All Kinds of Kinds

“Now some point a finger and let ignorance linger, if they’d look in the mirror they’d find…that ever since the beginning to keep the world spinning, it takes all kinds of kinds”, words from the latest Miranda Lambert country hit.

I’m sure you already knew this, but I am a huge country music fan; Miranda Lambert and her country beau Blake Shelton are two at the top of my list. What you probably didn’t know is that they are both big outdoorsmen; in fact little Miranda has shot a few deer along the way in her relationship with Blake. How cool is it that our male and female country vocalists of the year are hunters and outdoor enthusiasts…no offense (and I am probably wrong) but just can’t see the opera folks with a rifle slung over their shoulder…ah, but that leads me to the main topic, yes indeed…it takes all kinds of kinds!

Immediately there were probably a few of you who looked at the photo of me and Pappi and immediately went yuk! Something along the lines of…that poor pigeon; the truth is that without question there is no shortage of pigeons (if you don’t believe me then look up the next time you are around the courthouse). For Pappi this pigeon was the key to un-lock the door for what might be many years of a very good bird dog. Pigeons are great birds for training a young pointing dog…not too expensive, easy to maintain and hardy flyers. Getting to the point where I was confident in shooting a pigeon over my 3 month old puppy took hours of walks, followed by the firing of primers (thanks to Vickie on this one) while he was investigating other sounds and smells…which led to firing off 28 gauge shells while Pappi was chasing a pigeon…which then led to the confidence that I could shoot a pigeon directly over him. It was a very special moment for father/son as Pappi dutifully retrieved the pigeon to hand and did so like he was bringing me the first pigeon I’d ever seen! For many bird hunting and the training of a puppy would be a dastardly endeavor…at the very least it seems like there are fewer and fewer each year with the perseverance it takes to commit to a 10 or 12 year long process. For those of us who know…when it all comes together and the magic presents itself on a sunny fall afternoon…when a brace of bird dogs lock up on an unsuspecting and unwilling rooster pheasant…well for this outdoorsmen it just doesn’t get any better; it takes all kinds of kinds.

Just last week I made my way down to Sullivan County and Bass Lake in search of a musky. I had fished all morning long…from just before 9am to a bit past 12:30pm; my shoulder was sore and my elbow was worse…I had spent the entire morning casting my 8 and 10 weight fly rod with one of my own hand tied flies that was in excess of 8” in length. One might think this was a total waste of my time…ah, but that would poor thinking…while I didn’t land a musky I had a ten second period that was and will always be memorable. I had arrived at the same point of the lake where I’d had 2 previous contacts with a large musky…I made a long cast parallel to a weed bed. I was retrieving my fly by placing my rod under my right arm pit and hand over hand retrieving the fly at a very high rate of speed…in essence looking for a reaction strike from the apex predator in these waters. The fly was only about 10 feet from my boat when all heck broke loose…a large musky came out of the shallows and brutally attacked my fly. He did so with such speed and force that is literally shocked me. He missed the fly and I spent the next 30 seconds figure-eighting my fly below the surface of the boat. Nothing…I returned to the same spot 3 more times over the next 3 hours with a different color fly each time…nada…and so it goes. As I was pulling in and parking my boat there was another fisherman in a very large boat getting ready to head out. He, too was a musky person and had several large bait and spin casting rods all set up…in fact I watched as he went about 100 yards and grabbed a rod and made his first cast…his plug flew through the air and looked like a punt at a local high school football game. Quickly I could see that he could cover tons more water in a short period of time…and then I thought to myself, would I trade my morning and my style of fishing…no, never, fly fishing for a large toothy critter was and is what I will  continue to do. Do I think less of this other fisherman…absolutely not, nor did I feel like he looked at me with anything but respect. As I drove away…yep, you guessed it, there on the radio was Miranda and she was singing, “It takes all kinds of kinds”…it sure does and I am so very glad that there are many ways to skin a cat!

Nature and how you enjoy it is up to you…so…grab some gear and get going…these next few weeks of fall are the very best and a special time to Enjoy the Great Outdoors.