Squiggly Protene

 

   The first time I tried these was not by choice. I had been out in the woods testing myself and after four days on absolutely nothing to eat I was beginning to feel like I was going to fail this test! All I had with me was a pocket knife and fire starting material (flint and steel) but even with that little I was usually able to feed myself. This time things just weren't going my way. Every squirrel I saw just kept right on running, not a single one would go in a tree hole where I might have a chance of catching him. Couldn't catch a single fish no matter what method I tried. I was out in the spring when there are pretty well no plants, other than a few cat tail roots an I didn't have any luck finding any of them that were eatable, even to early to find any wild onions or garlic.

   I was leaning against a tree down by the creek trying to stay out of the rain and thinking that I was going to have to pack it in and call this trip a total failure when I happened to notice a couple of really big night crawlers that the rain had forced to the surface. Not real sure if was my weird pea-brain or my empty stomach but I had one of those "I wonder?" thoughts and the next thing you know I was picking up worms. It only took a few minutes to gather a dozen or so but then I had to figure out what I was going to do with them. Cleaning a worm is pretty self explanatory even for a first time, just pinch off one end hold the other and run your thumb and finger down them. Everything inside comes out and all you have left is a little tube of flesh. I reckon that if you were hungry enough you could just pop em in your mouth and eat them raw, I wasn't, even after 4 days so my option was to cook them some how. I didn't have any kind of pot with me so a worm stew was out and it looked like I was going to end up just throwing them in the fire till they were crunchy.

   I got a little fire going (sounds so easy writing it. It took almost an hour of prowling just to find enough dry tender and wood to attempt trying to build one and another three hours of wacking that flint against the steel to get a good enough spark to start the tender. That first spark made smoke but the tender it landed it was still a little damp and no matter how hard I nursed it and gently I blew on it, it died out before i could get a flame soooo another hour of wacking until I was finally able to get the fire started.) While I was hunting for the fire wood I found a flat rock that was only about a half inch thick so my original plan changed a little. Once I had the fire going I put a rock on each side and my flat rock across the top to try making a cooking surface. It takes a lot longer and lots more wood to try cooking this way but the benefit of having something semi clean to eat instead of covered in ashes is sometimes worth it. Once the rock was hot I just plopped the worms down on top of it and let em cook. I'm really not sure I got any nutritional value from them, since it was my first time I'm sure I way over cooked them, they came out looking kind of like the rine off an over cooked piece of bacon and where about as chewy, but, they were hot and it felt like I was eating something which helped my outlook if not my stomach.

   Since that first time I have had worms in a lot of different ways, some pretty good and some that were pretty good only if you were REALLY hungry. If you ever get the desire to try something a little different here is one of the "pretty good" ones. I found that I really like this one but you have to be a little better prepared if your out camping. First you need to find some eggs. I had found a couple of duck eggs the first time I tried it but if your at home two chicken eggs work just fine. Next are the worms. Night crawlers are the best, you can use them little red worms but it takes a whole lot of them and they are a pain to clean. Clean your worms just like I said earlier, pinch off one end and run your fingers down the length squeezing out all the guts. Wash them in cold water, pat them dry and roll them in a little corn meal, put a teaspoon of oil in a pan and get it nice and hot, sauté the worms with a little salt and pepper till they are no longer pink and set aside. . After that just make a regular omelet. You can add onions (wild green onions are the best), bell peppers, diced (diced cat tail roots will work) and mushrooms (I prefer chanterelles). One thing to remember, for a two egg omelet you will need to use about two dozen good sized worms. Add the worms at the same time you put in the eggs, they will be cooked through but not crunchy by the time the eggs are done.

   The only difference (to me) between this and a Denver omelet is the thought of eating worms. Trust me, if you can get beyond that point you'll enjoy it!

Surf Fishing

 When driving a truck I used to love laying over anywhere within walking distance of the ocean. I could always spend a day doing nothing but watch the waves although the main thing I liked about it was to dig my fishing pole out of the truck and see if I could catch anything.

   On one trip I ended up getting stuck down on the Texas coast for a week end. I was close enough to the coast to be able to drop my trailer and bob tail over by the beach. Nice thing about having a sleeper on the truck it's just like having a motor home. I spent most f the first night sitting by a small fire, drinking coffee and listening to the waves. The next day when I woke up there were some guys on the beach doing a little surf fishing. I wondered down to see how they were doing and what they were catching.  They were catching fish that looked like big perch to me, they told me the name of them but I can't remember what it was, I do remember that they said they were good eating so I decided to give it a try.

