of all because there are so many species there now and head-high reeds mean you can hide at the edge of open water without preparing a blind.   The best thing about it is, there is no mud, the substrate is solid sand and wading and hiding in those small shallow lakes is so easy. The last time I was there, every time I shot a duck, wild turkey gobblers would sound off a mile or so away.  It was late October, but those Merriam’s gobblers, which you could call up with a squeaky gate hinge, were acting like it was spring.

  

         One of the ranchers told me I could kill a couple of the gobblers roosting in tall cottonwood trees around his home because the turkeys were getting too thick.  They had few places to roost but in those trees beneath which he wanted grass and flowers to grow, and their droppings were killing everything.  At that time a fall turkey tag for non- residents was only 25 dollars.  Every time I hear some turkey hunter talking about killing a ‘grand slam’ in turkey hunting, which consists of four species of wild turkey, I have to grin.  Merriam’s gobblers are on a difficulty scale about equal to leghorn roosters as a challenge.  I shot several with my camera.

   

       But there was that one morning that I climbed to the knoll of the highest sand hill around, and as the wind tried to carry away my cap and my Labrador ranged before me, still trying to shake off those leather boots, that I noticed a movement in the grasses before me and four or five sharp-tail grouse took to flight before us.  I dropped two of them, and my Lab ignored those boots long enough to joyously find and retrieve them both.

 

         I was hunting that year with the publisher of Gun Dog Magazine, Dave Meisner, one of the best hunting partners ever.  We had camped next to a windmill on a rancher’s property, where there was green grass around the pure water it was pumping. One evening while we were cooking beef stew on a Coleman stove, we watched wild ducks circle a waterhole nearby. At the same time, wild gobblers sounded off a mile or so distant as they flew up to roost.  Shortly afterward, as prairie chicken do, a small group flew down into the bottoms from a place halfway up a nearby sand hill and they sailed past the glowing sunset to our west.  I want to see that again, and will in few days, maybe for the last time as the years roll by.  So in my winter magazine to be published in December, you might read a full feature story about wonderful fall days in Nebraska’s sand hills.

         I will never hunt deer again because of what I know, and continue to learn, about the TSE disease spread amongst deer by deadly prions.  If everyone knew what I knew, from reading everything I can about the disease and talking to dozens of medical people and researchers, there would be lots of folks spending their spare time fishing, all the way through the deer season.  I never was a trophy hunter, and always prepared my own venison, and hunted because I wanted to have venison steaks, venison hamburger, jerky, etc.  In time, the truth about how that disease can and has spread to humans will come out, but it will be awhile.

         I cannot print what I have learned in my columns which go to many, many newspapers, because few feel they can use them because of various repercussions they might face.  I can only say that there are those depending on deer hunting for millions of dollars in tag sales and ammunition sales, etc, and they are not letting the truth come out.  You can read about the prion disease called CWD, scrapies, TSE and mad cow disease in my winter magazine. Much of that comes from interviews with researchers who have been studying the disease. My latest conversations have been with a biologist at Texas A and M university who has spent seven years trying to learn all she can about the disease as it occurs in deer and other mammals… and humans.  When I asked her if there is proof that the disease can occur in humans from eating venison, her answer was a resounding yes.  “It not only can,” she told me, “it has!  And there is solid proof of that.”

         On the radio and television I hear appeals from conservation agencies in several states to trophy deer hunters to donate their venison to “share your harvest” programs, where meat goes through various and various butchering processes which involve large numbers of deer in a short period of time. How are the saws cleaned after each one?  Think about that, and think about what it takes to destroy prions.   It is then donated to the poor, people who know nothing of the TSE disease, many never hearing the word “prion”.  As for me, I wouldn’t eat that venison for all the money in a politician’s bank account.  It does seem like a great humanitarian program though…and if you want to get a trophy for the wall it is against the law to just leave the deer to rot in the woods. So give it to the poor, chances are slim that it will lead to the prion disease, right?

  

         As one doctor told me, “People who have died from TSE are almost always misdiagnosed… thought to have died from something else.”  That was found to be the case when several elderly people who was said to have died from a very rapidly developing Alzheimer disease were found to have prions in their brain.  I really believe that is what happened to an outdoor writer I knew a few years ago who killed deer and elk and ate both.

         

        

Larry Dablemont's Newest Book will be out Before Christmas

well here it is... finally done after 6 years of trying to get it out there, printing 5000 copies this week. 288 pages, dozens of old photos. i will number the first 100 printed, and sign and inscribe each to whomever wants one. Should make a good Christmas present for someone who likes to read and fish at the same time!!! 15 bucks postpaid, call 417-777-5227 to get one of those numbered copies with a credit card, or mail a 15 dollar check to Recollections... Lightnin Ridge Publishng Co., Box 22, Bolivar MO  65613

We CAN do Something

                

Whippoorwill on her nest

         To follow up on last week’s column I think someone somewhere had better begin to think about finding ways to raise whippoorwill fledglings in a captive environment for release into the wild. That may be the answer in the wake of constantly increasing numbers of woodland predators that eat the bird’s eggs. As I pointed out last week, birds which nest in woodlands face problems from opossums, skunks, armadillos, black snakes, weasels and raccoons.

