A Great Day at a Great Place

  

         I have been letting people know through this column of the outdoorsman’s swap meet I am holding at our now-finished ‘nature center-museum’ building a mile south of Houston MO on Hwy 63, come Saturday, October 26. We have spaces for a half dozen more “vendors”.  Vendors, being someone who brings a table and sells outdoor gear… old fishing lures, old guns, etc.  There is no cost so if you want to come join us, please let me know so I can save you one of those spaces.  If you have an old gun or two, or only a few fishing items, or any kind of antiques (old tools, old paddles, etc), bring them and I will try to sell them for you at my table.

         If you just want to come and see what we have, show up between 9 and 3 and you might win a valuable painting of the Big Piney River, done by nationally known Duane Hada, an Arkansas wildlife artist and river ecologist who has no equal in painting the Ozarks. He intends to do a painting that morning which we will raffle off. 

         Jerry McCoy, the Ozarks historian and antique fishing gear guru will be there to tell folks stories about the rivers he has been a part of and the experiences he has had.   I also believe there will be several old shotguns and rifles on sale, and perhaps 500 fishing lures for sale, many of them antiques.  You can’t miss the place, because we will have signs up and a big banner out front along south highway 63. 

         After the swap meet event we will begin putting in displays relating to old times on the Big Piney River.  We are looking for a large aquarium, four feet long or better. We already have a big antique pool table which was made in 1920 called a Victory Table and was made by the St. Louis A.E. Schmidt Company and brought to Houston when it was new.  It sat inside the pool hall where I worked as a kid until it was sold in the 1980’s.  I bought it a few years later and in December of this year we will use it to have a pool tournament.  There will also be a 15-foot johnboat on one wall, built by my dad and I and was used on the Big Piney many years ago.  The real antique boat is the 22-foot aluminum johnboat that was the first one built in Missouri in 1951. It has a serial number of 0001 and was built for the old Missouri Conservation Commission to use on the Big Piney and Gasconade Rivers. It was said to have carried some of the most famous Missourians down the river, including Thomas Hart Benton, Harry Truman, Charley Schwartz and Stan Musial.  I discovered it sitting in an old barn. 

         There will also be displays of many artifacts made by the early bluff dwellers from hundreds and even thousands of years ago, who lived in the many caves along the Big Piney River.  That includes a 4-inch-round ivory disc pendant said to be the only ivory artifact ever found in the Ozarks.  Radiocarbon testing proves it to be 8,000 years old, likely from a tusk of a mastodon.  There will be lots of other things, from the history of the people, the fish, mammals and birds of the Big Piney River. And it is free for all who want to visit, even as we go about putting up the displays.  

         Anyone who wants to help can do so.  We will put up a donation box so that those who want to donate can help pay the electric and water bills.  We will have no cash register and our nature center will be manned by volunteers, free to all who come. It will be a place where old-time rivermen and  float fishing guides like Charlie Curran, Dennis Whiteside, and me can tell about our river experiences. Charlie floated the Piney in the 1940’s. and Dennis once the Chief Naturalist for Arkansas, can tell you about his experiences as a river guide and fish and wild creatures in the Big Piney as well.  In the winter we will have a big fire going in the fireplace, coffee and donuts, checker boards and domino and card tables for visitors and old-time Ozarkians who might tell a few good stories about the old days. 

          This place has been a dream of mine for many years and the Great Creator has allowed it to happen thru a series of miracles and some special people. From this article I am sure you can feel how excited I am about this Nature Center and Museum and I hope many of you can be with me to celebrate the beginning of many great days to come there. Contact me at email, lightninridge47@gmail.com or call me, 417 777 5227 to reserve a space at our swapmeet.

Who Wants a Used Mower?

 

         Dad and I closed up the pool hall one late summer night, noting that we had only accumulated a total of 16 dollars as a result of the entire day’s business. That wasn’t a good day, but it was a good day to float the Piney rather than play pool.

         Today there are few 13-year-old kids worrying about family finances, but I really stressed over those hard times when Dad was worried about paying the pool hall’s electric bill. I offered my ideas on saving money. One was the elimination of my regular haircuts. About every month Dad would come to the pool hall before Main Street businesses closed and send me across the street to the barber shop, in a day when Mr. Holder, the barber, thought that if there was any hair within 3 inches of your ear, it ought to be whacked off. If I had had the nerve to be rebellious, I would have had a fit about that.

         I’d go back to the pool hall after a hair cut and the old men would all have some kind of smart-aleck remark about how much lower my ears were growing all of a sudden, or how good I smelled. So I told Dad that I figured he was spending about 20 dollars a year on my haircuts, and that was one whole good day’s profit in the pool hall, and an absolute waste of money. He thought I was on to something there, and proposed perhaps having Uncle Roy cut my hair. 

