Raising a Cowboy stories....

[Batch]

Story 3

My whole family spent a week campin' on old Okechobee in central FL. We headed out in the ol' Renken Inboard Outboard for a day of fishin'. The wind got up and the lake became an ocean as we headed out. You couldn't see land anywhere you looked. Me and Mom were riding on the bow and trying to keep her down flat as we peaked the waves. Gosh! I wished i'd weighed more as I watched mom being punished by the waves. Dad headed for a canal. Soon we were fishin in the backwater. As I cast my Truturn and black-n-blue worm I got snagged on the bottom. Dad didn't have a trollin' motor. As I complained he said "Son you'll have to pull us to it or break it off". I began a slow hard pull. As we neared the snag I saw bubbles rising and laid on the rod with every pound of myself. Steady pulling had gotten us over the top of the snag....Eventually I pulled up a gator tail. I hollared Daddy I caught a dead gator as it was covered in slime and crustaceans. Dad asked "how do you know it is dead?" I replied well it looks dead and it has stuff all over it. He kept fishin' and replied well if it is dead then pull the hook out. (He never looked back from his fishin') So, I laid the rod back as hard as I could and reached for the hook, grabbing ahold of the sturdy shank I began to wiggle it out. When, I must have hit a nerve or either woke the beast up! It gave a violent swing of it's tail, slapping me in the face, I fell back in the boat and it sped off with my line it spooled me and broke off at the end of my line! Soon the gator surfaced and it was close to 9ft. long! What an impact that made on a 13yr. old~! I will never forget wrestling a 9 ft' gator by the tail....Now I look back and it was Dads way of making me a fearless and it worked! I fear nothing to this day! Thanks Dad!

I enjoyed the tales. But, if you right the book please move Lake Okeechobee back down to south Florida. The dividing line is just north of the lake.

I have spent more than my share of time aboard a Renken stern drive boat. Though the one I spent time on was a cuddy cabin and it sounds like you were on a bow rider. I'll tell you this. That hull is a lake boat and most every time we took it out in the ocean almost everyone got sea sick. If you anchor in a chop your chum levels are high.

The Big O' is a big lake and shallow too. so it will surprise some the waves it can get. We rented a pontoon boat once and the lake was rough. We tooled around in the perimtere canal between Roland Martin Marina in Clewiston and Slim's Fish Camp in Belle Glade. Half way between Clewiston and South Bay are some grass flats we fish. So, I put everybody ashore that didn't want to go out on the lake and "play" in the waves. We took a shallow cut out through the grass beds and hit the lake. I went over the first wave and the second wave found my hull/deck pointed down and slapping the wave. Put a wall of water from bow to stern completely drowning everybody. I was no ones hero that day. LOL

If I had to wager a guess I would guess you went out from Pahokee.

[COWBOYSURVIVAL]

I met the widow of a good man the other day. He was the kind that young men looked up to. He had reached that point where he was well known amongst his peers and had a gentle authority about him. His wife greeted me as a stranger and a much younger man than her husband. What she wanted me to know was that her husband had given his life to God since I had seen him. I explained to her that he was a good man. It wasn't long until we, some 50 of us men ate. But not until she prayed and she made sure all of us in front of God, knew her husband had passed on a Christian Man. My head bowed, I listened but I knew her husband had been a Christian long before she thought he had. What it told me was we pay a price for the life we lived as young men even into our dying days. I'd give my right arm for a women like her, still loving and supporting her husband months after he was gone.