07-11-2010, 10:58 PM
While at Fort Stewart, Georgia for army flight school in the late 60's, my trailer park neighbor, last name of Outlaw (yes, that was his name) invited me to go fishing. He had a small 10 foot jon boat with not a whole lot of freeboard. We unloaded the boat into the nearby swamp (part of the Okefenokee) and started loading in our cooler with beer and sandwiches, our fly rods, and tackle boxes. We then put in two standard nylon over aluminum lawn chairs for seats. He got in very gingerly and told me to ease in. Somehow we were finally afloat and paddling back into the swamp. The boat seemed just a "wee bit" tipsy...
He said we were going to be fishing for something called "shellcrackers" so I tied a little yellow popping bug on my leader. He paddled way out and around to a set of cypress stumps and told me to cast as close as possible to the big one on the right. I swear that all I did was lean very slightly toward the stump as I flicked the popper out. We capsized so fast that I was still watching my bug touching down as I submerged head first into the cold, murky water. My first thought were alligators and then snakes. I knew the swamp was full of small gators that would strike your surface plug if you allowed them to reach it. It also had a sizeable population of cottonmouths. Then there was that story going around of the water skier falling into a massive nest of cottonmouths...
Well, I lost all my tackle (the box was open) and the lawn chairs, plus we got really soaked. We never were able to get back in the boat. We had to right the boat, grab the cooler and round up the floating beer, then our rods which floated by their cork handles. We got on the rear of the boat and kicked back the 500 yards to our launch point. Then we had a cold beer and a good laugh at ourselves realizing how dumb the lawnchair idea was... and, I still don't know what a "shellcracker" is...
Only funnier thing I've seen with those same old nylon lawnchairs was a homebuilt three-wheel Harley. It had two tandem mounted lawn chairs for seats. Very used up biker fella complete with mullet hairdo and his "old lady" behind him in shorts and a tank top with a small, black cigar dangling from her lips; both sans teeth... well maybe four or five total between them. It was that proud, straight-ahead look that caught my attention...
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He said we were going to be fishing for something called "shellcrackers" so I tied a little yellow popping bug on my leader. He paddled way out and around to a set of cypress stumps and told me to cast as close as possible to the big one on the right. I swear that all I did was lean very slightly toward the stump as I flicked the popper out. We capsized so fast that I was still watching my bug touching down as I submerged head first into the cold, murky water. My first thought were alligators and then snakes. I knew the swamp was full of small gators that would strike your surface plug if you allowed them to reach it. It also had a sizeable population of cottonmouths. Then there was that story going around of the water skier falling into a massive nest of cottonmouths...
Well, I lost all my tackle (the box was open) and the lawn chairs, plus we got really soaked. We never were able to get back in the boat. We had to right the boat, grab the cooler and round up the floating beer, then our rods which floated by their cork handles. We got on the rear of the boat and kicked back the 500 yards to our launch point. Then we had a cold beer and a good laugh at ourselves realizing how dumb the lawnchair idea was... and, I still don't know what a "shellcracker" is...
Only funnier thing I've seen with those same old nylon lawnchairs was a homebuilt three-wheel Harley. It had two tandem mounted lawn chairs for seats. Very used up biker fella complete with mullet hairdo and his "old lady" behind him in shorts and a tank top with a small, black cigar dangling from her lips; both sans teeth... well maybe four or five total between them. It was that proud, straight-ahead look that caught my attention...
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