   I didn't have the same kind of fishing gear that the other guys had. I only had a small spinning reel where most of the other guys had big surf reels but I did notice that one of the guys was wading out into the surf. I figured if I waded out also I'd be able to get the lure far enough out to be close to where they were fishing.

   I waded out till I was about knee deep and started casting away, to my surprise I got a hit on my third cast. I was so surprised that I missed setting the hook and lost that one. That fish didn't get hooked but I was! I figured this was going to be lots of fun and a pretty easy way to get me some supper. It only took about four more casts for me to get another hit and that time I caught it. It wasn't huge or anything but it looked like it was big enough to fit in a skillet. I carried it back to shore with the intention of cleaning it and taking it back to the truck to put in the cooler for later.

   Now, I really only needed one fish for supper but I was enjoying wading around in the gulf and catching them. Since it was a long time till I needed to worry about supper I decided I'd wonder back out and see if I could catch something bigger. The only part of the deal I didn't like was the need to carry whatever I caught all the way back up to the cooler. While I was thinking about that my little pea brain came up with a plan (any one who has been reading anything I've ever written will know what happens when that occurs), I dug through my tackle box and found my fish stringer. It was the metal kind with the snap hooks to hold the fish. My brilliant plan was to hook the end through my belt loop. That way I could hook whatever fish I caught to the end snaps, keeping them in the cool water and leaving both hands free for fishing.

   Back down to the shore I went. I went out knee deep to start with but didn't even get a bite so I slowly worked my way till I was just a little over waist deep. The waves had picked up a little since the first trip so I was really having to be careful not to get knocked on my butt every time one came rolling in. I must have been out there fighting those waves for close to a half an hour before I managed to catch the first fish. I was pretty happy even at that because this one was a little bigger than the first one. I stuck my pole under my arm and got him attached to the bottom hook on my stringer. I could feel him tugging at the stringer but I knew he was no where big enough to make me fall so I ignored him and went back to fishing. I was in a hot spot now because it seemed like I got one at least every other cast. Most of them I turned loose but I still ended up with three good sized ones on the stringer over the next hour. I figured I only had another hour of day light but I was having so much fun I decided to stick it out and see if I could get at least one really big one. The other guys had already left but one of them stopped by to see how I was doing and showed me the snapper he'd caught that must have weighed at least ten pounds. That's what I had my heart set on even though he told me it was really rare to catch something like that while surf fishing.

   The sun was just starting to slide below the horizon when I finally decided to call it quits. The waves were picking up even more and I was starting to have a real problem staying on my feet. I hadn't caught a big one but I had added one more to the stringer. I could feel them yanking on the stringer and I had to brace myself a little extra each time a wave came in because they seemed to be adding an extra yank every time a wave came in.

   I was reeling in my line for the last time when  I felt a really hard yank from the stringer.  It took me by surprise because I hadn't felt anything near that hard in all the time I had been out there. For some reason I just thought it had been a combination of all the fish jerking on the stringer at the same time a wave had passed and continued to reel in my line. The next thing I knew there was an even harder yank and I was over my head in the water.

   Talk about being confused! I had no idea what was happening. I knew the fish had yanked me off my feet at the same time my brain was telling me there was no way those little fish could do that. I went down so quick that I hadn't been able to even get a good breath before I went under and now I was trying to push myself off the bottom and get my head above water. Part of me was panicking and needing to breath while the other part realized that I was pushing against the sand with both hands which meant I had dropped my fishing pole somewhere. I finally managed to get to my knees which put my head above the water. I took a huge gulp of air which turned out to still be mostly water which made me start coughing and gasping trying to get rid of the water and get air at the same time. Just as I got a good breath there came another hard yank to my side and back under the water I went.  

   I still had no idea of how I had ended up in the water but all I wanted to do was get out of it! I was trying to push against the bottom with my hands so I could get my legs under me. I stabbed my right had toward the bottom when I felt something like rough sand paper move under it causing me to all onto might side. More confusion! What in the hell had I put my hand on! My brain was sparking trying to figure out what it had been at the same time my body trying to let me know that if I didn't get some air right now I was going to be in a world of hurt. I had managed to roll over and get both hands on the bottom and was able to finally shove myself up. Thank god there was a break in the waves and I was bale to get my feet under me and stand up. I turned my back to the waves to help kept my balance and was doing my best to cough up water and breath in some air at the same time. I just stood there for at least a minute  trying to catch my breath. My eyes were burning from the salt water and I was having trouble opening them all the way so all I was getting was a fuzzy view of the water in front of me. I caught a glimpse of something dark moving through the water in front of me but I still couldn't see well enough to tell for sure what it was.  I was just beginning to straighten up when I felt another hard yank from my side and damn near went back down it the water. It wasn't quite as bad this time though and I was able to stay on my feet. What was going on? All of a sudden two things came together in my mind, hard jerk and something dark moving through the water! I didn't have any trouble at all standing up straight and getting my eyes wide open at that thought. I whipped my head around a couple of times to see if there was anything in the water and sure enough, there it was, a dark grey fin cutting through the water, heading right toward me!

