Jim Casada Outdoors

July 2008 Newsletter

Jim Casada Web site: www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com
1250 Yorkdale Drive E-mail: jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com
Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638
803-329-4354

Of Boyhood Julys, Bee Stings, and Bait

This month’s column is running late thanks to the simple reason I’m trying to manage too much in too little time. Of course the missus would also add comments to the effect “you’re no spring chicken any more,” “you aren’t what you used to be,” or “you try to do too much.” Unfortunately she’s right on all scores, never mind the fact I stubbornly insist since I’m young at heart and in mind that somehow translates to being full of what mountain folks pithily describe as “piss and vinegar.” Her predictable reaction is: “In your dreams.”

These realities being duly recognized, this morning while piddling around outside I indulged in some contemplation about a suitable topic for this month. Inspiration duly arrived, albeit in a painful fashion. While cleaning away some debris connected with recently cut plum trees which were dead or dying, I found myself squarely in the middle of a yellow jacket’s nest. I thought I had discovered it in time and backed away from the swarming bees while trying to locate the precise placement of the hole where they entered their underground quarters. Turned out a 10-yard retreat wasn’t far enough.

An angry scout flying around the perimeter in search of intruders zeroed in on me and provided a stinging reminder that yellow jackets don’t take kindly to invasions of hearth and home. Application of a home remedy and a couple of benadryl tablets later, I’m more or less all right and duly chastened. Revenge will come, to be sure, but it will be a stealthy nighttime raid, when all the pesky critters are in the nest. A small amount of gasoline poured down the hole will do the trick.

I’m wary of yellow jackets and other members of the stinging tribe, thanks at least in part to the fact that a cousin died of anaphylactic shock after being stung by a wasp. My father is also highly allergic to stings, and they’ve bothered me enough in the case to make me carry an Epi-pen in my fishing vest. Of course, in a fine example of how to violate the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” said vest and contents are 150 miles away at my father’s home.

Long ago though, I learned the old adage about making lemonade out of lemons has plenty of validity, and one prime example involves turning the agony of bee stings into the ecstasy of first-rate fishing bait. If there is anything which bluegills, trout, channel catfish, and several other finny species find more delectable than the larva of yellow jackets, wasps, hornets, and bumblebees, I’ve yet to discover it.

The problem, of course is getting the bait and escaping without suffering from retaliation. Quite early on during boyhood’s halcyon days I learned to make the best of bee stings. They hurt like the dickens, and maybe sharing a couple of examples of particularly bad encounters will explain why I take what some might call perverse delight in obtaining bee larva for bait.

The most painful came during a fly-fishing outing when I was 13 or 14 years old. Then, as now, I possess exceptional talent when it comes to what Grandpa Joe used to describe as “fishing for squirrels.” That is to say, mine is an uncanny knack for putting flies in trees and bushes rather than the watery haunts of trout. As a youngster this happened with such frequency I automatically gave the hung-up fly two or three good jerks before looking back or wading to the spot where I could disentangle it. Incidentally, all too frequently the wayward cast required a breath-taking exercise in wading water up to my crotch or even deeper. Mind you, this was “wading wet,” because I never owned a pair of waders until well into adulthood.

At that time flies cost a quarter, which was significant cash money in my adolescent world. Retrieval was a must. However, in chilly mountain waters sufficiently deep to drench your private parts, wading out to recover a fly is anything but a pleasant experience.

On one occasion when I entangled my little Jezebel of fur and feathers then gave it some jerks, my reward was to be swarmed by irate hornets. Three stings around the neck and head led to an unplanned dive into the creek. I came up for air and was rewarded with three more stings. After a second full immersion my return to the surface found me doing my level best to simultaneously walk on water and run a 10-second 100-yard dash. With my trusty South Bend Tonkin cane fly rod in hand, its reel screaming, I did not halt my mad rush to escape until reaching the end of my line and popping off the fly.

As is probably obvious by now, my wayward backcast had hooked a hornet nest. These black-faced disciples of the devil love to build over water, and it was my misfortune on this occasion to hook the Taj Mahal of hornet nests. It would have easily filled a peck basket. This time there was no revenge. I was far too miserable to worry about building a smudge and, after giving it a good smoking, knocking down this particular nest. I didn’t even feel like throwing rocks at it from afar. At the time I justified this action worthy of the most shameless of pantywaist pansies with a bit of self-delusion. After all, the incident took place on a stream in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where use of bait is illegal. A half century later I’ll admit that I was hurting like the dickens and had been dealt a decisive defeat by the hornets.

Other times though, discovery of a nest, whether made by hornets, yellow jackets, or wasps, whether it resulted in stings or not, was a clarion call to action. For example, once when cutting weeds with an old-fashioned mowing scythe, I managed to get stung by yellow jackets a whole bunch of times. I fled the field of battle ignominiously, but once darkness fell, the conflict was renewed with a dose of gasoline dumped down the yellow jacket’s hole. The fumes from such an action will kill every yellow jacket in the hole. Next morning I dug out the nest, a really big one of six layers, and celebrated in triumphant fashion by using the larva to catch a mixed stringer of fish which was about all I could lift.

