Lake Lucas Jon Boat Tournament

Fished Lake Lucas Saturday with Matt in a jon boat tournament. We didn't place but we weighed in 4 bass for 4.8 pounds. I think he's still in 6th place for the year which isn't too bad for the number of teams they have. Back in the spring we fished Varner and got second place; I caught 4 that weighed almost 4 pounds a piece and Matt caught one. Naturally I spent the rest of the summer rubbing it in so I was a little worried about how I'd do in this one. Got to keep my reputation up and all. Well, I caught four at Lucas, one too small to keep, the others were barely big enough. Matt caught one little one and had another come off at the boat. The winning weight was only around ten pounds and the average was close to five so we were right in there.
And I can keep rubbing it in.

Coonbottom

My grandpappy was from Coonbottom. He was born in 1902 in an old farmhouse on the Georgia/Florida line. The kitchen was in Georgia and the rest of the house was in Florida. He told me once that one of his brothers used to sit just out of the kitchen and spit a wad of tobacco juice across the room into the fireplace and proclaim that he was such a good spitter that he could spit from Florida to Georgia. No spit! Apparently that wasn't all just bull spit (ok, ok, I'll stop) because he won the Florida State Fair tobacco spitting contest sometime in the nineteen teens. Granddaddy also told me that they would stand by the gate to the barn as the cows came home in the evening and try to spit in their eyes. He said my uncle was way better at it than he was even after the cows wised up and came through the gate with their heads at ninety degree angles from their bodies. Cows ain't that stupid. (I made the mistake of telling that story once in the company of a liberal Yankee animal hugging female. She looked at me like I had peed on the carpet.)
Anyway, from Granddaddy's stories Coonbottom became a kind of mysterious, mythical place to me as a boy. I imagined a place far off in the swamps of the Ochlocknee where moonshine stills sent up wispy tendrils of smoke through the Spanish moss draped live oaks, and overall clad men sat on tar paper shack porches smoking and chewing and telling stories while cur dogs twitched and dreamed in the cool darkness beneath them. Coonbottom always had a dark, shadowy feel to it in my mind, like perpetual twilight. And I always thought of coons for some reason. Lots of them.
Granddaddy finally took me to Coonbottom when I was about 10 or so and I got to see the old house on the state line and what was left of the farm that he had grown up on. One of his sisters still lived there, I can't remember her name, and I got the impression that they weren't on the best of terms. We walked around a bit and he told me how him and his brothers would finish their chores on Saturday and walk a trail through the woods to the Ochlocknee River and fish and swim the rest of the afternoon. He told me about a tornado that came up one day while they were working in the field and how they all ran for cover and discovered later that it had picked up a neighbor and transported him a mile before dropping him on top of a car, breaking his back. These days I wonder why he just up and decided to take me out there that day. We had never been before and we never went back. I seem to remember he seemed a little withdrawn that day, and as we walked I remember feeling like I might not really be there, or maybe that he was only partially in my dimension of time. He seemed to be seeing things that only he could see. And I guess he probably was.
In only seven or eight years he would be dead from a heart attack at 82 and it would be 20 years before I went back.

Coonbottom Chicken Pilau

I lifted the following from a blog by Kathy G who has obviously been to Coonbottom. Every November the Concord Cemetery Committee puts on a big chicken and rice dinner. Anybody wants to go this year let me know.

"First, let me begin with Pilau (pronounced pur-low). This is a tradition for the people of the community lovingly named Coonbottom in Gadsden County, FL. Basically, you get a bunch of people you know together, load up cars, drive down dark roads and then sit in a long line of cars to turn into a field to park. Once there you proceed to pay money to get as much chicken and rice as you can humanly (or otherwise) stuff into your stomach. Now, some of you may be wondering whats the point?? This is a tradition started a while back (over 20 years ago) to help raise money for the local cemetery. So they now have a nice cemetery and the money to keep it up, courtesy of a bunch of tourists that like to come and say they've been to the Pilau. I liked the atmosphere there. You got to sit at these really long tables and end up sitting and talking to random people. It definitely builds community. And after you eat you can go stand by the fires that they place giant cast iron pots on to cook the chicken and rice in. Fabulous!"

Topps Tracker

This is the Topps Tracker. The picture doesn't do it justice. It's right at a foot long. They do make a smaller one but if you're going to go with this type of knife you'd probably want the heavier weight for chopping, or prying the doors of cars and cutting through 55 gallon metal drums and stuff. Never know when you might need to do that. I've already got a smaller K-bar with the same general blade design. It's called the Warthog, which, ok, was the other reason I bought it. I'm a sucker for cool names. I bought the Taurus Tracker revolver in .41 Magnum for the same reason. Cool name. Plus I needed a good hog pistol. That's another reason to buy the Tracker knife I guess. Matching names.

Squirrel Season

Deer hunters are out of the woods so it's time to get after some squirrels and wouldn't you know it...Skeeter is laid up with an in heat bitch across the road. Only one thing on his mind right now. I picked him up on my way out yesterday and he slept in the truck all afternoon he was so wore out.

Finally saw a Topps Tracker knife at the surplus store in Hinesville Thursday. I had no idea it was that big. $275 is a little high though.

Shot the new Mossberg 835 Ulti-mag the other day. I really don't know why I bought a Mossberg other than it was advertised as a turkey gun and it looked cool. Plus it was cheap. The factory choke is crap. I got 9 pellets of Federal Premium #6 in the neck and head at ten yards; most of the shot pattern went high and to the left. JJ then shot at ten with his XXX full Comp-n-Choke equipped Remington 1187 and destroyed the entire turkey head, not to mention blowing a massive hole through the board.
I am a Remington man all the way, you can ask anybody if you don't believe me, and I'm tempted to just keep using my 870 with the same Comp-n-Choke but I may have to break down and spend the $55 for another Comp-n-Choke for the Mossberg. Sgt. Chip tells me he's heard the same about the Mossberg factory chokes from numerous people which makes me wonder why Mossberg would market a "turkey gun" with such a piss poor choke.
Anyway, only two more months til turkey season.....