Small Victories

Busted flat in Baton Rouge,

Waitin’ for a train.

She was feelin’ torn and tattered as her bra.

Then Bobbie thumbed a diesel down

Just before it rained.

He dropped us six miles shy of Omaha.

Okay, so Kris Kristofferson I ain’t.  However, from Baton Rouge (where my daughter Ellie lives), up through Bastrop, Louisiana, all the way north across Arkansas, travelling through Batesville, then through every inch of Missouri, passing through my home in Douglas County, then up to Omaha (where Jenny lives.  Okay, she actually lives across the river in Iowa, but it’s HELL to find a rhyme for “Council Bluffs”.) is 1,007 miles.

As a 61-year-old guy who is doing his damnedest NOT to die at 62, as my father did, I haul my elderly butt into town at least three times a week to exercise at our town’s sweet little community center.  They’ve got a fine weight room, with machines, and treadmills, and all sorts of nifty stuff, and I try to spend a couple of hours there, doing whatever needs to be done to keep this old bag of meat moving.

I’m pretty faithful from Labor Day until about Memorial Day, when I “lay off” for the summer, usually telling folks that I’ve got enough chores around the house to keep me busy.  Truth is, the chores usually don’t get done, and I sorta loll around for three months, swilling beer and chasing bugs, and lying around the creek, thinking deep thoughts.

When I AM doing the routine, however, I try for about 45 minutes of weight training, followed by a minimum of three miles on the treadmill, or making circuits around the gymnasium (20 laps to the mile), or even going out to the park’s walking trail, where one lap is exactly a half-mile.  Being neat and conscientious …er…anal about such things (my wife says, and I agree, that I have OCD.  Doesn’t EVERYBODY always take EXACTLY eleven sips when drinking a glass of water?), I keep a detailed record of just how far I’ve walked each day.  No running.  My running/marathon days are over half-a-lifetime past (although I still am pretty pleased with the 3:26:09 I ran in my only marathon, back in the winter of ’80).

Mississippi Marathon
December 1980

Well, it took me five years.  This past Monday, my treadmill routine caused me to pass the 1,000-mile mark in my current walking history.  Actually ended the day with 1,001 miles, which would be the same as walking from Baton Rouge to “six miles shy of Omaha”.  Lots of folks, particularly other “old folks” like me, walk regularly at the center, and they have a plaque on the wall listing the people who’ve reached 1,000 or 2,000 miles.  I immediately took my ”documentation” up to Rheanna, the definitely NOT old-folks director of the place, and asked to be added to ”the wall”.  I’ve got several good friends on the wall, and I’d be proud to be in their company

Small victory, but I’m kinda pleased with myself.   We anticipate leaving Missouri next year.  At least I’ll leave my name behind.

Angler Flyin’ Too Close To The Ground

Folks, I am NOT a fisherman.

Despite growing up literally on  the banks of the Bayou Bonne Idee in northeastern Louisiana, my fishing experiences have been very sparse, completely limited to sitting on a dock, or in a boat, holding a cane pole with a plastic bobber, with crickets or worms for bait.

That being said, I sallied forth last weekend to the Current River State Park, located (surprise!) on the Current River in Shannon County, Missouri, to attend a three-day Missouri Stream Team Flyfishing Workshop.

Instructors Mark Van Patten (creator/host of the PBS television program, The Tying Bench, and a Missouri Department of Conservation employee); Chris Riggert (also of MDC); Stream Team guru Brian Waldrop (of the Mighty 211); and Jerry Kemple (longtime flyfisher) did a fantastic job of introducing a score of neophytes to the joys and agonies of the flyfishing art.

Mark Van Patten dispenses wisdom and experience.

After arrival on Friday night, we spent several hours in a classroom, learning to tie “essential” knots to connect the various segments of flyfishing line to one another.  If I remember correctly, the “backing” is wound around the reel first, to take up the shock of a strike, followed by the flyline, then the leader, then the “tippet”, and then the fly itself.  For certain reasons that I never completely understood, an entirely different knot is required to attach each one to its neighbor.