   This time my brain knew exactly what to do! It was telling RUN,  the problem was my body wasn't listening. I really wanted to run but my legs just didn't seem to want to cooperate. I guess it was kind of lucky that I was already wet up to my waist because the only response my body did make would have been real embarrassing if I hadn't been. I just stood there, frozen, and watched that fin come right up my right side. There was a big swirl in the water and I felt that hard yank again. For just a second I thought the thing had taken a big bite out of my leg and the only reason I wasn't feeling any pain was because I was in shock. In the next second I realized I was wrong when I saw my stringer come floating to the top of the water. I realized  the yanks I had been feeling had been that shark grabbing the fish I had on the stringer!  I still just stood there like a dummy watching the fin move away from me through the water and was still standing there with my mouth hanging open when it curved around and started coming back toward me again. Finally the brain and the body started working together! Now, mostly I seem to have trouble getting the hook either snapped or undone from them cheap stringer but this time I had the stringer off in a split second. I didn't even think of what I was going to do once I had it loose from my belt loop, I threw it right toward that fin, turned and took off running toward the shore. I didn't know if the shark would go for the fish or come after me and I sure wasn't going to wait around to see. Normally trying to run through the water, even when it's only knee deep is a real pain but this time  it didn't seem to take me more than a couple of seconds to make it back to dry land. My knees gave out after a couple of steps onto the shore but I still crawled another 50 feet away from the water before I stopped.

   I sat there on that beach shaking like a leaf and trying to catch my breath. No sign of a fin in the water. I don't know if the shark went for the fish or if I scared him off when I threw the stringer at him but at least he was gone. It took another 20 minutes before I was calmed down enough get to my feet and head back up to the truck. I noticed along the way why I was able to get the stringer off so quick. I hadn't bothered to open the hook like I thought I had, since my belt loop was flopping around I figured I had just yanked it off.

   I went surf fishing several times after that but never again did I ever hang a fish stringer off my belt!  

Getting It Together

   Sometime a person just needs a little time out to clear your mind. There are about as many different ways of doing that as there are people. As for me, every once in a while I like to get just as far as I can get from other people. That might just be part of me being anti-social but to me, since I've spent so much time being out in nature by myself that it has become very relaxing. Sure, sometimes I enjoy having a friend along on these trips. It's fun sitting around a campfire and visiting but I have discovered over the years that I'm very happy with just my own company. I found when I was in Alaska that I have no problem going for a few months without seeing or talking to another person so I really don't have any problem with a week or so hanging out by a creek or river.

   The best way to spend an evening. Watching a fire and listening to the birds and squirrels. I will have to admit that the woods up here are kind of silent compared to the ones down home. There aren't as many birds living in the forest here as the hard woods down there but them little pine squirrels make up for it.

   A great place to take a morning walk. out a mile down and back but I do it several times a day. One morning just at daylight just in that one mile walk I saw Elk in the valley to the left and even more exciting, a deer walking down the trail in the one to the right. Seeing a deer in this area wasn't that exciting but the mountain lion stalking along behind it was. The only bad thing was that the wind changed. As soon as they got my scent they both took off.

   What better way to pass some time after your morning walk that sitting on the side of a fast flowing creek and trying to catch some supper? Lots of trout in this creek. I know there are folks that say they don't like trout. All I can say is they've never one pan fried over a campfire with just a tiny bit of oil, salt and pepper and a view like this. There is no kind of food a person can make that tastes as good as something like that. It's the place that really adds the flavor!

 

   Of course if you want to add something to the trout, wild shrooms are really hard to beat! Never cared much for shrooms as a kid but once I found out how good they taste while out in the woods I gather them every chance I get. I am careful though since I only know about half a dozen different kinds that I'm sure are safe to eat.

 

   If you happen to be out in July Or August and you get the urge to take a bath you won't find a more beautiful than this. Of course you might want to make sure it's a really hot day and you only want a quick bath because this water is only about 10 degrees above freezing on the hottest days!

