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EXPLORE contest wraps up

Friday, September 4, 2020 - 12:00am

Photographer Faith Caughron has been named the 2020 winner of the EXPLORE magazine photography contest. Faith’s photo, “A Night Headed Home,” beat over 150 entries in the Van Zandt Newspapers photography contest.

ANYTHING CAN & OFTEN DOES HAPPEN

Friday, September 4, 2020 - 12:00am

After many years of traveling to distant destinations in search of material for my writing career and possibly to help stave a lifelong case of wanderlust for new places to hunt and fish, I have more than my share of bloopers that, if captured on film, would definitely qualify for prime time TV! Unlucky for me, or maybe it is my good fortune, there wasn’t a camera rolling when these outlandish events occurred, at least most of the time! Here are a few of the more humorous outings that come to mind. WHILE IN JAPAN - Close to two decades ago, I was invited to travel to Japan as an outdoor journalist to record a fishing match between a local bass angler and the reigning Japanese pro, Saramachi. A lure company promoted the event in efforts to break into the then lucrative business of importing fishing tackle into Japan. I spent a full day fishing with a couple of Tokyo outdoors writers who spoke about as much English as I Japanese, nil! We did speak the universal language of fishing though; those fellows were excellent fishermen and knew their waters well. About daylight the day of the match, the Texas pro, Rex, and I were driven to a fast food store in a little village about eight miles from Tokyo. We were running a bit late and rushed in to get a few snacks to tide us over until lunch. Everything looked foreign! There were no Twinkies, potato chips, Moon Pies or anything a couple of southern boys would choose for snack food. I spotted some packages of rice cakes that looked like they might suffice for a quick breakfast on the water. We each bought three or four packages, expecting them to be flavorless (or so we hoped) and filling. Back in the car, Rex was the first to tear into his packaged rice cakes. “What are these little dark spots in the cakes?” he asked our interrupter as he tossed the cake out the window for the birds to eat. “Dried shrimp!” was the reply. I’m not talking about cooked shrimp. The smell was exactly like that of a sundried shad that had spent the day on a hot dock! These little crustaceans were sundried. Rex won the fishing match with Saramachi, it’s been said it’s best to go fishing hungry rather than with a full stomach. We enjoyed an excellent Japanese lunch at a local restaurant and every time I see Rex, I ask him if he has had any rice cakes lately. I venture to guess he has not! STRONG DRINK IN THE HIGH COUNTRY-. Back in the mid-nineties, a buddy invited me to join him and a few family members for a mule deer hunt up in the Uncompadre National Forrest in the Colorado High Country. I followed my friend’s directions exactly to his camp site and saw a nice buck hanging in the lower limbs of a big spruce tree. It was early October but there was already a chill in the night air. The guys had a nice campfire going and I parked the truck and said hello to everybody. It it is a long drive to the Uncompadre from my home in Texas and I was tired and a bit sleepy. I was briefed on details of the better areas to hike to the next morning and I got busy getting my gear ready. I was thirsty so I asked, “Got any water around, the Coke I drank just make me thirstier?” “Look behind the supply tent, it’s in the plastic five-gallon container,” I was told. I took a tin cup around behind the tent and with a flashlight found a five-gallon container. The night was black and there was a stiff north breeze that made it feel colder than it really was, especially for a newcomer from Texas where the daytime high was in the mid-eighties. I unscrewed the cap on the can, poured a tin cup of water and returned to my chair by the campfire. My friend was sitting downwind of me. “Luke, what in the world are you drinking, that stuff smells pretty strong to me,” he says as he eased over to sniff my drink. “Just some of your water that I got from the can.” I replied. “Water! That ain’t water, it’s gasoline” he said as he took a sniff. It seems the guys had brought several containers, some for gas, some for water, and placed them all behind the tent. With the strong wind blowing and the dark night, I had failed to read GAS written on the side of the can, the wind blew the smell of gas away when I unscrewed the top. This is one that I still haven’t lived down! When I was about 10, I often guided my uncle, also named Luke, on fly fishing trips around our home in northern Red River County. I knew every good fishing hole in our part of the county and my mother and dad had fishing rights to most of them. Late one evening, Uncle Luke drove us to a spot we nicknamed The Round Hole. It was chock full of bass and bream and my uncle was particularly good with his fly rod. In a matter of minutes, he had landed several hand size bream and a couple of nice bass, using a frog pattern popping bug. Then, just as it was getting too dark to fish, he made a long cast and double hauled his fly line. When the little popper reached the zenith of its flight toward the water, I saw my uncle’s fly rod point toward the sky and the reel began to scream. “What kind of fish do ya’ll have down here in Texas, he inquired, as the owl continued to strip his line. After a lengthy battle, Uncle Luke captured the big bird of prey and as country people did back around 1960, my dad used leather boot laces and tethered it to the lower limb of a pine tree near our house. The big bird would attempt to scalp us kids when we came anywhere near. After a few days of feeding the bird meat scraps, Dad cut the straps and let him go. My uncle never forgot the battle the “flying fish” gave him!