On the Wild Side: A Collection of Short Stories About the Great Outdoors

© 2013 by Clyde L. Hampton. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/24/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-3725-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-3726-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013906920

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Table of Contents

Preface

Guide to Photographs

Cover Photograph

Section One: Casting the Line

A Splendid Trophy Release

Ole Hungry

The Miracle of the Loafers and the Fishers

20/20 Frenzy

Section Two: Doggonit

Ole Double: My First Bird Dog

Et Tu, Brute?

Section Three: Gun Smoke

Winchester 67

Daddy’s Old Sixteen

That Old Single Sixteen

Where’s My Gun—Where’s My Mind?!

Section Four: Deer Me!

First Deer Hunt

The Hunt Club

The Hunt—November 2

Section Five: Chasing Toms

I Shot Him!

Samaritan of a Sort

Lucky 7

Confound the Confusion!

Doing the Tango

Chasing Feathers

Tornado Gobbler

One Tree and One Tom

Two, Only Once

Those Darned Decisions!

The General of Johns Mountain

The Last Day

Section Six: Post Script

Pure Shock

Twenty-Two Points

Friends and Feathers

The Best Day

Zero Rainbow Photo

Preface

Being reared in the beautiful rural region of Northwest Georgia exposed me to the raw, but pure, elements of nature, reflected in the forest, fields, streams, mountains, valleys, and the wonderful people who lived there, who contributed to my perspective on life.

Within this climate, I developed a strong personal and enduring faith relationship with God that has sustained me in numerous times of joy and more than a few episodes of distress.

Country living produced a positive outlook, stability, and the capacity to manage rather simply in a complicated and rapidly changing world.

This environment has contributed richly to my life as a sportsman, along with my large family, neighbors, and friends who share in the pursuit of this exciting venture.

Outdoor life is refreshing, relaxing, challenging, generally healthy, and a lot of fun. I hope that you sense my free spirit and live some of my exposure and experience in the wilds of nature on God’s good earth as you read this book.

Guide to Photographs

1. A Splendid Trophy Release, author and guide, Larry McNair, White River

2. Old Hungry

3. Ole Double

4. Et tu, Brute?

5. Author, first deer hunt

6. Author and Mac Maxwell

7. The Hunt, November 2

8. I Shot Him!

9. Confound the Confusion

10. Tornado Gobbler, Pickle, our grounds keeper

11. One Tree and One Tom, Dr. Hampton

12. Two Only One, author and Lanier Rhodes

13. Max Milford, a nice Dukes Creek Brown Trout

14. Jim Burnham, six pound White River Brown Trout

15. Author, Dr. Charles Smith, Ole Double

16. Guide Larry McNair, Alicia Hampton

17. Author, nice White River Brown Trout

18. A. Wayland Johnson, a Long Creek gobbler

19. Dr. Frank Hampton, son Ben, Dr. Michael Brown, and bird dog, Samson

20. Samson, on point

21. Author, Betty’s Creek Brown Trout

22. Two Only Once again

23. Author, big snake (a rat ate part of the picture)

24. Guide, Larry McNair, White River Brown Trout

25. 20/20 Frenzy, seven-and-one-half pound Brown Trout

26. Author, reproduction of twenty-two pound Brown Trout, White River

Cover Photograph

Cover photograph provided by Paul Diprima, photographer and

sports writer for the Rome News-Tribune.

The cascading rapids is Mill Creek in the North Georgia Mountains.

Section One:

Casting the Line

A Splendid Trophy Release

The April fifteenth morning of two thousand three broke cloudy, heavy with humidity and with a cold, boisterous wind blowing from the northeast. Rain appeared imminent. It was not the most favorable combination of elements for a pleasant day of trout fishing on the famous White River in the beautiful, north-central Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. However, one factor was in our favor, a falling barometer. One other positive factor figured into the equation. We were fishing and I have heard it said that a bad day fishing is better than a good day working at the office. I agree!

For eleven consecutive years my good, long-time friend Jim Burnham, from Williamston, South Carolina, and I have invested a week in April fishing the White River for big Brown Trout. We have had some great trips, never a bad one, and caught some nice fish, but this was to be our best.

After a fine breakfast of eggs, sausage, and fruit prepared by Jim, we loaded our gear in Jim’s vehicle at Bull Mountain Lodge and drove the five miles to Stetson’s on the White, where professional guide Larry McNair is a retired high school coach and teacher, well known and respected in the area, who spends much of his time guiding on the White. Larry knows the river and the big trout it holds.

After a brief, friendly chat and admiration of the fine, mounted trophy trout on the walls, Larry asked, Boys, are you ready to go fishing? We were! Downing the last of the coffee and receiving good wishes from Jim Turner, the owner of Stetson’s, we walked out into the brisk wind, which would torment us all day. We walked down the ramp to the boat dock and boarded Larry’s twenty-one-foot Johnboat with a twenty-five-horsepower engine to begin our second day fishing on this trip.

At the close of the previous day’s fishing, we fished three days. Larry commented that he had something he needed to do as we left the dock on the first day. After arriving at our first stop to fish, Larry opened his ice chest and retrieved a box containing about thirty crawfish, which he caught wading in a nearby slough using a dip net. Several of the crawfish were in the molting stage, which is the best time to use them for trout bait. Now we understood what Larry meant by his something to do comment. We appreciated his special efforts to catch the craws for us, but that’s the kind of guide Larry is. He works unceasingly to see that his customers catch fish. The big Browns liked our craw offerings. My line was broken twice by the big fish that swam around objects in the river while I was fishing with the craw.

