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154 Grove
St. P.O. Box 406 Chicopee, MA 01021
Phone 1-413-594-6613 Fax 1-413-5980340
Paul Kress
"I Was A Lucky Kid"
Rivers and lakes are playgrounds for people of all ages but
brooks were created only for the very young.
They are just the right size. No pools deep enough to be
dangerous;
no fish big enough to interest a serious fisherman. Brooks have
character, substance and mystery -- especially mystery for those
not
too old to see it.
They are custom built for a child's first adventure away from
adults.
I found my brook the summer before I entered first grade at the
Locust Ridge School. It was rural America at the time when
children
could wander the countryside safely, and parents didn't concern
themselves as long as the kids showed up for supper.
My brook started with a spring that bubbled out of a hillside on
the
north section of our farm. It wasn't a big spring, but it kept a
stream of
water flowing until it passed under the plank bridge on the road
to Elm
Corner.
There another spring added its life to the brook until it emptied
into the creek that ran past our house. It was a
sedate little stream except when the heavy rains came at
the end of winter and the run-off from the hills filled it
to overflowing. No rushing currents, no waterfalls.
It just loafed along in no hurry to get anyplace special. It ran
a straight
course until it passed under the bridge. Then it began to wander,
obediently following the twists and turns of the rolling land.
Sometimes
it paused to rest a bit and made little pools where all kinds of
small
creatures lived.
This no name stream was my playground for several summers. I
explored every bit of it from its source to its end. There were
sandbars
that told me mink, muskrats and an occasional raccoon were using
my
brook as a highway.
Straight stretches where the water was almost knee deep and just
right for wading. Riffles that provided an endless supply of
marble-sized stones -- ideal sling-shot ammunition. Once a real
treasure, a perfect, jet-black flint Indian arrowhead.
At the first bend below the bridge was my favorite spot, a great
pool
six feet long, three feet wide and two feet deep. Water so clear
you
could see the gravel bottom. A sheer high bank made a natural
observation place. You could crawl on your belly through the tall
grass, ease your head over the edge and look straight down into
the
pool.
It was summer theater. Different actors each time -- water
spiders
skipping around on the surface, minnows schooling at the head of
the
pool, tiny frogs and maybe little water snakes. Then there was
the
time of the bittern. I had never seen such a big wild bird so
close. It
was concentrating so hard on getting its dinner that it wasn't
aware of
me. Perhaps I moved or it looked up. There was a shriek from the
bittern, a frantic flapping of wings and the play was over.
I caught my first fish there. A large sunfish almost as big as my
hand.
It wasn't easy. Took me two weeks after I set my mind on it. Had
all
the right equipment, a store-boughten length of line, a real
fishhook
and a willow branch pole.
The trouble was finding the right bait. I tried everything from
pieces of
bacon rind to crickets. The fish ignored them all until I got to
bread
crusts and earth worms. They liked the bread but they would
nibble
around the edges until it soaked through and fell off the hook.
Then
they would gobble it up.
A worm finally did it. The biggest sucker pushed all the little
fish out
of the way, grabbed it before it sank to the bottom and hooked
himself. I put it into my little pail and ran home to show my
parents.
My mother said, "It was a nice fish, but a little small to
eat." Besides,
she thought, it would be happier with its friends in the creek
than in
my pail. Made sense to me.
I never tried to catch another fish in that pool. I guess it was
like after
you have shot one elephant or crossed the Atlantic in a rowboat
there
isn't much point in doing it again.
I had this place all to myself and time to enjoy it. There was no
TV,
no Little League, no soccer and no other after school activities
for
adults to schedule me into.
After farm chores, I was free to come and go as I wished. To
explore -- to imagine. I could be with Daniel Boone through the
Cumberland Gap into the Ohio Territory. I could follow the
mountain
men and plan a trapline in the wilderness. I was a lucky kid.
Another of our fine
writers at Woods and Waters USA
Frank Sousa
"Tale End"
There are certain problems, as the song goes, in mining
"fifteen tons of number nine coal." Your arms get awful
tired and lungs
get awful black.
There are also certain inherent problems in writing fifteen tons
of
outdoor columns, books, articles over a 42 year period.
Aside from your arms getting tired and your lungs getting black
(not
from cigarette smoke but from typewriter, computer and printers
ink)
you can repeat yourself or forget where a similar article of
yours
appeared.
But there are two unchanging things in being publisher-editor of
the
paper you are writing for. First, you do not have to apologize to
anyone as the paper is your football and you can take it and go
home,
leaving all the other kids stuffing an old raccoon skin hat to
use as a
replacement.
Second, your financial remuneration is so low, you can tell the
person
who jeers you with, "You wrote that before, Dork," with
the retort,
"So? Yah-yah, tah yah-yah." Which always makes you feel
great.
The one big problem is you still have to answer to your worst
critic --
yourself.
Also, with the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics both failing to
reach
the playoffs, there is no hope of a trophy.