         Uncle Roy had three sons and if he had taken all three of them to a barber shop, the annual outlay on haircuts for him would have been about 60 dollars. His sons, Butch, Dave and Darb, always looked a little scalped, like me and most boys back then, so none us relished a haircut delivered on the back porch by Uncle Roy. I wonder to this day if I would have had more success with girls if I had ever had hair long enough to see if it curled or not.

         Eventually I convinced Mr. Holder, who liked to play golf, that if he would cut my hair free, I would keep him supplied with almost new golf balls I found scouring the weeds around the golf course, which sat up above the river next to the McKinney Hole only a little ways from our home. Other golfer-pool players, like Shorty Evans, found out about that and I began to make some pretty good money finding and selling lost golf balls for a quarter. When you combine that with the money I made in the summer guiding fishermen on the Piney River, you can understand how I could sometimes accumulate a pretty good sockful of money in my secret hiding place. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Dad, but you can see how a man hard-pressed to raise a family in that time might be tempted to borrow a little if he knew where I kept that sock. And I never did think that float trip arrangement was fair. I paddled the old wooden johnboat all day for three or four dollars and Dad got three dollars for renting the boat! 

         One of those old timers at the pool hall said that when he was a kid, his dad gave him a nickel to go without supper, then snuck in a stole it out of his overalls pocket while he was asleep, and wouldn’t let him have any breakfast because he had lost the nickel!

That kind of childhood didn’t seem to have any lasting affect on him though, as he was fairly rotund and happy. But you could make an argument that he suffered psychologically, since he showed up at every church picnic and ate some or all of everything. He would dang near empty our penny peanut machine every time he came in and would put a handful of peanuts in his soda pop. You could argue he was trying to hide them from someone, going back to his boyhood and those stolen nickels.

         It might be good to go back to a time when we could trade used golf balls for a haircut. Bartering worked really well once, in a time when Grandpa McNew traded a shoat for a 1949 Chevrolet pickup, then traded a bushel of potatoes and a dozen eggs to have some neighbor fix it so it would run. Maybe that kind of thing wouldn’t work today in the city, but it would here in the country.  I have a lawn mower that I would trade for a good fishing reel or a box of .22 shells. 

         I never have wanted a lawn mower.  Do you realize the futility of mowing a lawn when you live out in the country? Mowing a patch of weeds like the ones that make up my lawn might kill a baby rabbit or two, or mash some whippoorwill eggs or ruin a patch of wild flowers about to bloom. And what good will it do? The whole thing grows back in a couple of weeks just like it was.  I’d druther fish than mow.  Let winter take care of the weeds!

         

 

The above story is a shortened excerpt from my new book, “The Buck That Kilt the Widow Jones.”   To get a copy, call my office, 417 777 5227. And read other articles and the story about how the local sheriff’s office tried to charge me with trespassing at a local place on a day when I was 50 miles away! That’s on… www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com

The Evils of Gambling

 

                 Bill and Joe estimating size of a bass
 

 I have a few long-time friends, but not many!  There are a lot of differences in them. Take Joe for instance.  He is apt to underestimate the weight of my fish, the distance of a good shot, the length of a turkey beard, that kind of thing. Bill, on the other hand is bad to exaggerate. I have seen him declare that a fish he caught would weigh six pounds and turn it loose before anyone could argue. As an outdoor writer, I have to strictly adhere to the facts. If I fold a flying mallard at 50 yards I just can’t report that it was 60. When I catch a six-pound bass, you can pretty much figure him to be right there, give or take a few ounces due to climatological factors.

       On a recent summer float trip, we all agreed to put a quarter on the biggest smallmouth, a quarter on the biggest largemouth, a quarter on the first fish and a quarter on the most fish. Since we turn them loose anyway, it isn’t necessary to pull one in the boat and put him to all that stress. If a bass gets loose on his own and we get a good look at him, that counts. It’s a situation where a fisherman can make a couple of dollars if he does well, and he can lose a dollar if he don’t. I don’t like to brag, but one summer I came out two and a half dollars ahead.

       We headed down the river one late summer morning in my 19-foot square-sterned canoe, which is the way folks ought to fish. Two of my daughters own kayaks, and I feel awful about that. It is very disturbing how kids nowadays often forsake the solid upbringing of their parents. Grizzled old veteran outdoorsmen will not be seen in a red or yellow kayak. Heck, I’ve caught fish big enough to sink one of those dinky little ol’ sorry excuses for a boat!