         I believe that in 20 or 30 years, whippoorwills will likely be unknown in all of the Ozarks. Such a thing has happened before, with ruffed grouse, once plentiful throughout the Ozarks.  Their disappearance was due to other factors, but likely they will never be found here again.

         Ornithologists need to start tackling the likelihood that woodcock, whippoorwills and other woodland birds will follow in the plight of the grouse, and it needs to be done right now.  But truthfully, in a future generation of Ozarkers, the presence of many of our ground-nesting birds may not matter.  The reduction of those small predatory furbearers seems to be impossible.  Even the major diseases that once held them in check is not doing much to affect them now.  Distemper often runs through raccoon populations in deadly proportions but it seems to have no long-range affect.  They bounce right back and numbers keep rising because fur prices keep dropping, and coon hunters and trappers are as rare as whippoorwills now.

 

         We should have biologists talking about the problems facing wild turkey right now, as well as those other ground nesters.  But no one is.  Biologists in another time would have been, I think.  And I don’t believe the problem is hopeless and unsolvable.

         Could we eliminate the armadillo in the Ozarks?  Not likely!  But making folks aware of what is happening might help in keeping the number of those non-native intruders down to about a third or even a fourth of what we have now, and that would certainly help. On my place I feel I could do better than that.

        

         I don’t know that I have the only answers to the problem and I won’t write about this again for those of you who would rather read something more encouraging.  But this is a problem too with the wild turkey, reduced in number for about 8 or 9 consecutive years in much of the Ozarks. Wild turkey reductions will affect turkey tag sales. A prospective loss of money usually brings a response from our state conservation department. Some serious reductions need to be made in hunting seasons RIGHT NOW, or there will be few gobblers where there once were many.

 

         What would my solutions be?  I would end the fall season on wild turkey until numbers rebound, cut the spring season to nine days, which allows two weekends beginning after April 25 to allow maximum nesting attempts. I would allow each hunter only one gobbler each and because of all that I would cut the cost of a spring turkey tag. I would end the youth season entirely for awhile.  In a future column I will talk more about that youth season and what is happening with it. A youth deer season is fine, but a youth turkey season is a problem now and I will tell you why next spring. Any youngster who is taken turkey hunting by an adult during that special youth weekend, can also be taken on such a hunt the first or second weekend of a regular April season.

  

         You can express your own views on all of this, and what we are seeing with decreasing numbers of wild turkey and other woodland birds and what we might do to change things. I will use reader letters in my winter outdoor magazines, whether you agree with me or not. Send those to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo 65613. Or email me your opinion, at lightninridge47@gmail.com.

Deadfall trigger

        I have had some questions from landowners about the use of deadfalls, as a means of killing skunks and possums and especially armadillos.  The reason they were outlawed years ago is because they are so

Bait is tied to the end of the trigger then the large, heavy rock is placed on top.

dangerous to smaller house pets, cats and dogs.  Deadfalls do not kill large dogs or coyotes nor bobcats, unless they are set with a great deal of weight involved. You can make the triggers for 20 deadfalls in very little time and there is almost no cost involved. You likely cannot afford enough live traps to make a difference.  When deadfalls were used by my dad and uncles in the 1930’s they were baited with fish heads.  But if you use them for armadillos, control the weight. It is easy to set 20 deadfalls, using large flat rocks, or even shallow wooden boxes filled with rocks.  Be sure that such a deadfall is no threat to medium sized dogs. As for cats, if they are found in woodlands deep in your forest, they are likely feral cats and they are as much of a problem as any other predator, perhaps more so.  Deadfalls are tremendously effective for skunks, opossums and armadillos, and it takes no great knowledge to use them. I am not one to break laws. Once upon another time they were necessary and made sense. Ninety percent of them still make sense and should be followed.  But the deadfall law only makes sense around places where pets are endangered by their use. The threat from great numbers of armadillos and these skyrocketing populations of egg-eaters is something we have to deal with as best as we can.  A recent report from national ornithology groups which actually hire qualified ornithologists, naturalists and biologists, says that in only a matter of a few years, numbers of wild birds in our nation have decreased by 30 percent.  And I think it is likely that 60 percent or more of Americans today really don’t give a darn. They live in cities, towns and suburbs where they feel birds aren’t too important.  Most of the ones they see are pigeons, sparrows and starlings, and there are plenty of them. It is likely that birds will survive best on the acreages of country folks who value them greatly and want to do something to keep them. People who treasure wild things and wild places. I would like to someday restock whippoorwills on my places.  But to make it work I have to do what I can do to wipe out armadillos if I can, and reduce numbers of predator furbearers to a level we had back in long ago times.