On Saturday, we adjourned to a wide-open space outside, where we spent an hour or so learning to cast our lines.  As I appreciate it, flyfishing basically involves whipping the line back and forth, using the flexibility of the rod to chunk an essentially weightless fly where you want it.  You begin with the rod tip pointing to the ground in front of you, then bring it briskly up to a vertical position.  You pause just long enough to say “Big Brown Trout“, which gives the rod tip time to flex past the vertical, and “load” the line.  Then bring your arm forward, and the rod is supposed to sorta catapult your line to the desired target.  The instructors wisely had us practicing WITHOUT any hook on the line, to avoid tragedies.

THEN, off to the Baptist Camp access point on the Current for an afternoon of fishing.  Most of the anglers moved upsstream from the crowd of swimmers, sunbathers, and revelers at the access, while I tried my luck downstream.

My casting technique landed six trees/bushes, one sixty-year-old rookie flyfisher (me) (twice), and nothing else.  I was, however, positioned strategically near a rather lovely young fisherwoman, approximately half my age, in a rather lovely bikini (No photo available.  Sorry.).

Soon, I bushwhacked through the puckerbushes upstream to join the rest of the group, where my success did not improve, although the company and comraderie was excellent.  In the section where we fished, a fawn was bedded down at the riverside, within only fifty feet or so from where a half-dozen of us fished, completely unconcerned with the entire spectacle.

Any persons wanting to use these photos for training manuals or videos, to illustrate perfect form, should contact the author.

Only a couple of the group managed to catch-and-release anything, although a Wonderful Time Was Had By All.

Upon return to the park, the instructors led us through a couple hours of learning to tie our OWN flies. 

George tying his Woollybooger.

We managed to assemble a “Woollybooger” and “The Captain” each, although I completely refuse to let a fish put his/her nasty mouth on either of them.  Think I’ll probably frame them instead.

George’s Woollybooger (top) and The Captain (bottom). Not counting the negligible cost of materials, and figuring George’s labor at minimum wage, these flies are worth about twenty bucks apiece, wholesale.

  

More fishing the next day, this time at Montauk State Park, where we actually had permits to keep fish we’d caught (HA!).  I managed to get only two nibbles (although I think I’m supposed to call them “strikes”), but to no avail.  Brian managed to pull in a trout, demonstrating his professional prowess for my awestruck eyes..  I took a picture of the aftermath (shown here),

Cover Boy Brian Waldrop, of the Mighty 211 Stream Team.

and intend to submit the photo for the cover of an upcoming Missouri Conservationist magazine.  Brian’s a fine fishing companion, and would be good to run the river with.

As we were fishing during the heat of the day, the fish were almost totally unresponsive to my dry flies.  I moved downstream to a deeper pool, where dozens of 12″ brown trout were lolling around in the coolor water on the bottom.  The dry flies did not entice ANY of them, so I rigged a Woollybooger (NOT the one I’d tied).  This fly sinks and sorta darts along the bottom.  I managed to put it where I wanted, and even dragged it across the NOSE of a likely specimen, who was totally unimpressed.  My catch for the day included a DOZEN trees, three rocks, and THREE self-piercings, only one of which necessitated the cutting of a hole in my shorts to remove the hook.

The instructors showed us all their extensive and/or expensive equipment, and I was amazed at the amount of money one COULD spend on this hobby.  Once I learned that I could flyfish for sunfish, I became a bit more interested.  Might go down to BassPro and pick up a little equipment on the cheap.

The graduates.

Thank You All!

I know this ain’t the New York Times, but I am MOST pleased, surprised, and humbled to notice that 5,001 folks , from fifty-one nations and forty-nine states (plus the District of Columbia) have visited this blog in the few months it’s been “on the Net”.  Still waiting to be “discovered” by somebody in Hawai’i.  (Update:  New Years Day–Thanks so much to Makaii, who e-mailed me from Hawai’i this morning.   Welcome to The Ozarkian!)

I hope that I’ll engage in enough foolishness to be able to add more stories to share with you in 2012, and that you have a GREAT new year.  Thanks for reading “The Ozarkian.”

Y’all come see us.

George