Thus, I'll have to dig into my damp, dark storage room of
trophies of
the past, any of which I possibly wrote about in the past. So
save the
good cards, the wild cards, and toss out the deuces, which are
wild.
So, off we go, into the wild blue yonder of my trophy cabinet.
There is my fishing trophy which hangs proudly in my den, despite
the
fact I realize there are bigger ones out there, either already
snagged by
another fishermen or yet still roaming free.
I had fished the same fish for three days, only to return to our
fishing
camp to inform my fishing friends that this was the biggest of
all wild
trout, and that no one could entice it out of the sunken tangle
of tree
limbs that rested in the deepest of all pools.
On the fourth day, my friend Moses came with me, gave it a try,
and
also failed to get it to move out of the dark shadows and into
his
streamer territory.
I figured one more drift and call it a day.
But instead of drifting by the sunken tree limb, I'd drift into
it, taking a
chance that I would lose my favorite Stratton streamer.
And as the fates would have it, it snagged on a small branch.
I gave a tug to free it, and darn, something I'd never do, I did.
I
snagged the fish I had been trying so hard to have hit my
streamer.
My streamer hit it.
The black devil of a fish fought in the rapids like a rabid cat.
Then I landed it. It was a black piece of plastic that had that
wonderful "waiting trout" movement hidden in the
underwater limb.
I ripped it off and stuffed it in my creel.
My friend, Moses, unbeknownst to me, retrieved it while I slept
that
night.
The mount he presented later that year was a work of art. High
polish
oak, a brass plaque denoting the day of my catch exhibited my
Stratton streamer and outlined my days of effort. And mounted in
the
middle was that piece of black plastic.
I also have a great turkey mount.
I had been hunting big bird for three years without downing my
first
gobbler, and I must say I was a little anxious when that first
tom came
strutting its stuff.
It was out a little far but I had confidence in my long tom gun.
After
all, hadn't it hit the cardboard turkey, out some seventy yards,
that I
had practiced on in my back woods.
I sighted down the barrel. The blinking bright head of the tom
seemed
to be the Goodyear Blimp blinking "shoot me, shoot me."
I took in a deep breath, let half it out as I started my slow
squeeze.
"BLAM!"
The limbs of the two aspen saplings that lined up in front of me
were
blown off their respective trees.
Thus instead of a nice entire body mount of the tom, or a plaque
giving time, date, etc of my first bird, complete with beard and
fan
tail mounted fore and aft on it, I had a nice plaque, giving the
time,
date, shot number, and such, with the brass marker accompanied by
two of the nicest aspen limbs you've ever seen.
My buck memorabilia is even more interesting.
I had scouted a big buck all fall and knew it would be mine come
opening of the Massachusetts shotgun season on whitetails.
I had an old high back Savage automatic. I didn't want to miss
this
big buck so I went to the local gunsmith and had him install a
peep
sight on the high back.
It wasn't completed until the night before opening day.
When I asked if he had sighted it in, he was honest enough to say
"Maybe."
"What in hell does maybe mean," I asked.
"I sighted it in just at dark but couldn't find the tree and
target in the
dark."
Well, as the fates would have it, that buck was right on
schedule. It
came tip-toeing through the snow, and then stood broadside out
about forty yards.
Oh, I felt so guilty.
After all, I had downed bucks, none this big though, with an open
sight out 100 yards.
Now with a peep sight, and 40 yards broadside. Oh, Lord, how can
I thank you enough?
I even had the crotch of a tree to completely steady the shotgun.
I squeezed, and fired.
The giant buck looked at me, then stepped sideways into the
laurel.
I knew the buck was dead. I couldn't have missed.
The problem was the buck didn't know it was dead and walked off.
I checked the snow for blood, hair, some sort of note, such as
"You
got me, deadeye."
Nothing. Well, not exactly nothing.
My shot must have been close. For there in the snow was a
steaming
pile of buck beans.
I had them bronzed and they sit on the mantle with my trout and
turkey mounts.
You say they do not bronze buck beans. Wrong.
When I was a baby, mothers had their kids' first pair of shoes
bronzed when they out grew them.
We were dirt poor. I didn't have baby shoes. So my mother had my
first baby doody bronzed. So don't tell this kid they can't
bronze
buck beans.
Oh, later on, when my skills and luck were honed fine, I downed
the
big gobbler, landed the huge rainbow, scored on the giant rack
buck, and mounted same.
"Nice," was always the ‘who gives a good scat'
reply of friends
viewing the giants.
But it was a pure and wonderful "Wow," when they saw my
black
plastic fish, two aspen limbs turkey, and buck bean mounts, and
led
to wonderful evenings of story telling.
You say I'm full of beans.
Well, that's true.
But I have the mounts, and if you'd like to lose a couple bucks
on a
bet, give me a call.
Or give me a ring if you have some different and interesting
mounts
that lead to long and wonderful evenings of story telling, far
and
beyond the simple "Nice," and short evenings you get
with the
really-oh, truly-oh mounts of real Pope and Youngs, Boone and
Crocketts.
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