My daughter's blog site, check it out...

http://ordinaryhaley.blogspot.com/2016/03/just-little-of-everything.html?m=1

The richest man has a bag full of worthless gold...

 The sound of that first paddle stroke at sunrise thunders deep in my core. I know with that sound where I am headed and that adventure lies ahead. The sound of the highway disappears as the shoal takes its place. I am where I need to be...on the river.
 

They say heaven has streets of gold but gravel bars and bluffs that rise from the flow and grand mountains are what I expect. You see, gold does not impress me unless it's meshed in to the skin of a trout, a smallmouth or even a red horse sucker...that is the gold that God placed for the true fisherman to admire. Not worth a penny to most but priceless in the wet hands of the right man as he banks memories to share with those with a like mind.

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 At the end of the day, when the sound of the city takes over the river's music with the eagerness of a frightened herd of buffalos the kayak fisherman has his bag full of gold that will pay his fare until the next time he can float.

...thank God for little plastic boats.

That Is My Baby Girl...

Today like a lot of days , I went fishing...as I was floating down the Etowah river admiring the sunset, my phone rang. My 19 year old daughter Haley was calling, she just wanted to talk and since she was close by she said she would meet me at the boat ramp. First off, the cool thing is, my beautiful daughter is riding around with a fishing rod in her car. (There is a reason for that and I'll explain later.) Shortly after I loaded my kayak Haley arrived, grabbed her rod and she and I fished from the bank until dark. We didn't have a deep conversation, we just fished, chatted and soaked in the moment. On my way home I thought about Haley because you'd be hard pressed to find a 19 year old girl that keeps a fishing rod in her car just in case she wants to fish. There is a lot that lies beneath that...a tangible reason as to why she is the way she is.

When Haley was a baby I had a bass boat and on more than one occasion I bundeled her up, put her in her car carrier, hooked up my boat and we went fishing...she was less than a year old! I've never told that story to anyone that mattered because of the risk of a negative reaction, not even her mother. Anyway, if I caught a fish I'd show it to her, I'd talk to her as if she could understand all of this fishing jargon yet she was sucking on a pacifier and wrapped up like a burrito. Thank god I never ran into a game warden! When she could walk I would take her out on Lake Blueridge with her Barbie life jacket and her Scooby doo rod and reel. We would run up the lake like our hair was on fire stopping at the various little bays where both of us would stand on the bow and fish until she was ready to change spots...she would signal this by saying, "No fish here daddy!" At age 3 I took her crappie fishing on my hunting club and on our way out there was a big old tom turkey with some hens crossing a cutover. I had all of my hunting stuff behind the truck seat so I put a camo shirt on her, sat her on a stump overlooking the cut and snuck out there and shot him. Haley saw the whole thing play out from the beginning to the kill. After her mother and I divorced the next year she spent every other weekend during duck season in the blind with me. When she was old enough she would handle Bell our Chesapeake Bay Retriever and later she would carry an old 20 gauge single shot that was my brother's. Haley...for a girl has had an unconventional upbringing. She has been my sidekick while coon hunting, she has hunted deer, wild hog and bear with me. She has camped in some of the most remote wilderness that Georgia has to offer and enjoyed every minute of it. She is tough, smart and oh so beautiful and at 19 I had thought she may be fading into just being a regular girl but I realized today that like me, nature and fishing is in our blood. We fish because... that is what we do.

Redfish Magic

· This fish was caught in St Joe's Bay/Cape San Blas Fl. In Oct 2007. This was my first full day of what has turned in to 7 1/2 years of sobriety. Two days before I'd been arrested for DUI, my life seemed like pure chaos and at the moment I wasn't liked very much by my wife. I needed to go Fishing. I waded way out onto a turtle grass flat, the sky was cloudy and it was so quiet. The only sounds were birds and the random splash by baitfish. I'd not caught much at all and found myself praying. I asked God for help, guidance and forgiveness. I had made a cast and as I watched my lure getting closer a huge violent flash and swirl erupted. A long fight ensued and when I landed the fish a calm was over me. There was no doubt that God was telling me , "I'm here" and"it's all good." I cried so much as I waded back in. I knew I had it in me to fix this mess and change my life. I'm still a work in progress as a Christian but if you're having problems, Go Fishing! After all, since the days of Simon Peter, Jesus has touched a lot of men while they fished. Peace