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People have been asking what drives me and why am I so passionate about fishing and CJ.
First of all, my Father was an Over the Road Trucker, and was barely home...My Grandmother taught me to hunt and fish, and tried to teach me the things she knew...she was a wealth of knowledge, I wish that I understood that then!
Granny was born on what they called the “RES” in Southern Virginia, even though the real Reservation, was actually in Cherokee NC…Her Father was a missionary, her mother a full blooded Cherokee….they moved to South Solon Oh, when my Grannie was out of school ….then my Grandmother married a traveling salesman, they moved to the suburbs of South Chuck on a huge farm! That’s where I first remember the WILD NATURALIST!
She kept a beautiful home, they had all the modern conveniences, but Granny seemed to enjoy the simple things more…. Besides growing a Garden and raising 2 kids, my Grandmother was all about Mother Nature! She knew where all the wild fruits and berries were and when they were ready, where the ‘shrooms grew and when, times to harvest different wild plants, etc. She made “Cures” that could zap any cold, sore throat, etc…she made liniments for any ache or pain.
She raised Chickens and had a few Milk Goats, a few Milk Cows, and “Ham” pigs! She kept a pet horse to help plow her 2 acre garden! She canned everything!
She also hunted deer with a real bow, that she made, and she also made most of her arrows, etc, until late in life…she cleaned every animal herself, smoked them, dried and salted them, or cooked them up for supper.
I remember her, charcoaling a fire, hammering, and quenching metal to pound and sharpen into arrow heads, and the different feathers she used to “Make them fly quiet and straight”….she cut the shafts, rolled and whittled the wood, and made her own glue that seemed to outlast superglue now….of course this was the mid/late 60’s when the world was in turmoil and my GrandMother was “behind the times”! She cut her own wood! At 5 foot tall and just over 100 pounds, she didn’t look the part of an outdoors person, but I sure never wanted to tangle with her!
She built her own traps and snares, trapped coon, possum, skunks, grouse, pheasant, rabbits and squirrels, made her own scents and “Oils”….she called Turkeys with her hands and shot them with a bow…same with deer and rabbit. We never went without a Turkey at Thanksgiving when I was young…she gave up Turkey Hunting in her late 60’s because they were “becoming rare” and then would not eat a Store bought one, EVER.
They had a 400 acre farm and the surrounding Farmers were friends…she grew gardens for animals and kept the land pristine. People wondered why they didn’t farm, but they just harvested the land differently than “Real Farmers”. After my Grandfather passed, Granny sold Avon to supplement her income and the “Farm”! She did this because she was good and didn’t need a Full time job to make what she needed to “Get Along”…she still had Most of her time to Hunt and Fish!
She still hunted in the same old Bland clothing, no special CAMO, or tools, and fished the same old way…we would go to Ponds, Clark Lake, later CJ, or local streams and she would fish with the same old cane pole that she made, and the flies and jigs that she made by hand….she used some kind of old brown “Jute” string as line, until late in her life when she used something called Braid! She knew every species and when they could be caught. She made me mad because "we only took what we needed", even though we could sit and catch fish forever….she could cook anything and make it a meal of a lifetime….carp, coon, skunk, and road-kill, were all meals fit for a King! She canned, and “set things up” for “hard times”. She drove a car and fished into her 90’s, stopped trapping in her 80’s…She was put in a Nursing home at 97 and died less than a year later.
I have never seen a person that could tell all of the Patterns of Nature, of fish, of animals, of life….she knew when a storm was coming, and the best times to fish and hunt…. now that I look back, it was utterly amazing!
And I AM THE BIGGEST FOOL THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN, because I didn’t bother to try and take advantage of all of that knowledge!
I was New and Modern, and Granny was Old and lived by Ancient ways…I wanted to learn the New ways of doing things instead of learning the Old….That is the biggest regret of my life so far!
Now, I am trying to get back to my roots, trying to learn the ways of Nature, trying to understand the outdoor life!
It could have been so much easier, if I would have just listened to an OLD WOMAN…my GrandMother!
No, like everything else, I had to learn things the “hard way”….now I have to do research and experiment, instead of asking questions and talking to someone that seemed to have all the answers.
How much easier would it have been, if I had just REALLY LISTENED and LEARNED.
This is what’s driving me to learn NOW….to me, fishing is more than just catching fish, it’s the entire process and everything Natural that goes into it…I guess it is trying to understand, what Granny already knew and understood. Same with the rest of life, understanding my Garden, balance of Nature, etc…and how we have corrupted Nature!
I guess I’m also trying to pass on something to Dale, that I was too stubborn to learn from THE MASTER….even though some of the lessons are coming back and being remembered. Hopefully I can explain it to Dale in a way that he will remember things that I have learned and remembered.
ALSO, I guess as we all get closer to the end, we sometimes have a desire to understand life….and to do that, we have to understand Nature!
So the next time we’re out fishing and I am experimenting, you’ll know that there is something that is bothering me, and I need to understand it and know why!
Now you know what makes me tick!
Good Fishing!
Originally Posted by INTIMIDATOR
the shad needs thinned out!