But it was the lowly White River minnow that attracted a strong strike-and-run. I gave the fish time to take the minnow and a little slack line so he would not feel me on the line and spit out the bait. When the line started to straighten out again, I cranked the reel fast several turns and set the hook with a rapid upward snatch, resulting in a strong run upriver about forty yards. The heavy fish turned and stripped off seventy yards of line downriver with the drag screaming. He turned again toward me, trying to loosen and shake the hook, but I held the line taut and the rod tip high, keeping all the pressure I dared on the six-pound line. I just held on and let him run. Check that, he ran all that he wanted to run. He kept on attempting to return to his usual holding position.

Even though the water was clear, we had not yet seen the fish since he was hugging the bottom of the river. When we finally did see him, everyone was instantly excited, and rightly so. He was clearly a monster trout; however, no one imagined just how big he was.

After what seemed forever, the fish shortened and slowed his runs. At last, he came near the boat and Larry guided his long-handled net toward him, but he wanted no part of it. Turning his head he made another short run, but he was obviously tiring plowing through the current with a tight line in his mouth and an Aberdene hook in his throat. Once more he came near the boat, slowed and turned a little on his side. This time Larry’s lightning-fast netting technique was thwarted because the fish was too big for the net. The trout made a small circle, and this time Larry guided the net over his head. With a swift, upward scoop he had him—or did he? Would the net hold or disintegrate? Fortunately, the fish was finished. Had we netted him sooner, he might have gone right through the net.

We all breathed again! But it was a while before my color returned to normal and my heart rate settled down.

I could not believe what my eyes were seeing; neither could Larry nor Jim. Larry was in his twenty-fourth year guiding fishing customers on the White River and had netted some mighty nice trout, but this was one of the biggest.

At this point, we were still within sight of Stetson’s Resort, so Larry left the big trout in the net in the water while I held onto the long handle. Larry gently guided the boat up the river and to the other side and called to Jim Turner to bring the digital camera, but, as luck would have it, Jim had left the camera at his quarters and had to retrieve it before we could get pictures. While we waited, I took a few pictures with my Advantix camera while the fish remained in the net in the water.

Larry proceeded to take off his shoes and socks, roll up his pants legs, and peeled over into the forty-degree water near the riverbank. He held the fish in an upright position and informed us that the fish could not breathe normally lying on his side.

Larry also retrieved his official fish scales and tape measure from his tackle box. He weighed the fish, net and all. His wet, net weight was two pounds. Total weight: twenty-two pounds and two ounces. So the trout weighed a whopping twenty pounds and two ounces! His length was thirty-three inches. His girth measured twenty-two inches. I swallowed hard in disbelief. I cranked out emotions of exhilaration somewhat like those I felt when I first saw the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and Mount McKinley in Denali National Park in Alaska (almost as great as my honeymoon, but nothing could be that good, just in case my dear wife reads this chapter in my memoirs).

Finally, Jim’s camera arrived and Larry instructed me to sit on the corner of the front end of the boat, wet my hands, and reach down and pick up the trout by the tail with my left hand, with the right hand under his front end. I could not reach around the tail so Larry sat down beside me and assisted me in lifting and holding the fish briefly for pictures. Now, suddenly, the fish felt like he weighed twice as much as I did as we lowered him back into the net and into the water. Larry continued to hold the fish upright and, shortly afterward, he was breathing normally in the refreshing water.

We all stood there with great admiration and appreciation for the largest Brown Trout Larry had netted in his twenty-four years of guiding on the White River.

We freely drank in the pure pleasure of sportsmanship at its best. Larry gently inverted the net, and a true trophy trout release swam off into the deep, clear water of the White River. Who knows? Maybe I’ll have the good fortune to catch him again next year, but, just in case I never see him again, I’m having a replica made by Treat’s Taxidermy Shop in Mountain Home.

On the third day we fished, the weather changed and so did our luck. We fished in the same spot that produced the twenty-pound Brown Trout the day before. Jim Burnham hooked a very heavy fish in that spot that swam downriver about seventy yards, turned sharply, and threw the hook. Jim and I have wondered, and always will, if it might have been that same big Brown. Wouldn’t that have been something!

Ole Hungry

Making fifteen consecutive excursions to the White River has produced some interesting events, but the last trip out to fish was certainly interesting! Jim Burnham and I were fishing with Larry McNair, as we usually do, anchored in what is known as Stetson’s Hole, across the river in front of the Stetson Resort docks.

I got a good strike from a fish, let the rod tip down, and cranked my Bass Pro Shops Pro Quantifier as fast as I could to take out all the slack from the line and set the hook, resulting in a good, heavy fish on the line. Actually, he was not hooked very well, but the line was wrapped around his head, which limited his fighting power.

After a brief struggle, I guided the fish to the boat and Larry netted him. As the fish came near the net, Larry laughed heartily and said, That’s a five-pound Brown Trout. He continued, He’s actually four pounds and thirteen ounces; a fishing customer caught him last week. Larry recognized the fish by his shape, size, spots, and large head. The fish actually had a Department of Natural Resources tag in his back. This helps the DNR learn how far the fish traveled in the river. He was not fat and, if he had been, he would have weighed seven pounds. We were all quite amused about the catch and released him back into the river unharmed after taking a couple of pictures.

We spent another hour fishing in that place, then moved downriver a ways, stopped, fished again, but with no luck. Another boat came down the river, stopped, and anchored in the spot we had just vacated. They fished a while and moved on after not catching anything.

Larry decided to return to that previous