There are millions of people who love city life. Their natural environment is concrete, glass and steel, crowds of people and the mad rush of traffic. I will never understand them any more than they will understand my love of the solitude of being in the woods, fields and on waters.

In the early 1980s I was accepted at several colleges to start work on my first master’s degree. Georgia State was the shortest drive, in distance anyway, so I first went there to register for classes. After three hours of trying to find a place to park and wandering underground from office to office without seeing the sun, I left and headed to West Georgia College.

I parked right in front of the Administration building and walked across shaded sidewalks with grass on both sides to the admissions office. Within an hour I was registered for my first summer quarter classes. The drive home was about 20 miles longer than to Georgia State but took less time due to traffic. It was a much better fit for me.

I have always loved being outside. By the time I was eight years old I knew every foot of our 15-acre farm. But I was not allowed to cross a fence to adjoining properties. When I was eight, I decided to cross the back fence, feeling old enough to explore new worlds.

When I got down to Dearing Branch, the one that flowed under the nearby fence and then through our property too, I found a wonderland. I had the same feelings as Bilbo Baggins when he first went to Rivendell. The branch flowed through a gently sloping valley. There were a few big boulders on a hill on the other side of the branch. Water gurgled in the branch with a sound I like.

Most wonderous was a huge whiteoak tree on the slope. I managed to cross the branch without getting wet and walked to one of those boulders and sat down. The feeling of freedom and awe mixed to make it one of my favorite memories. And I did not get into trouble when I got back home and told my parents.

I still get that sense of freedom and awe when in the woods, and sometimes on the lake if the weather keeps other folks off the water. Heavy fog this time of year is a good time to be alone even on the most crowded lake.

In a December club tournament several years ago, Jackson Lake was extremely foggy. Visibility was about 50 feet. I was back in a cove and enjoying the quiet and solitude the fog emphasized. Then I smelled wood smoke. I love that smell on a cold day on the lake. It almost warms you up.

Although I love the quiet, a haunting jazz song playing at a cabin fit the mood just right. I almost forgot about fishing for a short time. That song, the fog and the wood smoke combined to make me feel that same freedom and wonder I felt as a child.

One sign that shows the difference between city folks and country folks. City folks admire nature but want it controlled. You can see window boxes with flowers and plants in most cities, and well-groomed parks attract many people on nice days.

Have you ever seen a window box in the country with little skyscrapers in it? Are there any parks in the country with small buildings and traffic, to remind us of what being in the city is like? I don’t think so.

The bad thing about city folks wanting to get “back to nature” is they move to the county and try to make it more like the city. Subdivisions of closely packed houses are popular, but they destroy the natural environment.

From 1981 to 1994 I was director of transportation for Pike County Schools, and rode every passable road in Pike County monthly, checking bus routes. The changes were scary

When first started learning the county, there were some small farms, as well as a few big ones, but most of the county was undeveloped. The small farms were mostly people with good jobs in Atlanta. I said every piolet and airline worker wanted 40 acres with a horse. They bought up old farms and lived there, enjoying the natural environment without changing it much.

In the 1980 the school system developed a very good reputation and more and more parents wanted to move to Pike County so their kids could go to good schools. But they brought city life with them. Subdivisions that were natural in no way sprang up, with houses stacked together.

Some bought a few acres and built a house, but quickly started changing nature. They wanted paved roads and cleared most of their property, planting grass and flowers to replace what was there. I can’t blame them for wanting to “prettify” their place, nature is untamed and disorganized.

I have to admit I bought a house with about four acres in a subdivision but left the trees and wild except for a small vegetable garden plot. There were only four houses in the 100-acre subdivision but now there are about 17. When I first moved here, I could zero in my deer rifle in my back yard but don’t do that any longer. There are just too many houses in range.

Even with the development, I can’t see any other houses when the leaves are on the trees. And after they fall the view from my back deck is still natural. And I do shoot squirrels in my yard but use a shotgun and am very carful where my shot will fall.

Enjoy nature, but please don’t try to make it more like a city.

SAYING GOODBYE To President George HW Bush
Today’s feature comes to us from The Outdoor Wire, our parent publication and her publisher/editor
Jim Shepherd from The Fishing Wire

George H.W. Bush
Later this morning, the nation will say goodbye to former President of the United States George Herbert Walker Bush. With his death, we lose another member of what has been referred to as our “greatest generation” those World War II veterans who not only fought a global war, they came home and built what has arguably been one of the greatest nations in history.

