More Palm of Hand to Forehead Moments

I've fallen while fishing, more times than I can count during the last eight years. Three of those falls I remember was distinct as if they happened yesterday. Because I beat the odds what usually happens with those type falls.

I've worked tediously the last eight years, to become "Self contained". Most people must know what that means, because I'm complimented more about my "self containment" than I am the fish I'm stirring the water to a froth, catching. As age seemingly caught up to my shoulder and back muscles, I converted my self containment to caring everything on an ammo belt. Yes, now my hips ache at a certain point of day, but I can remove the belt and sling it over one shoulder. Not handy for easily accessing accessories, but that sling over the shoulder for awhile beats the sling across my back, for a day. Knives, hemostats, hook sharpeners, water bottles, tippet (if fly fishing), rod holder, tackle pack...and a few other accessories I won't bore the reader by listing are all on the ammo belt. Yes, depending what I'm doing, I can be totally hands free without lying one thing on the ground.

Growing up on the trout waters around Baxter Springs, Lake Taneycomo, and finally the Meramecs, Little Pineys, etc. closer to Rolla, more than once I made wading staffs from what God provided-tree limbs on the bank. Time consuming and questionable quality. When I moved to the Mississippi mud waters my mind dismissed needing wading staffs. Well, you need wading staffs where I'm fishing more than you need them for pristine Ozark streams. Two reasons: Mud. And steep rock dams for the still waters-also mud the minute you leave the dam.

But it wasn't until I was watching an Easterner trout fisherman at an age and condition one wouldn't list a wading staff as being that important to him, discussing his love affair with his wading staff that I at least mentally slapped my palm to my forehead and thinking, "Why...don't I have a wading staff?! After all of these falls...why?!" Additionally, the Easterner is pretty smug about the inflation pricing for an accessory just because it's for fishing, and went into a long dissertation about getting hiking staffs with far more options in terrain tips than "fishing wading staffs"-at half the price. Then, the Easterner displayed some brain power that annoyed me a little (jealous), and proceeded to explain how to modify these hiking staffs and attach them to you. Using retractors so as to not limit your range and reach, and retractors that truly last more than a year. Maybe only six months.

The "wading staff" above is from "Trekology". Via Amazon. Hiking staffs will usually come with a built in "strap., which is wrapped around a hidden shaft just inside the handle. Cut the strap. Replace it with a long wire tie at the same time running the tie through the retractor ring, and you're done. Will never float away. Don't have to bend over to pick it up. Most staffs-wading or hiking-are "break down" with a cable running through the middle. Two strips of almost to strong Velcro on the ammo belt-you're set. Shown here with rubber tip and a mud cup installed above it. A wading staff that sinks more than one or two inches into the mud is suddenly a burden, not a help. Because this is actually a hiking staff I also have rubber boots for it, snow baskets, or remove any kind of tips installed and I have a carbide tip that actually chips rocks. With slick moss on top of them-get the picture?

So I entered this fishing year with the added wading staff. Used it a few times in February reaching what's always been a primo crappie hole-but the last part of that trail is an amazing entanglement of brush, weeds, lime, thorns...and I've fought it for years. I've fought the brush everywhere, for years. Sometimes picking at it with my knife. My hemostats that include a cutter. Raw hand and arm power. Result always being arms and hands that look like I manage cats in a delinquent criminal home for cats. Thank goodness I usually wear at least two layers of outdoor clothing that ahem...prevents cuts and punctures. Hands and arms are disagreeing as they read this.

I infrequently take a kid I met a couple years ago, out with me. Not nearly as much as Mom requests but...they "get me". I call her "The Viking Kid". To her face now, so I'm not concerned about her reading this and being offended. She'll consider it a compliment, anyway. Has a cellphone-never carries it. Doesn't care about anything "modern". But carries all the implements I imagine a kid carried in the 1700's. Yeh...she's the one that can hand line, for fish. (I can't even do that.) A week later from my brush fighting crappie fishing trip in February, she got into the vehicle to go to the same place. But first, had to remove this machete (it's actually a knife) to be able to sit down in the car seat. Not surprised because she's a Viking, it still didn't register with me that this piece was more than just part of her personality. As we walked toward the brush nightmare I started to take the long way around through the woods, to avoid it. "Let's go through here. I got it", she said. (Too enthusiastically.) The kid took that machete out of the sheath and proceeded to perform some forestry work that rivaled that of a mechanical machine. I know I stood there looking stunned bacause she began to walk through the newly cut path, stopped and turned around and asked me, "Well are you coming?" I wasn't stunned that she did this. I once again, was stunned and mentally placing my hand palm to my forehead and thinking, "Why...have I not had one of those all this time?!"

Her machete is a bit long for my style of self containment. I've procrastinated through another year of brush naturally becoming thicker with summer weather. But a machete to fit nicely on the ammo belt is on my "to do" list. (And several are in my Amazon wish list).

Wading staffs and machetes I can argue are still just a convenience-not a necessity because I'm older. But if you know, you know. Here's the one thing that's developed this year that there are no staffs or knives to fix. The heat. I'm still trying to work through it, but a healthy mind trying to keep a healthy body has made me quit early on these heat warning days. Every time! This summer. I really shouldn't be surprised. Have always enjoyed the outdoors October through April more than June through September. I'm at peak fishing energy when the snow's flying. But it's a little odd to find myself looking out my deck glass doors on these heat warning days, when I used to be out fishing many of them. Caught a master angler red ear one August broiler day...after sitting under a shade bush for 20 minutes or so to suppress a "heat incident". Age is just a number. But when a heat index number is involved, it's a number to somehow be correlated or used as part of an equation, with that heat index number. Just sayin'...