       Anyway, I started out paddling that day, with Bill in the middle and Joe in the bow. Joe catches a legitimate four-pound largemouth on a buzz-spin, and the fish jumps out of the water and throws the hook. But it counts, because we get to see the fish well. By the time it is Bills turn to paddle, Joe is way ahead in all categories, but there is still hope because no one has hooked a big smallmouth yet. That’s when it happens! I was about to cast into a perfect spot ahead of the canoe where a log lay submerged just off the edge of the current. Joe, quick to see that I had focused on that very spot, cast there just before my lure landed. A big bass sucked it under and fought hard, staying deep enough to where we couldn’t see him. Joe played him toward the bow of the canoe, and he jumped up and threw the hook about three feet in front of us. That’s when he started yelling about the fish being a big smallmouth.

       Neither Bill nor and I could see the fish because of the bow of the canoe, and so we maintain we shouldn’t have to give Joe a quarter apiece for what might have been a carp, for all we knew. The debate raged for quite awhile. It calmed a little when we stopped late in the afternoon to drink a soda pop and rest on a sandy gravel bar. Some storm clouds blew in about the time we got relaxed, so we headed for the take-out point in a hurry. Joe never did get his turn at paddling, but truthfully he can’t paddle worth a dang anyway. Bill and I both maintain that we might have caught a bigger fish by dusk, but Joe carried on about how big that last fish was, and declared there wasn’t any chance of topping it. Anyway, the trip caused so much dissention that Bill thinks we ought to give up such gambling all together. We each gave Joe a dollar, which caused me to have to go without coffee one morning at McDonalds As you may have figured out already, those are not my old friend’s real names; cause if you figured out who they really are you might wonder why a well-known, distinguished and sometimes reliable outdoor writer of note like me would be fishing with the two of them anyhow.  I only did it for the money I figured I’d make, being considerably the better fisherman!  

       Last week I wrote about some big doings we are going to have at my finally-finished Big Piney Nature Center, just south of Houston Mo, with wildlife artist Duane Hada and antique lure and fishing gear expert Jerry McCoy coming up from Arkansas. It is a big building and there will be room for about 10 or 12 tables there where any of you outdoorsmen can set up and sell items pertaining to hunting and fishing and the outdoors.  You do not have to pay anything to join us, but just let me know as much in advance as you can.  Call my office at 417-777-5227 or email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com and I will save an eight-foot space for you.  The event is free to all and some valuable items will be raffled off including a Duane Hada painting.   It is to be held on Saturday October the 26^th.

 

        

 

Opening Date for Big Piney Nature Center

 

Although not the Piney, Duane Had, world renown artist, is known for his river and wildlife art.

         As to a date for opening my Big Piney River Nature Center, a mile south of Houston, Mo. put the date of Saturday, October 16 on your calendar.  That day we will begin putting in the first displays and we will have a couple of real attractions.  Jerry McCoy, who owns a big outdoor antique store at Bull Shoals, will be there with all kinds of antique lures and fishing gear to display and lures to sell as well.     

         He is making a donation to the center and will evaluate any outdoor oriented antiques you wish to bring, lures, reels, whatever.  If you have outdoor gear to sell, Jerry may buy it from you for display in his store. I think Jerry is the foremost expert in the Arkansas-Missouri Ozarks in regard to vintage fishing gear.  You may have a valuable lure or reel that you don’t know about.

          That day I will bring about 200 of my own fishing lures for sale and many of them are new while others are antiques.  I will also be selling and autographing my books and selling antique outdoor magazines.

 

        But the biggest attraction will be another outstanding guest that day, artist Duane Hada, from North Arkansas who is a riparian naturalist without equal, in other words, an expert on rivers and river ecology. He has found a trout species in the Ozarks which were never known to be here.  Duane is an unbelievable fish and wildlife artist and on October 26 he will bring dozens of his paintings which will be for sale. There will be original paintings and prints and you can get his autograph on those. From 10 to 2 he will set up a canvas and do a painting from start to finish which will be raffled off that afternoon to help pay for expenses of our nature center. I have seen Duane do this before and if there are young aspiring artists out there who wish to see him work that would be invaluable to them. If you want to see some of his paintings get on your computer and type in his name.  I will also put some photos on my website this week.  You won’t believe how great an artist this man is.  I am hoping he might do a painting that day of the Big Piney or a smallmouth bass.  Whatever it is, if you win it you will have a very valuable original painting.