   This is one of the main reasons you might want to be out here. Just kicking back and enjoying the views. It is fun to share things like this with friends and family but every once in awhile you just want to  soak them in by yourself. It's OK to be greedy and store them up as privet treasures in your mind. Something you can recall on those days when the world seems to be such a crazy place

   So, if you every feel the urge to just get out and recharge your batteries, go for it! If you can't find anyone to take along you can always go by yourself. Who knows, it may turn out that you really enjoy your own company.

Down Home Stories: Mud Bugs

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Down Home Stories: Quail

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Oak Flour

 

   Sometimes when you're out prowling the woods for something to eat you can spend so much time looking that you tend to overlook the food that's right under your feet.

   Stanley and I knew every patch of oak trees within walking distance of Schulter and quite a few that weren't. Groves of oak tress are the best places to hunt squirrels and they are the best places to find den trees for coon and possum. Needless to say we tromped around on acorns just about every time we went to the woods.

   I'm not sure where the idea came from but for some reason we thought acorns were poison to people. I don't know why because we knew that squirrels, rabbits and deer ate them and normally we were willing to at least take a bite of any plant those three ate just to see if it tasted good. Anyway, it wasn't until I was about 15 that I decided to test that theory. Mr. Ritter had explained to me that the way to test woods food was to take a small piece and see if it was really bitter or made you mouth feel numb or anything. If it didn't then take a small bite and wait a few hours to see if there was and effect. Believe me, there were some that definitely had an effect!

   I finally started trying a few acorns just to see what they'd and no that wasn't very smart but most things I did back then would fit that description. I found out after a few trials that you can eat the acorns for the White Oak tree just like you would any other nut. They taste kind of like a hickory nut. I tried some of the others we have growing down home and found that red, black and post oak all make you tongue and lips feel a little numb. Black Oak even made me a little sick to my stomach but since I had taken such a small bite it wasn't too bad.

   Anyway, on to the recipes. The first time I tried this I just cut up the acorns and added them to cold water then put the water on the fire to boil it and see if I could get the bitterness out. Need to add one thing here. Getting the nuts out of the shells can be a real pain in the you know what. Acorn shells are soft, not hard like pecans or walnuts so they are really hard to crack. I started out just smashing them with a rock, that works but it's messy, I ended up splitting them with my pocket knife. Since those days I have heard of other ways including using a garlic press and I'm sure there are others that are a lot easier. Also, make sure you don't waste your time gathering any acorns with small holes in them unless you want to try some oak worms to add a little extra protein. You might need to boil the acorns mutable times to get all the tannin out. Just keep dumping the water out and adding more until the water is clear. After the water is clear you can drain them and set aside to let dry. They don't need to get completely dry, just enough to cut without sticking to the knife blade. Chop them into pieces, you can skip this step but it seems to me like the next step works better if they are chopped. Next you mash them into a paste. I used a mortar and pestle for this. Next spread them in a thin layer on a pan and let them dry. You could spread them on a piece of hide and let them dry in the sun, or a flat rock and dry them over a slow fire. I cheated and used a cookie sheet and the oven set at the lowest tempiture. However you want to do it TAKE YOUR TIME! You can't hurry this step, they have to be perfectly dry.

   Another way you can fix them is by cold water leaching. Chop them up after shelling and put them in a bowl filled with water. Set this in the frig for a day. The water should turn a tan color. Keep replacing the water until it is clear then process the acorns the same as the first method.

   Once you have them dry you can use a flour sifter to removed any larger pieces. You can store the flour the same as any other as long as you're sure it is DRY. I found out the hard way that if you don't get it dry you're not going to be able to store it for more than a few days without it becoming moldy so not matter how you dry it, open fire, oven or dehydrator make sure you finish the job.

   I've only used acorn flour for making bread but I have heard of honey cakes  and even a pizza crust being made. What ever you want to try keep in mind that acorn flour won't rise like regular flour, or at least I never could get it to so I mainly just made soda bread. Since I don't live in an area where we have oak trees I haven't been able to try it for anything else.

 

Critter on the Half Shell

 

   I saw my first Armadillo in Oklahoma when I was 13. I had seen and even caught one in Texas before, but even then they were moving north and by 62 they had finally made it to Deep fork Bottoms.

