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BY A
WING & A PRAYER
By: Ron Wilson
August 8, 2002....Church
service on a Saturday with a preacher saying, "Thou shall
kill" (ducks that is). "The Duck Man" Phil Robertson was
preaching this at his seminar held last Saturday at Auto Life Auto Parts
and Sporting Goods 5th Annual Fall Festival at their New store at 901 N.
Carpenter Road.
I have been to a
lot of seminars and heard a lot of speakers talk on different subjects,
but I have never heard a speaker talk of hunting and taking wildlife,
while preaching about God at the same time. All the chairs were filled
with women, men and children at the seminar and the late arrivals were
lined up all around the area quietly listening as Phil quoted what he
believed in!
Phil Robertson
quoted the bible as only he could. He delivered his message about god
and the problems of waterfowl in California. He also spoke of
California’s conflicting hunting laws. He even worked his duck call
and showed the crowd how to use them. "The Duck Man" explained
his views colorfully and to the point.
I haven't been to
church in quite some time but if Phil came out to preach a sermon, I
would be only too happy to go and listen to what he had to say. I’d
even be willing to pull a few greenbacks from my wallet to put in the
collection plate when it was passed. The presentation of his thoughts on
duck hunting and his savior was quite refreshing to me and very
different from any seminar I have listened to in the past.
Auto-Life Auto
Parts and Sporting Goods new store really looks great and is what the
Central Valley needed. The numerous animal mounts and pictures speak
volumes as to what the Lucas's have in mind for the store when it
becomes fully mature.
Friday and Saturday
I got to talk to a lot of people, that’s one thing I love about
attending hunting and fishing shows and events. Talking about it is the
closest thing to actually going out and doing it. At the grand opening
event I met an old hunting friend of mine that I used to hunt ducks and
geese with in the Los Banos area many years ago, Steve Goolsby of
Waterford, he is now working for Myers and Associates (M&A) fishing
equipment. Both of us now have less hair than we did back then and look
older to say the least. Its funny how 25 years will change ones
appearance!
I also ran into
Riverbanks, Ray Niford who works for M&A and Modesto’s Bill
Reynolds who is now working for Pacific Crest Marketing. They look the
same as last year but Bill has since changed jobs. Bass Pros Mike
Reynolds and Norval Pimentel were there. Mark Vejar, a St. Croix fishing
rod representative was there, Bobby Riggs was busy with customers and
Bud Fuller was still stocking merchandise. Randy Bartz "The
Flagman" the originator of flagging for geese was there doing
demonstrations.
One of the more
impressive scenes I witnessed was duck caller Kelly Haydel helping teach
a young lad how to blow a duck call. He was giving him a one on one
duck-calling lesson. I saw him do this for several young future duck
callers during the two days I was at the event. Duck Caller Joe Lares of
Chico was they’re doing some quacking also.
The fishing part of
the store is pretty well stocked but nothing like it will be in a few
months from now. The Lucas's are busy with the duck and goose hunting
part of the store right now but plan to have the store fully stocked for
the fishermen by the 2003 fishing season. You can reach the store at
1-800-499-1004 or visit there website at www.autolifeoutdoors.com.
Saturday morning I
was back in the Gustine grassland area, looking at the wildlife with Ken
Moore of Ripon. I went on a walk through the bushes and came back with 3
ticks. I noticed last year while chuker and pheasant hunting in the
Stevinson Sportsmen Club area that there were a lot of ticks around but
it looks like they are really thick in this area also. Be sure and keep
your animals and yourself protected from these little bloodsuckers.
Sunday I went to
New Melones to get in on some of the hot kokanee action and to pre-fish
for an upcoming kokanee tournament. Now we all do some things that we
are not proud of while fishing. This trip I had on a jacket, as the
weather had turned a little chilly early in the morning. When I was
going to put a line out after attaching it to the release pin on the
downrigger, I suddenly discovered that I had somehow got the line
tangled in the zipper. I had to work for some time to get the line out
only to discover that I had frayed the line and it needed to be retied.
Bruce had a good laugh at that one and said, “Hey Ron it could of been
worse, you could of gotten a fishhook in your hat or somewhere else.
The fishing was ok
and when we found fish we would leave them to try someplace else. We did
real well, but we had trouble locating the size fish we needed to win
this coming Saturday’s kokanee event. We searched all over the main
part of the lake and finally figured out the pattern that hopefully will
put some nice fish in the box and some money in our pockets! I will tell
you all about the tournament and how we did in next week’s column.
Bruce can be reached at 599-2023 in case you want to go catch some fish
and learn how to catch kokanee. |
