The Outdoors: The Best Place To 'Connect'

[PsalmSinger]

http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publ...e_107069.shtml


The outdoors: the best place to 'connect'

While dragging a Texas-rigged plastic worm through some heavy submerged brush at one of my long time friends 30-acre lake in East Texas, joking and laughing with three other great friends, I came to the realization that I am a very wealthy man! Now before my email inbox gets blown up with requests for loans, I’d better explain.

Wealth comes in many forms. Compared to the way things were when I was a boy, most of us are currently living the “good life” now. We live in air conditioned houses and travel to and from our outdoor adventures in comfortable vehicles that, with the turn of a dial, instantly transforms sweltering summer heat to the feeling of that first fall “cold front”. Backtrack to the late fifties when I was a little kid. I am sure most people back then would consider the majority of today’s families “rich.”

Back then, getting a soft drink was a treat; few families I knew in rural Red River County kept their “ice boxes” stocked with soft drinks. I remember, when I was about 8 years old, walking up to my dad who was busy with post hole diggers building a fence on our farm and asking for 3 pennies to add to the 3 that I had so that I could walk down the road to the country store and buy an ice cream sandwich. Today, most people don’t even stop to pick up change off the ground!

Little things like “shorts” for my .22 rifle and shotgun shells were hoarded back when I was a kid. I could make a box of .22 shorts last almost throughout the fall squirrel hunting season. Today, on shooting outings, its common practice to “burn up” a brick of .22 shells in a single outing.

My parents did most of their bass fishing with Calcutta poles and live shiners. My mother did finally get a steel “bass rod” back in the last fifties with one of the old knuckle busting reels. She also had only two lures that I can remember; a Baby Lucky 13 and a Jitterbug. I remember she used those baits for a long time and somehow never lost them to fish. I vividly remember climbing out on willow limbs that overhung the water’s edge to retrieve her lure with the help of a long stick on several occasions. I’m guessing the baits, back then, might have cost a dollar or possibly less but dollars were in short supply with most families back 50 to 60 years ago.

A month or so ago, I jumped on an airliner and was whisked “way” up north where I boarded a float plane and fished some pristine waters in Saskatchewan that as a boy I could not have dreamed of fishing. In a month or so I will be heading to the high country of northern Colorado to link up with our outfitting “crew” and spend a few weeks pursuing elk and bear. These opportunities to enjoy the things I love are what I consider a large part of my “riches.”

It’s not just the opportunity of spending time pursuing northern Pike in some of Canada’s most beautiful, wild county or having the opportunity to listening to bugling bull elk each year in the Rockies that contribute to perceived “wealth”, it’s the friends that I have the opportunity to spend time with that I count as true riches.

One advantage of becoming a “mature” outdoorsman or… human being for that matter, is learning how to choose the people that we enjoy being around; our friends, our running buddies. I truly have a smorgasbord of personality types that I call friends, but, with very few exceptions, all of them enjoy the outdoor lifestyle. This is not to say that I don’t also have friends that are avid golfers or musicians, but most love at least some facet of the outdoor life.

Without doubt, with age comes the ability to make fast friendships in a short matter of time. I have many longtime friends that I’ve known for decades but I’ve also developed great friendships only a few months ago that I am positive will last the remainder of my life. There is something about maturing that facilitates the choosing of friends quickly. I am positive that spending time in the outdoors is the very best way of making new friends or, spending time with old ones. You really learn how a person “thinks” when spending hours fishing together or after a few days in a high country elk camp.

There is a bond that develops between outdoor types. As my great friend the late Bob Hood used to say, “We’re all in this together.” What Bob was referring to is the fact that regardless what our outdoor endeavor might be, we all share the woods, fields and waters. The bond that binds us is a common thread of our love for enjoying and spending time in our natural world.

Speaking of great friends, in next week’s column I’m planning an article on an upcoming fishing trip to Lake Cooper with guide Tony Parker and Deryl Markgraf. I have fished with, written about and called Tony friend since he was a teenager and a beginner fishing guide and I a fledging outdoors writer. Deryl is one of my newest but best friends. I’ve known Deryl no more than about 6 months but already we’ve shared some awesome fishing trips and hunts together and, are looking forward to many more in the future! What’s that I was saying about the outdoors being a great place to make new friends and keep in tune with old ones?

Listen to “Outdoors with Luke Clayton and Friends” on radio stations from Nebraska to Texas on weekends or anytime online at www.catfishradio.com.

[Tundra Gypsy]

Great read. Yes; friends are important; especially if you share the love of the great outdoors!

[CaryC]

Some of the simple pleasures I have:

Getting up and running to the country store to pick up some sausage and biscuits, and meeting my son at the hunting club, and reaching across and handing him one.

Then splitting up and going to my stand where there is a V cut in a bluff, which makes a funnel of the deer movement, moving from the hills, where they feed at night, to the river bottom to sleep during the day, and doing it in the dark. Sitting on the edge of that bluff, and overlooking the tops of trees for miles, and watching the sun come up, and at times the fog fall.

Watching does and yearlings move through. If there is no meat in the freezer picking out one that doesn't have a yearling with it.

Then meeting back up at the cleaning shed, or going back into the woods to help get one out.

Listening to, and telling stories with the guys after the hunt. Hanging over the bed of pick ups, and getting caught up on all the coffee we missed.

And the best of all coming home and seeing Sherree.