‘Bullseye!’
By RALPH HARDIN
‘The Great Indoors’ M y daughter came home from her boyfriend’s house Saturday evening holding a Ziploc bag of frozen avocado chunks to her forehead and her boyfriend skulking behind her shaking his head.
This was a story I definitely wanted to hear.
Her boyfriend and his family are decidedly “country folk” and as such, they have introduced my daughter to all sorts of “country folk” things, such as eating squirrel brains and deer testicles, week-long fishing trips and a bunch of cool stuff that she has really taken to in the three years they’ve been dating. Her enthusiasm for embracing “country folk” culture has led to her being deemed “a keeper” by the family.
Well, one of the things they like to do is hunt. And in preparation for that, they were outside sighting their crossbows. My daughter wanted very much to shoot the crossbow. She has fired a bow before, as well as several firearms, so this wasn’t completely unfamiliar territory. After a few shots from different distances, her boyfriend handed her the crossbow (under, I feel I should add, adult supervision, in case you were picturing them cavorting around an open field like a Medieval Bonnie and Clyde).
Now before I continue, let me take you back to nineteen- eighty-something, and my grandfather, my father, my uncle, my cousins and I all down by the swamp that still sits behind the old water tower in Marion, just east of the county courthouse. At the time, my grandfather lived in a house trailer almost directly under the water tower (it is long gone these days). And one day, we were all out back there shooting guns of various caliber.
I say “we” but it was mostly the grown folks and a couple of my older cousins.
I was really just watching, a lad of maybe 10 or 12 years old. Finally, my uncle asked if I wanted to try shooting one of the pistols. It was probably just a .22, but in my small hands, it was huge and I felt like “Dirty” Harry Callahan brandishing the .44 Magnum, “The most powerful handgun in the world.”
Well, I must have “felt lucky, punk,” because I carefully took aim at the target several yards away, squinted Clint Eastwood-style and pulled the trigger… and promptly knocked myself silly as the pistol recoiled in my left hand and smacked me right in the forehead.
I don’t remember now if I cried or not, but I definitely fell on my butt. I also definitely had a big ol’ knot on my forehead. I also decided then and there that I didn’t want to shoot anymore guns for a while.
Fast-forward nearly four decades and history, it would seem, had repeated itself. Despite the fact that crossbows aren’t really known for their kick, she had apparently put the scope a little too close to her face and then, as she fired, dragged the crossbow across her line of sight. So, while she did hit the target (I’m still not sure if young me hit anything at all), she also managed to whack herself in the forehead, leaving a scope-shaped knot right in the middle of it.
These things, it would seem, do not skip a generation.
Big ones biting as fall approaches
Jim Harris, Editor of Arkansas Wildlife, says that some large fish are coming out of deep-water hiding as the water temperatures lower and they look for something to gulp closer to the surface as days grow shorter.
Jim send in a couple of photos of some nice catches from this past weekend.
In one photo, Jacob Acord caught this largemouth bass that measured 21 inches in length while fishing the Strawberry River below Horseshoe Bend in north Arkansas. Jacob said he didn’t have a scale to weigh it, but it looks pretty heavy to us. He was using a Rebel creek-hopper and had 8-pound braided line.
“It took about 5 minutes to get it in. It’s the biggest bass I’ve ever caught,” he said.
Meanwhiile, Dennis Padelford of Mountain Home landed a 23-inch rainbow fishing the Norfork tailwater. It weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces. Dennis relates that he fishes the Norfork and the White River and also caught a nice striper recently in the lake.
If you’ve got a good fishing photo to share, send it via email to jim. harris@agfc.ar.gov or news@theeveningtimes.com. You can also text it to 901-355-1302, and we’ll be happy to run it here in the paper. Give us all the exciting details to share as well.
FAR LEFT:
Jacob Acord landed a lunker of a largemouth bass over the weekend.
LEFT:
Dennis Padelford pulled this long rainbow trout from the Norfork tailwater.
Photos courtesy of AGFC
