Friends

Irish Tea and Soft Hackles

Friends

This past Saturday, May 30, 2005, we had a meeting of the Friends of the Little Missouri River at the pavilion in Riverside Park. Attendance was good, especially considering it was only the group's second meeting. I especially had a warm feeling when I realized that many of the people there were acquantances that I consider friends. Some there, including myself, were local people. Others were from varying areas of Arkansas such as Little Rock and central Arkansas, Hope (local also), El Dorado, Texarkana, and other south Arkansas communities, while several were Texicans, quite a few were from Louisiana, and there was at least one each from Tennessee and Pennsylvania. Only time and fly fishing have brought me close to these people.

In the early days of my fly fishing, I mostly fished alone since I knew few people who participated in such foolishness. One morning a few years back, as I approached a fishing hole, I asked a man fishing there if I could move in beside him. He'll probably deny this story, but he said yes! As we fished, he noticed that I was wearing a cap from Harding, the university my youngest son attends. He asked me if I had gone there. When I answered that my son had bought the cap for me, he, David Chin, responded that both he and his youngest son were graduates of the school.

To make a short story long, we became good friends and fishing partners. The following week David, a pelican stater (from Louisiana for you uneducated non-Arkies), introduced me to another good friend of his, Dick Waldrep, a Texican. Dick had been fishing the Little Missouri for quite a few years, but I had never met him.

Since that time, I have spend a lot of days fishing with these characters. We have been to festivals, rendevous, etc. in pursuit of fly fishing utopia (I started to use the word, nirvana, but it sounds a little too yuppie-ish for three burned out leftovers from the hippie era). Both are superb fishermen and fly tiers, and David is an artist and excellent rod builder. Dick has seniority in fly fishing experience and has had opportunities to fish many good places. I like to think that we have all helped one another to be better tiers and fishermen. Whether that is so or not, they are fun to be around! And I know we have helped each other to be better people! One of David's favorite sayings is "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys." Well, I guess that's what I paid, because I certainly got monkeys!

Over time, we've developed a network of people who are basically just a fun group to be with. There are Charles and Carolyn Henley, a local couple from the nearby town of Nashville, AR. Charles, aka Stickman, or Sticker, is an extremely good natured man who stays in excellent graces with the rest of us by bringing Carolyn's chess pies when we have lunch on the river. Pies or not, he's a good friend! F. B. Ward, another Louisianian, is in the group. Several others are from the Texarkana area, so many that I am afraid of leaving someone out if I name them. I will mention that Gary Hall and Dick Measures have spent many of the same days as us on the river and are good fishermen and friends. Wes, from Pennsylvania, and many others from surrounding areas are among those who make fly fishing such an enjoyable pastime. I've learned from all of these.

One of the truly memorable joys of life is to be able to experience activities with your family. For many years now, I've been blessed with being able to hunt and fish with my sons. John, my oldest son, doesn't fish, but he and I spend several days a year together deer hunting. He's a good hunter! He told me earlier today that he has started playing golf again. That's one sport that makes fly fishing seem the "smart" sport! Hey, if they would make a good movie about golf and call it something like "A Highline Runs Through It", it may take some of the fad pressure off our fishing areas!

Matthew, my youngest son, has become quite a fly fisherman in his own right, and we make a lot of really good trips together. He can cast farther than me. We swap rods, and he can still outcast me! Quite often, but not always, he outfishes me. He also occasionally indulges in the outlandish and perverted sport of golf!

My number one fishing partner doesn't even fish. She sits and reads while I pursue those wily beautiful trout. She thinks it's all a bit of foolishness, and is probably right, but remains willing to humor my ego! She's the best!

thoughts by Johnny McJunkins, May 5, 2005. email: jmcjunki@texarkanacollege.edu

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