For the Birds

 

             LITTLE GREEN HERON ON THE BIG PINEY RIVER

I spoke to a college ornithology class about birds a few years back.  I think my talk went over really well except for my woodpecker recipes.  I myself have had a great fascination with birds since I was very small.  I wanted to grow up and be a waterfowl biologist as dad and I floated the Big Piney River in the fall, sneaking up on wood ducks and mallards and many other species of wild migrators. John James Audubon and I had that much in common.  He loved to study birds, and he actually killed and skinned and stuffed hundreds and hundreds of birds, so he could study them closely. Modern day bird-watchers don’t like to hear that.      

When I was a kid, I didn’t care much for school.  I couldn’t get outside enough, drawn to that greater classroom. Birds drew me to the woods and the river year round, watching various species come and go according to the season. Once a kingfisher lit on our blind as we floated the river hunting ducks.  He was perched there only for a few seconds, a couple of feet from my face.  I found a book which told all about them, how they nest in tunnels back into the river bank, and the nest is so filled with fish bones it appears they might be using them to shore up the tunnel.

The little green herons that were so numerous along the river in the fall always fascinated me, they didn’t appear to have any green on them whatsoever, but rather a purple, rusty color, a mean look in their eye and more patience than I could imagine.  As we would float along, you’d see one of those ‘shikepokes’, as Grandpa called them, at a shallow spot, intensely staring into the water, as still as a statue.  They might not move a feather for five minutes or more, and then when the time was right they would strike with lightning quickness, and come up with a small fish or minnow.

 I am no less fascinated by birds now, and have developed a bird sanctuary here on Lightnin’ Ridge, in the heart of the Ozarks.  It is a ridge-top of big timber, old growth oak-hickory woodlands, and there is a tremendous variety of birds here.  Right now I have a pair of Baltimore orioles which likely have some eggs in a sock-like nest somewhere close.  They are large, beautifully colored birds, black and orange and white, and they love grape jelly. You can put out what you want, but orioles love that jelly above and beyond anything else. You see them for about a month, and hear them chattering in the trees in the back yard, but then they are gone.  Behind them comes the secretive rain-crows, or yellow-billed cuckoos, which are heard a great deal, but seldom seen in those high white-oak branches where they nest. 

Lightnin' Ridge Rain Crow

    Bluebirds nest in the boxes I put out for them, and a pair of mockingbirds nest each year in a cedar and redbud thicket behind the garden.  Brown thrashers nest in something called an almond bush. Blue grosbeaks feed at the feeders, similar in color to indigo buntings, which we have a lot of also. The grosbeaks are a little larger than the metallic blue buntings, and have rusty wing patches.  There are fly-catchers, wrens, kingbirds, summer tanagers and rose-breasted grosbeaks. In a little wet opening in the back of the woods, I saw a woodcock mother with tiny chicks a couple of years ago. There are several species of woodpeckers and two big pileated woodpeckers can often be seen right out of my office window.

Lightnin' Ridge Blue Grosbeak

We no longer hear the chuck-wills-widows and whippoorwills calling at night. Both are pretty sure bets to flirt with extinction soon.  But there are screech owls, and barred owls on my wooded ridge and all summer long it is easy to call them right up into the oak branches next to the porch.  It is also easy to call in the bobwhite cocks which run around in circles below my screened porch, beside themselves with excitement, whistling their heads off, looking for that hen that isn’t there.

You are welcome to come sit on my porch with me and drink coffee or tea and watch the birds. It might be noted, and often is remarked about by visitors, that Lightnin’ Ridge is sort of an unkempt place at times, with unmowed grass a little too high and raspberry thickets allowed to grow fairly close to the house.  But then again, no one ever complains about hearing the music of so many different kinds of birds. I don’t know how anyone lives without birds, certainly I never have, and will not.  I have been told there’s lots of money in clearing your land, selling the logs and putting in acres of grass to feed herds of cattle.  And I have been told the craziest thing in the world is someone who thinks he is rich because he has a forest full of wild birds all around his house.   There are lots of ways to be rich.

