Baker's Branch

  I am the Rain Man. Not the one in the movie, but the one who walks about in a soft, spring rain with a fishing rod in his hand. That’s the one. That’s me. I will lay my twenty-dollar bill up against yours, and bet you that fishing is always better in the right kind of rain.  The right kind of rain? Yep. That would be the one without wind, or very little of it at the most. Steady rain, not driven by wind. The kind of rain that makes you think that throwing a topwater onto the surface of a rain-dappled, ebony lake at dark is like throwing naked sticks of dynamite into an open campfire. That’s the kind of rain I’m talking about.   We got that type of rain in this country the night before last; no tornadoes or hail hooked to it. I got out into it right in front of my house, down in the rock rubble of Upper Baker’s Branch. I have over the years caught every available species of fish Lake Keystone has to offer right in front of my house. Well, now wait a minute: I hav...

I’m carrying two knives with me into the woods this weekend to open the muzzleloading deer season. One will be a Buck model 110 folding hunter I bought this past summer because I could. I’ve wanted one for a long time. Buck knives have been in hunter’s pockets for a long time at least since the mid-1950’s. They come out of the box with a good edge that will hold and hold and hold. They also come with a reputation for being a hard knife to put an edge on when it comes time to freshen them up. That’s true, too. I own another Buck, a "mini-sword, belt-hanger" my brother took off a guy in Iraq back in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. I’d as soon gut a deer with a lawn mower blade as use the long Buck, but when he offered it to me one weekend when he showed up here at the house, I didn’t turn it down. Sometimes late at night when everyone’s asleep, I take it out, turn it over in my hands and let the light catch its long blade and shaft, and wave it around over my he...

  Turkey hunting is a movable feast if there ever was one. Nobody who has done it very long ever leaves camp before daylight thinking he knows what is going to happen next.  All you can bet on is that the red gods of war and fortune are going to drop something on you, maybe in your lap. It’s why some of us go, and would continue, turkey or not, once we’ve been once. I could tell you stories.  Not too long ago, I met a man that was to open up my back surgically, dance around my spinal cord for awhile, and then put me back together again, with best wishes and good intentions. I was a little nervous about the prospect.  I did not know Doctor “Zee” well, and felt I needed to strike some common ground between us in his office so as to alleviate any fears I might have had about him handling such a significant part of my future. I asked him a question.  “Doc, what do you do for fun?”  “I like to hunt turkeys. Have you ever done that?”  Jeeminy Christmas (or A...

  I bought Pam a storm shelter for Valentine's Day this year. My original plan was for a nice white apron (she loves to cook) with a little red heart embroidered in the approximate location of her own heart, but I opted out of that choice as similar gifts in the past have caused her to "tear-up" and, frankly, the episodes have begun to get to me a little bit in my agedness. I'm pretty sensitive myself, and have never enjoyed watching grown people cry. So, the storm shelter. When the truck arrived with her romantic little concrete cubicle, she was surprised. She wanted to know what the truck was for. I told her not for a dozen red roses, but for something really special, and outlined the nature of her gift. She was stunned speechless, and went outside and unfolded a lawn chair under the carport and watched the installation of a gift that will likely endure at least as long as the Great Pyramid of Cheops, such is the strength of my love for this little girl from Wewoka....

  “Get the net. Get the net. Good fish.”  My brother, Vernon Vollertsen, up for the day from Edmond to visit and fish, was indeed into a good fish of some sort, his rod bent into a deep bow, drag screeching line from the reel. Whatever it was, was going deep. We had been tossing jigs towards the shoreline back up in the Mud Creek Arm of Lake Keystone. All reports and history for this time of the year indicated that’s where the crappie should be, but they weren’t. Almost two hours of throwing variously colored jigs had proven that they weren’t.  This spring’s fishing season has been a roller coaster ride of frontal passages, moving the fish in and out, in and out, and anybody’s guess as to where to find them from day to day. And now, after the rains have come, after four years of drought, the water is rising, and becoming murkier than it has been in four years.  Even the hardest headed German can be hammered into shape by the events of the day. A change was in order, ...

  Before you answer that, you better go to the window and look. They HAVE been showing up around here in peoples' backyards lately, whether yours or not. I was put to thinking about backyard lions recently at the conclusion of a delivery I gave to the Sunset Rotary Club which holds meetings at the Tulsa Boys' Home. The topic requested for my attention was hunting and fishing opportunities along the wild Arkansas River, which, in case you haven't noticed, is getting wilder by the day. Well, sorta'.  I'm getting too old for curveballs, and was relieved to see a slow "fat one" headed my way. I felt I handled the requested topic well. I know a little about the hunting and fishing around here until I got to the Q&A session at the end. Jim Eardley, longtime resident of Prattville, wanted to know what was the closest I had ever been to a mountain lion. Well, he had me there. In all of my rambles I have been places wild, hundreds of miles from the nearest road...

  It's time to eat. Enough already of all this "how-to", "where-to", and "who with" stuff. It's time to belly-up to the table, and take a bite.  I hate more than anything the way frozen packages of fish pile up in the freezer. It's a pet peeve of mine. Frozen fish has a way of working its way to the bottom of a freezer, and not re-appearing again for months, even years, later. Eat it now, or suffer the "burned" consequences later. God did not intend for people to eat freezer-burned fish, but it happens.  There must be fifty ways to fry a fish, or lose your lover, but in the end they're both fried. Don't get me wrong, I love "fried," but towards the end of the season I am susceptible to alternative suggestions. How about "Crappie Florentine", for example? Until about a week ago it did not exist; it does now. My mother was one of the five best domestic cooks I have ever known. It was a surprising fact on seve...