With Mr. Bush’s passing, we also lose an advocate for the vigorous life of an outdoorsman. Bush, even in his later years, loved the outdoors, and many of the tributes paid to him over the past few days include recollections of trips with him to hunt or fish. Earlier this year, when fly fishing legend Bernard “Lefty” Kreh’s estate offered many of his mementoes at auction, one of the items included a handwritten note from Bush, thanking Kreh for a “great time fishing” with Mr. Bush. It also admonished Kreh not to “laugh at the picture of this amateur flyfisherman.”

The note and its admonition demonstrated two of Mr. Bush’s best qualities: valuing the worth of others, and a healthy ability to laugh at himself. After all, he used to recall that his mother had raised him not to have “big I” problems- to value others more than himself.

That servant’s nature was demonstrated by a life of service and focus on others, from being nation’s youngest naval aviator in World War II to penning a heartfelt note to an incoming President Bill Clinton who had defeated him – handily- in the elections. To Clinton, Mr. Bush wrote “I’m pulling for you” -and pledged his full support. It’s no surprise the two later became close friends. As Clinton explained, “He befriended me,” going on to say that he considered their friendship “one of the great joys of my life.”

Even as President, Bush worried about others. In fact, during a broadcast discussing the Bush legacy, my former colleague Bernard Shaw, recounted how Mr. Bush was concerned for his safety during Shaw’s life reporting from Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. After his return home, Bush invited Shaw to the White House, where Mr. Bush told him “Bernie, we were really worried about you.”

Bush’s handling of that war was widely criticized at the time. Today, his handling of that conflict and the collapse of the Soviet Union have led some historians to say he will likely be considered the nation’s finest one-term president.

Hs passing saddens many of us old enough to remember a younger, more vibrant Vice President Bush and his boss, Ronald Reagan. Being pretty new to the national news media at the time, I didn’t fully appreciate the unprecedented cooperation between political opponents.

Today, we lose one of those vital links to a scarce commodity between politicians: civil discourse and a desire to achieve the greater good.

As an industry, we should mourn the passage of our forty-first president because he, like the rest of his generation, realized the connections between man and nature. He was an outdoorsman and understood the circle of life.

Mr. Bush lived through adversity, from World War II to the tragic loss of a child, but accepted it all without bitterness as a part of the process of living life to one’s potential. He kept going without losing his belief in man’s ability – and responsibility – to do good.

On Monday, during a rare display of unity as political leaders came together to pay their respects to Mr. Bush, crowds gathered outside the capital rotunda where his casket will lie in state until this morning’s services. There, a 62-year old man who described himself as a lifelong Democrat explained standing outside in the cold as a way to pay his respects to a man “who gave his life in the service to the country,who did a lot of good things, but was a humble, caring person.”

A lady from Vermont said she was there because Mr. Bush represented an era where people “did the right thing and you care about America and that comes first.”

“I think maybe people need to start thinking about that a bit more,” she told CNN, “following that set of values, not fighting with each other, agreeing to disagree, doing what we’re supposed to do, take care of each other…not be at odds with each other all the time.

“Our country needs to come together,” she said, Regardless of what your political views are, I think everybody at heart wants to our country do well.”

This morning, as the nation prepares its final goodbyes to George H.W. Bush, I believe her outlook would have Mr. Bush’s wholehearted support.

— Jim Shepherd

Last year Jack Ridgeway introduced me to Randy and Wyatt Robinson. Wyatt was a student at Crosspoint Christian Academy and on the fishing team there. I tried to help them get ready for a high school tournament at Allatoona.

I’m not sure how much I helped, but the last two years they have helped me a lot! I have met some great folks through fishing and they are two of the best. Sometimes I feel like our society has destroyed good people. If you watch much news, it surely seems that way.

But there are many good folks out there, more than you realize from all the publicity the bad ones get. Randy is dedicated to working with Wyatt, doing everything a good parent does to help his dreams. As his boat captain, Randy spends many hours in a boat, driving the boat but the rest of the time just watching them fish.

He also provides a great environment for a youngster growing up. Wyatt hunts and recently killed a nice buck. I’m not sure he realizes how lucky he is to grow up in a home like that, much like I did not realize how lucky I was as a kid until I moved away from home. I just wish every kid could be as lucky!

I have noticed a few leaves starting to fall around my house. And while in town Monday one tree with pretty yellow leaves was showering them down every time a little breeze hit it. Its about leaf raking time!

I miss folks using rakes rather than leaf blowers. Their whine around the house is bad enough but that sound on lakes in the fall is almost as irritating as the whine of skidoos. Its hard to fish in peace.
But they surely are convenient and easier to use than a rake.