Arm-Chair Fishing

 

       

My daughter, Christy, with a nice crappie

         About an hour before sunset I maneuvered the big pontoon boat across the wide and windy waters of Stockton Lake. I found a good spot of calm water out of the wind, off an eastern-facing bluff. I stretched a rope between two trees sticking up out of forty feet of water.  I have done a similar thing over the past forty years in Bull Shoals, Norfork, Beaver, and Truman lakes.  I could write a whole book about those nighttime trips in which many species of fish have been boated.  

         It is fascinating what happens at night from that pontoon boat with submerged lights radiating a bright glow from beneath the boat.  I had food and coffee and a bed arranged in the back of that covered big camp-style boat.  I would spend the night there.  A big cooler with ice in it most often gets filled with fish by one or two in the morning.

         But there I sat that night on Stockton, watching the little water creatures swarm around my light while darkness settled.  By ten o’clock, there were swarms of tiny gammarus, (fresh-water shrimp) clouding the water around the lights,  with small fish only an inch or two long.  I had my rod setting there beside me, with a live minnow on a hook, 26 feet beneath me.  Nothing had touched it for an hour and a half.  On the bank, a trio of young coons came by and passed, searching for an easy meal. A heron flew by and squawked at me. I thought I heard a whippoorwill across the lake.  They are rare anymore, especially this early.  In the distance, a boat motor roared past.  The Coleman lantern hissed a little, and insects began to swarm around it, so I turned it off, no light now above board.  At 10:30 I still hadn’t had a strike and I was getting sleepy.  The sleeping bag seemed more attractive as each minute passed.  I got up and drank a cup of hot coffee as the night cooled… put on a jacket too.

         I wasn’t going to sit there fishless much longer!  Seemed as if it would be one of those nights.  Maybe I would climb in the sleeping bag, which one of my fishing partners jokingly refers to as a ‘fartsack’, sleep a couple of hours and then sample the waters beneath the light again.  Then about a quarter to eleven, it happened.  The tip of my rod bobbed ever so slightly and the taut line beneath it slacked just a mite.  I grabbed it and set the hook and the resistance below me told me I had a crappie.  He stayed right beneath me, as crappie do, and I lifted him up to admire a 13-inch black crappie which meant that the sleeping bag would wait a good while.  

         Five minutes later, with a fresh minnow dropped into the depths, I was wide awake and holding on to my light action rod, when I felt a slight jolt.  Another crappie, this one a little bigger than the last.  I put him in the ice chest and nailed another, then another.  By midnight, there were seven or eight crappie flopping around on the floor beside me.  I just didn’t have time to quit baiting a hook and bending that rod, as I fought the results of a crappie school beneath me.   Then a fish nailed the minnow hard and headed for the main lake.  White bass do that, and you know what it is when you have hooked one beneath the lights. White bass really outdo a crappie and it took a couple of minutes to tire him.  He was too big to lift aboard.  I netted him and admired a two pound female white bass that was full of eggs in early May.  Weird, but that’s the way it is.

           Often you will catch egg-laden whites that should have spawned up some tributary back in April.  But there are those that stay out in the lake and spawn on rocky points or perhaps not at all, reabsorbing eggs for some reason or another.  We could discuss scientific reasons for that but not tonight.  Tonight by 2.a.m I have my limit of crappie and none are less than 12 inches long.  Two are 15 inches in length and most between 13 and 14 inches.  In that ice chest there are a dozen white bass and none are under two pounds. I threw back smaller ones. A couple of them exceed three pounds.

           There is also a 19-inch walleye.  I realize that if I keep fishing I might land another walleye, maybe two.  But the fart-sack will be warm.  It is easy to drift off to sleep with the slight bobbing of the pontoon boat in gentle waves.  Just after first light, the noise and the waves of a passing motor boat wake me up, but so what, I will sleep longer and wait for sun rays to hit the pontoon through the fog.  There are some cinnamon rolls and warm coffee to heat up on the camp stove.  If there was room here I would tell you about the stripers caught in Beaver Lake beneath the lights, or the big trout we use to hook in Bull Shoals, or where you catch the night-crappie in Truman Lake.  I would love to tell you about the threadfin shad that only exist in Arkansas waters.  What a bait they are when you fish beneath the lights.  I use to catch many species of fish there on those threadfin shad, including a 16-pound walleye a partner landed on night in May of 1975.