Many years later, when I was a married and our daughter was seven or eight years old, digging out another “gassed” nest resulted in her catching a catfish which remains the finest member of the whiskered tribe she has ever landed. That event invoked some mental time travel which carried me back to when I was her age or a bit older.

Grandpa Joe and I actively hunted bee nests, and once we discovered one it was time for the general and his one-boy army to plan a campaign. Our strategy depended on the kind of adversary we were dealing with (Yep, I know, for any pointy-headed grammar expert who happens to be reading these ramblings, that using “with” at the end of a sentence is bad form. On that score, I’ll just share Winston Churchill’s thoughts on the issue: “That is something up with which I will not put.”).

For hornets and wasps, Grandpa and I either employed hit-and-run tactics or used a smudge made from kerosene-soaked rags to complete our mission. In both approaches we employed the longest cane pole we could find. Wasp nests could usually be smacked one time and would fall from places beneath house, garage, and barn overhangs which formed their preferred building spots. That worked all right for small hornet nests as well, but big ones were best handled after dark (all the hornets were at home then) with a smudge. In the case of yellow jackets and ground-nesting bumblebees, we always took the safe “gas ‘em at night and dig ‘em the next day” approach.

Once we had bait, which everyone referred to simply as “nests,” good times were in the offing. It was time for Mom or Grandma Minnie to get the skillet, lard (we raised our own hogs and rendered lard from them for cooking), and cornmeal ready. There was a fish fry in our immediate future, for as Grandpa Joe put it: “If a man can’t catch fish on ‘nests,’ he just flat-out ain’t a fisherman.” Invariably he was right, and come suppertime our catch, adorned in cornbread dinner jackets in the appropriate color of golden brown, would form the centerpiece of a feast.

Grandpa Joe considered nests the closest thing to magical bait you could find. Never once did they fail us. Summer after summer we would have a half dozen outings or so when we enjoyed the benefit of larva to decorate our snelled Eagle Claw hooks. Fish simply could not resist our offerings.

Of course, Grandpa’s bait-collecting wizardry extended far beyond bee larva. He knew the finest methods to catch grasshoppers, crickets, spring lizards, night crawlers, minnows, and the like. At one time or another we used all those as bait, along with crayfish (pronounced “crawfish”), corn ear worms, Japanese beetles, hellgrammites, and more. We had other fun with bugs as well. Grandpa taught me the fun you could have by tying a piece of sewing thread to a June bug’s leg. The bugs stunk to high heaven and soon tired of providing an imitation of a miniature helicopter, but it was joyous while it lasted. So was a game of running a broom straw down holes to catch what Grandpa called a ground grampus (to this day I don’t know the proper name of the bug). He showed me how to stun crickets by inducing them to take a perch on the business end of a hoe (that was a pretty shrewd way of making me forget the drudgery of hoeing out one endless row after another), knew how to find “galls” on stalks of ragweed and getting the little worms out of them, and in general was a flat-out passel of fun to be around. He was really just a boy trapped in an old man’s body, and his wit and wisdom sustain me even today, better than four decades after he passed.

In fact, some of the practical knowledge he shared came into play when I got stung today. Grandpa and Grandma knew a whole bunch about herbs, tonics, useful plants, and practical folk medicine. In the case of a bee sting, Grandpa Joe actually had an antidote ready at hand (more accurately, ready at mouth) on most occasions. A tobacco poultice works wonders when applied to a bee sting immediately after it happens, and on more than one occasion Grandpa treated me for bee stings or chance encounters with packsaddles, a type of stinging caterpillar often found on corn stalks, in this fashion. He would extract a bit of his Apple Twist chaw from his jaw, place the juicy brown mess atop the sting, and say: “Son, just hold that on the sting for awhile and let it pull the poison out.”

Grandpa also knew about the efficacy of juice from jewel weed (also known as touch-me-not) applied to stings. Incidentally, should you have an encounter with stinging nettles, this plant is almost always found growing in close proximity to them. Grandma Minnie also used jewel weed, which has a soothing effect somewhat similar to aloe vera, on occasion. Her remedy of choice, however, was a paste made by wetting a bit of baking soda. Grandma and Grandpa were practical folks who lived close to the earth, and knowledge of this sort was an integral part of their world.

Sadly, it is in many ways a world we have lost, and as the simple rural way of life they lived disappears, so does an element of what made America great. Namely, self-sufficiency, closeness to the land, gumption, and an attitude of making do with what you’ve got. That attitude also embraced rugged determination to turn seeming adversity to a positive advantage. Bee stings eventually translating to fine fishing bait were an example of these laudable qualities, and the chance to look longingly back to good times with my grandparents was well worth this morning’s chance encounter with an angry yellow jacket. I’ll have my revenge tonight, and in the interim reminiscence is my comforting companion.

Thank you for subscribing to the Jim Casada Outdoors newsletter.
Feel free to contact Jim with your comments, questions or suggestions at jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com.

Home Contact Us Links Search Privacy Policy