         We will have an old wooden johnboat on display and the very first aluminum boat ever made in the Ozarks, a 22 footer built for the   Big Piney and Gasconade rivers by a man named Appleby, who became the founder of Lowe boats, now known as   Generation 3 boats out of Lebanon. There will be some other vendors there who will be selling old guns and gear.  All proceeds will go toward electric and water bills and other expenses. The address of our center is 6401 South Hwy 63. Right now we need someone with a big truck to bring in some gravel and fill dirt to get out parking lot ready for that day.  If you own such a truck, I will be glad to pay you for such a service.  You will need to call me at 417 777 5227 or email lightninridge47@gmail.com

 

         I don’t know how many of you folks have ever gone to my website but I hope you will this week.  As well as photos of Duane and his artwork, I have an account of a sheriff’s deputy coming to my home a month ago to arrest me for trespassing at a Bolivar boat shop.  I hope you will read about that on my website.  I was in another city the day it was to have happened, so the deputy told me he would leave and do an investigation. After three calls to the Polk County Sheriff I have finally figured out that he will not talk to me about it. Whatever was done was never reported back to me.  The sheriff’s office tells me there are no consequences to the boat shop for filing a false report against me. It is the second time this has happened to me. Last time it was the local Wal-Mart store.  That was eventually dismissed with not consequence to Wal-Mart for falsely reporting me as a trespasser.  So I am thinking about reporting a man down the road for stealing a hog from me. He didn’t but since it is not illegal to do so in Polk County I might as well have some fun with my neighbor.  You might try it too, but be sure that filing a false report against someone you are mad at is not illegal in your county too.  Read it all on    www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com

Dove Feathers

 

 

 

Before you read this, the dove season will have opened. Dove hunting is fairly easy, and it isn’t high on my list of things to do, but I will do it anyway, because I am a grizzled old veteran outdoor writer and that kind of thing is expected of me.  I know you hear young inexperienced outdoor writers talk about how hard doves are to hit, but not for me.  I got to where I can sneak up on a bunch of them and get four or five before they fly with only one or two shells.

I got to be such a good shot by practicing when I was young.  In the fall I’d go out and throw darts at butterflies.  When you get to where you can hit a butterfly with a dart or a B.B. gun, you won’t have any trouble hitting doves with a twellve-gauge shotgun about half the time.

      I won’t go dove hunting in September though.  I will wait until October and hunt at a waterhole somewhere. I am going dove hunting mostly because intend to take a young Labrador out and see if he will retrieve one.  If my Lab takes to dove hunting, it will likely be a great retriever by the time duck season gets here.  Most all the dove hunters will be out on opening day and within a week there won’t be hardly any of them left… hunters that is.  Many doves won’t migrate in until late September.  Some hunters can’t afford the shells it takes to go on three or four hunts, me included.

You need harvested grain fields for good dove hunting, or a small pond used as a water hole where they come to water in the evening before they go to roost.  I like hunting those water holes because if you have a young retriever and if you can drop a dove or two in the water, it is really good experience for his future as a waterfowl dog.  

Early season dove hunting is sometimes hard on dogs because of the heat and humidity, and dove feathers come off in their mouths and they don’t like that.  A Lab doesn’t mind a duck feather or two, but they hate dove feathers.  You can see why if you ever put a freshly shot dove in your mouth.  You can’t hardly get those feathers out of your throat. 

Teal season will open in a week or so, and they too are hard to hit.  But because I am an old time duck hunter, I look forward to that more than dove hunting.  You’d probably be better off not doing either one because in September, if your time is limited, you will catch a lot more fish on top-water lures than you will in the spring.  Of course you have to know what you are doing there too.  A blue winged teal is small a flying biscuit, fast and erratic in flight.  Many times I have shot more at where one was than where one is!

 When I was young, dad and I use to float the Piney in mid September with a blind on our wooden johnboat, hunting blue winged teal.  One September after a good rain the river was up a few inches and we took along one rod and reel and a wiggle wart lure and began to catch some nice smallmouth, one after another. Dad would catch two or three from the front of the boat while I paddled and then we would switch places and I would catch some, all the while watching for teal.  We killed a few teal that day, but caught more than twenty hard fighting smallmouth in between the flocks we flushed.  What a day that was!

 I   have a picture of dad fighting a fish that day with a shell belt around his waist with shotgun shells in it, causing all who see it to question why he would have those shells on a fishing trip. That was in 1965, and you can see some of those photos on my blogspot page, www.larrydablemontoutdoors.blogspot.com

My Big Piney Nature Center and Museum a mile south of Houston, Mo, will be pretty much finished in October and I have an unusual plan to open the finished building, minus the exhibits, sometime during that month to hold a big ‘fishing gear and antique gun’ swap meet.

Anyone who wants to bring guns made before 1965 and fishing gear of any kind is welcome.  I intend to bring several hundred fishing lures, myself, and some are antiques I used when I was young.  That wiggle wart dad and I used back in September of ’65, which we used to catch those smallmouth on, will be there for sale to the highest bidder.  I hope that some folks who have old shotguns or .22 rifles will bring them to sell. To reserve a spot just call me, 417 777 5227. I will announce the date of that event soon.

You   can also contact me via email… lightninridge47@gmail.com or at P.O. Box 22 Bolivar, Mo 65613