         But you can learn about all that in my book “Recollections of an Old-Fashioned angler, a 288-page book about 70 years of fishing experiences. That book or any of my others can be ordered from the Internet, www.larrydablemont.com or you can call my office, 417 777 5227.  E-mail me at lightninridge47@ gmail.com.  I urge readers to read what I have written lately about the Missouri Department of Conservation, which cannot be printed in newspapers.  You can find those columns on www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com.

The River… Diversity

 

 

 

          The best time of the year to take a two- or three-day float trip is during early May, if you  can plan around the high water and thunderstorms this time of year.

         It is usually warm enough during the day for wading shoes, but you need dry clothing and a jacket during the evening hours. There are many migrating birds to see, some nesting eagles and wood ducks guiding their ducklings to cover as you pass. In the spring, fish begin to hit a lure just as well during the middle of the day as they do early and late.  And if you set a trotline baited with live bait, you will have a good chance of catching a big flathead catfish at night.  When you float rivers through National Forestland, you can hunt turkeys too. 

         Several years ago when there were still a few gobblers to be heard, I floated a river not far from home in early May and had a great day fishing. I was catching fish on everything from topwater lures to spinner baits. I took my shotgun along, and my turkey call, hoping I might get a young gobbler to answer me.  As we floated along, I'd use the call every now and then, and then go back to fishing.  Along about 10 one morning I picked up the call, stroked it a few times and I'll be darn if I didn't hear a reply in a small field beside us.  I didn't hear it very strong, but it was for sure a gobbler I had heard.

         I got out on a nearby gravel bar and set up in a fringe of big trees beside the field, hid myself well and began to call.  In thirty minutes, they were all around me, two young jakes and several hens. I picked out a Jake that looked fatter than the other one, and a while later, took a photo with a hefty stringer of bass and the turkey, laid out on the gravel bar.  

         If you take a notion to float a river for two or three days in May, make a check list before you go, so you can travel as light as possible and still have what you need.  Don't load up with canned goods and canned drinks; bring a good supply of water and mixes that give you what you need to have good meals.  But traveling the river isn't like backpacking; you have room to take enough supplies and gear to live comfortably.  A light tent needs a plastic cover over it if there should be heavy rain.  Use that cover to protect your gear during the day from any rain.  Take some dry clothes, but not a suitcase full.  Take raingear, a good flashlight and lantern and a camp stove and a camper's cook-set.

         But for Pete's sake, don't tackle two or three days on the river in a 17-foot double ender canoe, the capsize and chaos craft made for going fast and getting wet in. I use an 18 or 19-foot square stern canoe, or one of the paddle johnboats that Ozark float-fishermen use.  If you haven't learned to paddle a canoe or johnboat from one side all day long, you are at a real handicap.  But anyone can learn that with some practice.

         Recently I caught a 16-inch smallmouth, which fought like a tiger, then shortly afterward, a 21-inch largemouth, which gave a short struggle and gave up.  With his length, he should have weighed five pounds, but he was long and skinny.  His head made up seven inches of his 21-inch length.   He was an old male, and I'll bet he was 10 or 12 years old.  No doubt he had accounted for restocking the river with thousands of young bass, but he was too tired to fight much.  Most anglers know that in the spring of the year, it is the male bass that guards the eggs on a bed, and protects the young fry which hatch.  You could see that responsibility had taken a toll on him.

         Sometime this spring, try using minnows the way Canadians fish for walleye.  Use a 1/8th or 1/16th ounce jig head, and a long shank hook, which can be passed through the minnow's mouth, out the gill opening and through the back below the dorsal fin.  If you do it right, it keeps the minnow alive, even though it sounds very uncomfortable for the minnow.  But in such a manner, you can cast a minnow and retrieve it with a light action rod and spinning tackle.  You'll need lots of minnows, as the one you are casting gets jerked off the hook and time and may get fairly bedraggled after 8 or 10 casts.  But on the retrieve, the minnow looks very lifelike and it's deadly for walleye and crappie both.  At least it works very well in Canada.

You can contact me by email… lightninridge47@gmail.com.  I urge you to visit my site… larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com to read a special article there.