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Growing up in the cornfield, as my friends called it, required that we made our own fun. Because we lived out in the country, we weren’t able to go to the mall or the arcade or the community pool or to even the local baseball field. We had to entertain ourselves. Most times, that meant playing in the out-of-doors doing whatever. We did have a makeshift baseball field cut out of the weeds with a push lawnmower. We fashioned our own backstop from some pasture fence with posts and made makeshift bases out of whatever we could find. We would scour the neighborhood early in the day, knocking on doors gathering up every able body we could find to have enough players to make up teams. With often only a short break for dinner, would play until dark.
By the age of six, I already caught a trout on a fly and was hooked on fly-fishing. My Dad would take me and my brothers on weekend forays to the Au Sable River where I practiced my trade and casts and tested the new-found creations I come up with at the vise. I remember using an old, glass Shakespeare Wonder Rod that had about as much flexibility as a log and weighed about the same. I’d cast until I had blisters on my hand. Dad would put some band aids on the sores and I’d go back at it until we had to head back home.
During the fall, I’d follow my Dad around in search of pheasants in the fields around Saginaw. Usually, we didn’t have to go far to bag a couple roosters. Dad made it a point to plant a few acres of buckwheat in the back 40 just for the pheasants. It seemed every rooster in the county was drawn to the field because of the tasty grain. Flocks of pheasants would explode from the field as we walked through it and killing a couple of roosters after work didn’t take much doing. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to shoot one rooster in Saginaw County.
When we weren’t actually hunting or fishing, my brothers and I would pretend we were. We’d search the local fields for tall, slender stands of golden rods that would serve as our fishing poles. We would carefully select only the finest, longest, straightest weeds for our rods. We’d attach a length of monofilament to serve fly lines and tie cheap, gaudy Japanese-made flies to the end of our lines that we bought at our local department store. It seemed that our imaginary trout preferred gaudy, brightly colored patterns like the Royal Coachman, Bumble Bee, Scarlet Ibis or Parmachene Bell.
We’d gather up some scrap lumber to fashion our boats. The boats were long narrow affairs could accommodate two anglers, one in front of the other, and were patterned after the long Au Sable riverboats that we saw on the weekends. Our long weed rods would be carefully placed in the boat along with our tackle and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Like any kind of fishing, placing our boats near productive “waters” was paramount. We build the boats and position them near lush stands of vegetation that served as their quarry. Dandelions were most common catch. The ones with the red stems were rainbows. Those with a pale, white stems emulated brook trout. Broad–leafed Plantain were the real trophies, like a big kype-jawed brown trout. We weren’t much in the catch and release those days. We’d spend hours on end entertaining ourselves in our makeshift boats.
Hunting was a little more serious. By the time was 10 or 12, I had graduated to a Crossman 760 .177 caliber pellet gun. This was serious medicine and no bird, squirrel or rabbit was safe in the neighborhood. I’m ashamed of it now, but we would stalk and kill all kinds of song birds, except Robins. Robins were kind of the redhead of the day and were off-limits according to our own rules. Mostly we targeted English sparrows, starlings and the occasional blue jay. Neighbor Mrs. Millword, our local birdwatcher, would have a fit when she saw us out and about knowing what we are up to. Mom would take us on trips to the hardware store in Bay City that had parts for our Crossman pellet guns. It was almost a weekly occurrence.
One of our most challenging quarries though were grasshoppers. During the hot summer months, grasshoppers were plentiful. Literally hundreds of thousands filled the fields were we typically played and explored. The biggest and most sought-after quarry was a specie called American Flyers. These were the canvasback of the grasshopper world to us. The giant hoppers had contrasting black wings with a yellow tip that folded down inconspicuously when they were at rest. The Flyers took on a chameleon appearance on the ground. They were shades of gray, brown or gold that blended in with their surroundings. Like pheasant hunting, we’d walk the fields and flush them and then pursue individual hoppers, which was no easy task. The hoppers are strong fliers and once they caught the wind they could go a long distance. Locating them once they landed was challenging required stealth and a keen eye. Because of their chameleon coloration, the hoppers blended in with their surroundings and spotting them took skill and patience. We’d scan the turf on hands and knees straining to see the hidden hoppers. If we approached to close, the hopper would bust us, take flight and the chase will begin anew. We’d line up our kills on the sidewalk, like ducks on the bow of the boat after a day’s hunt.
One day my brother Pat and I stumbled on the granddaddy of all grasshoppers. He was giant; golden; half again bigger than any grasshopper we had ever seen. He didn’t get that way by being dumb. Every time we tried to approach for a good shot, the hopper would take flight and we take up the case. This game of cat and mouse went on for an entire morning, but the hopper was tiring and with each flight we were getting closer. Numerous times we snuck close only to have the hopper sense our presence and flush before we could get a kill shot. The last time the hopper jumped he caught a gust of wind and sailed high into the sky. Pat and I could barely keep track of him as we ran behind him to keep up. At the peak of his flight, the grandiose hopper veered close to a pine tree. A waiting blue jay came sailing out of the tree and snatch the hopper in midair. Pat and I could only look at each other in disbelief.
Sometimes trophies are fleeting.
Gnatoutdoors 