By Allen Hamrick
Hey, y’all Zeb here tryin’ to write a few lines about summer fishin’ before we all melt like butter on a hot biscuit. Yeah, it’s hot; not just hot, but hot enough to have yer eggs and cakes on the hood of yer car for early mornin’ breakfast. Pastor Tomasher was out on his lawn in Adam and Eve clothes declaring it was the end of the world and that the devil had set up home base here on the mountain. All the local springs and creeks have nearly dried up. Cattle, horses and mules search for the last remainin’ wet spots and took to stompin’ them into mud holes like pigs to get a cool spot. Freezy’s ice cream hang out is making a killing in this heat; most localers have left their homes and camped in their parking lot just to look at the ice. People are payin’ a dollar or tradin’ firewood to stick their head in one of their freezers for 10 seconds. For a $50 bill or a promise of the first bushel of corn, you get a whole minute among the frozen goodies. You may think it ain’t worth it, but one minute is like a winter in Montana.
The power supply for the region is at its breakin’ point due to there ain’t enough water flowin’ in the river to push the blades on the water wheel that fires the generator. So, people have come up with new ways to beat the heat till this spell is over. Ol’ Lew had what we thought was a great idea. He found this stuff called Icy Hot at the hardware store and applied it to his skin all over. It was garnteed to cool you off no matter the heat, but you can imagine what happened when the hot took over. Lew, figurin’ that icy hot meant it was real cold figured wrong. He was lobster red by the time we got that salve off of him, and it took about a five gallon bucket of mud to cool him off. Granny Izzle cooked up a new remedy she called “sunny side down.” It was a mix of spinach, chestnut burs, corn squeezins, salt, hemlock shavins’ and Cheerios. There was other ingredients but she won’t tell, just says “you take one drink of this and I garntee you won’t care about the heat”. So far, she’s had a few bite the bullet, and true to her word, none seem to care. However, we haven’t seen them since, either. As far as me and my missus, we done went to ground. We bored a hole like giant gophers and set up our base camp 30 feet back into the hillside. We are joined by our animals, kids and neighbors – its one big happy family, and on occasion, one is nominated to go out into no man’s land and take note of any changes. If they don’t come back, well…
Our summer fishin’ patterns don’t work in this heat so any information I can relay to you would be just guessin’. We decided to set the john boat in one of the last remaining eddies in the river; after all, people have to eat. We no more that set down in the boat than we shot back out of it leaving our melted boots stuck to the bottom and 3rd degree burns on our still smolderin’ fishin’ pants. That boat was hot enough to start brush fires. We flipped the boat in the water to cool off and it heated the water till the fish was tryin’ to get out…we had plenty of fish for everybody.
Stay cool. This heat won’t last forever, and then we can all huddle around the stove and complain about how cold it is. Until the next time, keep a tight line and your head in the freezer.
