Filled With Suckers

 

         I know a tributary to Truman Lake that normally is little more than a creek, but when the area gets enough rain and the lake rises it draws a big bunch of white bass.  So I went up there a week ago and traveled up about as far as I could go, crossing several shallow shoals to get to a favorite spot.  Sure enough, that small hole of water was full of white bass and in a couple of hours a friend and I caught our limit of whites in the neighborhood of 14-inch fish.  But the eddy, no more than six feet deep in the middle was very clear and full of golden redhorse suckers, likely a couple hundred of them, along with two or three dozen bigmouth buffalo that would weigh up to ten pounds or so. 

         Fighting the white bass for a few hours was fun but I would have given a good rebel lure for a big treble hook.  Those suckers that we hillbillies have always referred to as ‘yaller suckers’ would have been lots of fun with trebles and a grabbin’ outfit, which is a little stiffer and stronger rod.  They are easier to clean than white bass is to filet and much better eating.  You have to remove the big scales, gut the fish and then remove the tail and fins.  Then you do what they call scoring, which amounts to cutting across the body every quarter inch all the way to the backbone on both sides.  With the scoring you cut up and eliminate the fine bones in the body.  Then you cut the fish into however many pieces you want and drop them into hot grease, coated with whatever coating or batter you choose to use. 

         White bass are good to eat too, but when you filet them, the red meat needs to be skimmed off the white meat.  If you catch a three-pound white bass it will fight like a smallmouth of similar size.  I once caught a dozen whites between three to four pounds from a Tablerock lake tributary in north Arkansas on topwater lures. One of the best days I have ever had fishing. A couple of those weighed a few ounces OVER four pounds.  In the 1980’s I was guiding on Bull Shoals and had a Nebraska client catch a five-pound five-ounce white bass on a live shad.  At the time it was just a few ounces from a state record.

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The first time I went fishing with my dad I was about 5 or 6 years old.  First time he took me hunting I was 8 or 9.  Since those years in the 1950’s I have become a full-time Outdoor writer/naturalist and that has amounted to a tremendous amount of time in the outdoors hunting and fishing, exploring and photographing and boating and floating, etc. photographing, etc.           Those seventy-some years has helped me to accumulate so much stuff that I don’t know what to do with it all, now that I am starting to face the fact that I am mortal. I can no longer use a ton of what I have accumulated over the years and can’t take it with me.  So in the fall---likely late September or early October I am going to have one heck of a yard and garage and storage shed sale selling and giving away a ton of stuff going back to when I was 15 or 16 years old.   There’s too much stuff to list here but it will include all my fishing gear, boats and kayaks and some fantastic wildlife art.  There will be some boat trailers and duck and goose decoys and even a few guns.  I have about a thousand antique magazines too, going back to the twenties and a few earlier.  I have the first outdoor magazines I ever read and then the ones I wrote for. 

         What I have decided to do is take all summer to list everything and send those lists to prospective buyers and visitors.   We are talking about a couple of hundred items that I will likely shed a tear or two over as I watch them leave.   How many experiences and memories go away with my 50 year old 19-foot Grumman canoe that is likely worth more now than it cost new.   Or my old duck gun, a Smith and Wesson that I bought when I got out of college.  It is getting close to a time I fish with dad and my grandfather again, so I know it is best to let old treasures create some memories for younger outdoorsmen.  If you want to get a list of what we will sell   this fall, send me a letter (P.O.Box 22 Bolivar MO 65613) or email me at lightninridge47@gmail.com, and I will be in touch to let you know when that all will take place this fall beneath the oaks on this beautiful hardwood ridgetop we call Lightnin’ Ridge, overlooking the  Pomme de Terre River valley about 40 miles north of Springfield.