It will never happen again

There was a conservation agent at the river where we put in, and she made some comment about how we shouldn't let the women out-fish us that day.  I remember saying, "Fat chance of that happening!" 
My uncle Bryce and I are grizzled old outdoor veterans, and we have caught some fish in our time.   Gloria Jean and my Aunt Betty, who were fortunate enough to wind up in the Dablemont family, weren't about to catch more fish than the two of us.
My uncle Bryce is the youngest of the four brothers in my dad's family, but over the years I have had some great fishing trips.  He was along the time I caught my biggest bass, only a few ounces short of ten pounds.  That is a great story I will relate here sometime, but not today. Today's story is something along the lines of the unbelievable... something that will never be seen again.
We had this stretch of river where years ago we caught some huge bass in September, and always wanted to go back there.  So we loaded up a 22-foot riverboat and headed down the river, with me paddling, Uncle Bryce on the front seat and the two ladies in the middle.  Well, my Aunt has this old wooden lure called a woodchopper, something with a pair of spinning blades fore and aft, looks like it might be a lure she found at an antique shop, last used when Elvis Presley was trying to just trying to get on the radio.  She likes this old lure so much that her e-mail address is "woodchopper lady". 
Bryce and I had some fine spinner baits and buzz-baits and the best in modern day tackle, and she starts out fishing this old lure with rusty hooks that was probably painted in somebody's old auto body shop with paint meant for a 1957 Chevy.  And all of a sudden the water explodes just above a shoal and a fish of tremendous proportions engulfs it.  Aunt Betty, despite being taught by one of the best, is no Homer Circle.  While I watch, and maneuver the boat through the shoal, Uncle Bryce lunges for the dip net and my aunt just hangs on and watches the fish pull that 14- pound line off her casting reel against the drag.
Downriver a considerable distance, she boats a seven-pound hybrid (cross between a striper and a white bass).  But we aren't really after hybrids, we are after bass, something along the lines of the big wide-mouth lunker which engulfed her woodchopper lure only a few minutes later and also bent the rod to its maximum arcing ability.  It wasn't so big, only 20 inches and about five pounds.   You could hardly tell it from the next 20-incher she caught downstream only a few hundred yards.  They were both largemouth, the 17-inch three-pounder she caught soon after was a Kentucky bass, as was the 16-incher which engulfed that woodchopper a little later. 
By the time Uncle Bryce had unhooked her seventh or eighth bass, Gloria had only caught three smaller ones on her light spinning tackle and a topwater popper.  Between them they had 10 or 11 bass and that hybrid.  My uncle did manage to hook several bass which he could not land, and the only fish either of us boated was a drum that I caught on a jig and crawdad.  Eventually, in the throes of frustration and humiliation, my Uncle confiscated my aunt's old lure and fished with it for a half hour, showing her how to work it properly without so much as a strike.
I don't know how it happened, but it did, and it is something of a miracle, two novice fishermen catching bass whilst a pair of extraordinarily experienced, extablished experts came up empty-netted.  It will likely never happen again.  Uncle Bryce has the old woodchopper, and I am going out today to some of the local antique shops to try to find one of my own.

Lots of you readers came to the outdoorsman's swap meet held in the local church gymnasium last Saturday, and I enjoyed meeting so many of you.  It is difficult at time sitting up here in these executive offices of the Lightnin' Ridge Publishing company in the middle of the woods, all alone, wondering if there are really readers out there.  By golly there is, and I wish I could have been able to talk more with all of them who showed up.  We fed more than 400 people and we didn't run out of food.  For that I have to thank an old friend, John Washburn, of Specialty Foods Company in Joplin Mo.  John not only gave us a special price on the beans and cole slaw and potato salad, he saw to it that it was fresh and he helped us figure out how much we would need.  Because we were afraid that Uncle Norten and I hadn't caught enough catfish, he had fresh catfish ordered and ready as well.  It all worked great.  If you have a group planning a big wild game dinner or fish fry, talk to John and you can get some expert help at an affordable price.
We had more than 40 tables filled with outdoor gear and antiques and beautiful art, and visitors from 5 different states.  I had hoped for half as many people as we had, and I believe there were 700 or 800 people there that Saturday morning.  Thanks to the great people of the Mt. Olive Baptist Church, it worked smoother than I ever dreamed it could.   Next year we will know how to make it work even better.  The Grizzled Old Outdoor Veterans swap meet will be a regular event.   If there are churches out there that want to try to do something similar, contact me and I will be glad to help.
Let me try to thank some folks here, knowing I will leave out so many.  First of all, Ron Branaman, down at Gaston's White River Resort in Arkansas, and my old friend and outdoor writer Jim Spencer at Calico Rock, helped us with donations of more than 100 freshly caught trout, and several other fishermen donated catfish.  We had enough to feed a huge crowd.  I also want to thank my old friends whom I have known for decades, Kent Caplinger, Rich Abdoler and Dennis Whiteside, for giving such an effort to help me put this whole thing on, and getting nothing in return for it other than the satisfaction of knowing they helped raise a lot of money for charitable causes.  My wife Gloria, my daughter Christy, and Lightnin' Ridge magazine employee Sondra Gray all helped me with getting to talk to everyone and handing out free magazines.  Fish cookers, David Gray, Jim Staley, and at least a dozen others helped to get the fish fried to perfection.  They were nearly worn out when we were finished.
Thanks to so many of you who brought things to sell, and those who just came to buy and enjoy it.  Folks in the country ought to do more of that kind of thing... and we ought to use get-togethers of that sort to have fun and raise more money for families who need help, for kids who need winter coats, etc.
If you are close to Joplin on Saturday evening, September 12, I will be speaking at the Ducks Unlimited Banquet there at Memorial Hall.  Doors open at 5 p.m.  Come and join us for a great dinner.  Tickets are 25 dollars for the whole evening.
E-mail me at lightninridge@windstream.net, write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, Mo. 65613.