   The first one I caught in Oklahoma was at the golf course in Okmulgee. My Uncle Floyd new the guy who was the grounds keeper there and we stopped by to talk to him one day. While we were there he was complaining to Uncle Floyd about Armadillos digging up the course. As we were walking across the course he yelled "there's one of the little SOB's" I looked where he was pointing ands sure enough there went one hopping across the lawn. I didn't even think twice, just took off chasing after it. For such a small animal them little dudes can really move. They do a kind of half jump, half run that really covers the ground but I finally got close enough to jump on him. I was really proud of catching that thing and went running back to Uncle Floyd and his friend to show him off. The golf course gave me a quarter for catching him which made my day a lot brighter but then Uncle Floyd took him and lay him on the ground and then took his pocket knife and stabbed him in the back of the head. That kind of took the fun out of catching him cause I kind of thought I'd take him home for a pet.

   I caught about three more before the idea of eating one popped into my pea brain. I knew that people in Texas ate them but when I started asking around I couldn't find anyone around home that had ever eaten one or even had any idea of how to fix one. I have learned several recipes since then but for the first one I thought I'd try it just like you would roast a turtle.

   I dug a small fire pit and lined it with rocks. Then I built a good size fire and kept adding wood till the rocks were good and hot. I removed the head, tail, and cut the entire belly off the armadillo and removed the guts. After rinsing him off good in Salt Creek I put some cat tail roots, wild onions and wild garlic in the chest cavity along with salt and pepper. I soaked some cat tail leaves in the creek and wrapped the body completely. After the fire had burned down I scraped most of the ashes out of the pit and lay him on his back on the rocks. I added more wet leaves to cover him and a layer of dirt on top. I left him there for about four hours while I wondered around and did a little squirrel hunting.

   I will admit that the meat was not what I expected. It wasn't gamey at all and but letting it cook as long as I did it was falling off the bone tender. The wild onions and garlic  added a lot of flavor but I'm not sure the cat tail roots added anything. They weren't bad by themselves but they are never going to take the place of potatoes.

   You can do the same thing if you happen to get a hold of a Dillo. You can cut the body completely away from the shell if you want then just lay it back in the shell, add salt, pepper and whatever veggies you want. Wrap the whole thing loosely in tin foil and put it on the grill. I think it comes out the best if you cook it with the lid closed at about 250' for about four hours. If you have a gas grill add a pan of wet wood chips to add a little smoky flavor (I like hickory chips).

Cat Tail Bread

   It's not all that hard to find something to eat out in the wild, it depends mainly on the season and how picky you are. Around Oklahoma there's always squirrels, rabbits, fish, snakes and if you can't managed to catch at least one of those and you're hungry enough there's always bugs and worms (don't knock em till ya try em). The hardest thing to come up with, to me anyway, has always been bread. Course now, I like bread and enjoy having it with pretty well every meal so I set out to try and learn how to make it.

   When I first started trying this I didn't know anyone that knew how to do it so I had to fall back on  on my trusty mountain man books to see if I get any ideas. Now, as usual, the books have a lot of over-view but very few details. About the only thing I was able to find out was that native Americans used to pound cattail roots into a paste and made a kind off an unleavened bread (and No, I didn't have any have any idea what that meant until much later in life).

   The first time I tried this I gathered a bunch of cattail roots from McKenna's pond early in the season. My camping area was up stream from Skyrocket (the local swimming hole) and the pond was close to the creek. There is a lot of black shale around there so I stacked up a couple of pieces on each side of the fire pit and put one long one across the top to use as a griddle. I got a good fire going to heat the rock while I mashed the roots. I peeled the roots and lay them on another piece of shale and tried mashing them with a branch from an Oak tree. It looked like it should have worked, but didn't. Seemed like every time I tried to hit the root I would just catch the side and shoot it of the stone. I finally found a piece of granite that I could use and was finally able to get everything smashed into a paste. The first time you try this you will surprised at how much mositure are in those roots. The resulting paste comes ends up looking just a little on the slimy side but in for a penny.

   Once your griddle is hot (rock in my case) pour the paste on, kind of like a pancake. Flip it once the bottom side has browned.

   Now I'm not going to lie to you. Was it hot, yes. Was it filling, yes. Did it taste good, let's just stick with hot and filling. It's hard to judge some things with our moadern tastes, Maybe if we had grown up never tasting any other bread we would really like the taste but for me, I ate it and if it was all I had I'd eat it for every meal but it would not be my first choice.

   After a few more tries I did find ways to make it a little better. If you happen to catch the cattails when the heads are full of pollen you can knock the pollen out and mix it in with the paste. It will thicken it and adds more flavor. It even adds a yellow color which looks more like pancakes when it's coked.

   The best way I've found to add flavor is to mash some berrys into the paste. The first time i tried this it was using dewberries. I've also tried black berries, possum grapes and sand hill pumbs any of these will turn it into something that you can actually look forward to.

  

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