We had a huge pecan tree in our front yard where I grew up on Iron Hill Road in Dearing. There was another big one in the side yard and two smaller ones on that side near the road. Another big one was just past mom’s flower garden on the same side.

Those trees provided hundreds of pounds of pecans each fall, but also produced what seemed like a million bushels of leaves. I hated the boring, tedious job of raking leaves, made even slower by having to stop every pass and pick up pecans. But I did enjoy cracking a few open and eating them to break the long hours.

We would start at the house and rake everything to the ditch out front, where we burned them. I worried that my “pet” red ants in the bed in the ditch, where I had fed them flies all summer, would be killed but they always started scurrying around as soon as the ashes cooled.

I spent a lot of time in that ditch. There were always a few pecans we missed, and they were nicely toasted in the leaf fire. I would scratch around in the ashes, finding enough to keep me happily full. Mom was not quite as happy with the conditions of me and my clothes!

For some reason I never even thought of jumping in piles of leaves. I see many cartoons of kids and dogs having fun in leaves, but we were working. And I would never consider scattering them and having to rake them up again.

After cleaning the yard dad would take a long pole and knock remaining pecans to the ground. Sometimes I would climb the trees as high as possible and shake the smaller limbs to do the same thing.

We had three kinds of pecans, but I never knew the names. One tree had what we called “papershell” pecans, big nuts with very thin shells. But we did not get to eat them, they brought the highest price, so we sold them.

Another tree, the one past mom’s flower garden, had “peewees,” very small nuts. They were not worth much but we sold them, too, since they were such a pain to crack and open for little meat.

The other three trees were just regular pecans and we ate many of them. There were always bags of them in the den, where we sat at night watching TV and cracking them and picking out the meat. Some went into our mouths, but most went into the freezer for toppings for mom’s cakes and pies. We often roasted a pan while cracking them and also later when they went from the freezer to the oven.

I miss eating those nuts but not the raking leaves!Raknig

I love this time of year. Shorter days and cool mornings hint at a big change, and everything responds to it. Plants start turning dull green and brown, dying back, storing food in roots for the winter. Game animals are more active, seeking food to help them survive the lean days to come. Bucks leave hints they are getting ready to rut.

But best of all to me, bass move out of their deep summer lairs and look for food, much like wildlife. They are easier to catch for both reasons. And it is much more comfortable to be on the water looking for them. Most pleasure boaters are staying home and many part time fishermen leave the water for fields, woods and football fields.

Topwater can be fantastic in the fall. To me, there is no more fun way to catch fish than seeing them hit on top. But I like catching them on spinnerbaits and crankbaits, both of which work well in cooler water. And for big fish a jig and pig is hard to beat. That bait imitates both bluegill and crawfish, both favorite foods of big bass.

That time is not quite here yet. In a few more weeks a jacket will feel good running down the lake first thing in the morning. Days will still be hot, with clear skies and bright sun. The bright sun positions bass in shade, another thing that makes them a little easier to catch.

The three Griffin bass clubs will make our annual trip to Lake Martin in three weeks for our three-club, two-day tournament. That is my favorite trip of the year. We usually catch a lot of bass and have a lot of fun.

All too soon fun fall weather will deteriorate into the cold, dead winter. Enjoy it while it lasts!

What is the strangest bait you have ever used to try to catch a fish? I have tried some weird things, and some of them even worked!

When we used to run trotlines, jugs and limb lines at Clarks Hill for catfish, little bream were our best baits. But one time I heard little chunks of Ivory Soap would work, so I cut up a couple of bars and tried it. Never caught a fish on it though.

One summer Uncle Slaton and his family camped with us at the lake. We fished for bass during the day and ran hooks at night for cats. He came in for lunch one day with a nice channel cat and said he got it off a trotline that was baited with black plastic worms.

Since I had some old ones we cut them in half and baited up a line with them. Nothing on the line the next day. Then he told me he was kidding; the line was baited with cut fish. The joke was on me and I will never forget it.

We used a lot of other baits than live bream, too. I heard catfish really loved cut mullet since they are oily, so we would buy one at the grocery store, cut it into one-inch chunks and bait hooks. It worked, but not as good as live bream in my opinion.

We dug bait, too. Big swamp wigglers worked well but for some reason catfish did not seem to like the white grub worms we sometimes dug up and tried. And mole crickets never worked well. Maybe they had a bad taste.

If you run lines, stick with what works for you.