Sports: Outdoors

More questions to ponder

Bob Kornegay

Over the course of my life as an intrepid (or is it insipid?) outdoorsman, I have spent much time seeking to resolve to my complete satisfaction many of the baffling phenomena I continue to run across. With some, I have been quite successful.

For example, I know exactly why rat-chewed waders leak and why one should never start up a reluctant campfire with a half-gallon can of gasoline.

(Feel free, of course, to add our current ridiculous fuel prices to reasons pertaining to the latter.) I also know why I should never attempt to pet a skunk or bare certain parts of the human anatomy in poison ivy patches.

However, in a less-than-illustrious outdoor career that has thus far spanned nearly half a century, many pertinent questions still remain unanswered.

Worse, brand new, seemingly unanswerable posers constantly arise. Here are some more I have compiled over the past few years; all different from the last time I broached this vexing subject, but still a part of the same perplexing dilemma.

Any help I might receive with these will be greatly appreciated.

1. Why do I always take the word of the “experts” who tell me, “Aw,  come on and get in the boat. It ain’t gonna rain?”
2. Why do Kaopectate, Maalox, and Pepto Bismol alleviate every gastric disorder known to mankind, with the unvarying exception of those brought on by Cletus Monroe's camp cooking?
3. Why do I always look and act guilty whenever the game warden checks my license, creel, or game bag? Despite the fact that I haven’t done anything wrong.
4. Why, whenever I want to impress a buddy by showing off a favorite fishing hole or hunting site, does the place suddenly become as game-or-fish-rich as a parking lot or toxic waste dump?
5. Why does every fishing guide in every state in the Southeast suddenly take ill or leave for Timbuktu whenever I hit town? And why all the side bets as to who will be the first to catch a fish with me in the boat?
6. Why do those television fishing-show hosts never catch fish with rods, reels, or lures other than those they are paid to endorse?
7. Why does Bob Kornegay never catch fish with that same equipment?
8. Why do so many of us carefully unhook and release most of the largemouth bass we are fortunate enough to boat while the bluegills, catfish, and crappies get scaled, skinned, gutted, filleted, and ruthlessly beheaded?
9. What marketing genius (or utter fool) first said that, with practice, I’d soon learn how not to backlash an expensive baitcasting reel?
10. How does someone with a face like a tree toad, the intelligence and talent of a road-kill ’possum, and the charisma of streptococcus bacteria become a mega-star on outdoors television?
11. If a largemouth bass is actually a member of the sunfish family, why didn't old Ray Scott (of B.A.S.S. fame) call his fishing tournament brainchild S.A.S.S. instead?
12. Why do I understand the origins of terms like “mountain laurel,” “mountain stream,” “mountain bike,” and “mountain hideaway,” but have absolutely no idea who came up with “mountain oyster?”
13. What brave soul threw caution to the wind and ate the first mountain oyster?
14. Who invented the jet ski, and why?
15. Why do the biggest deer I shoot fall two miles from my truck and gain at least 50 pounds every 20 yards?
16. How can something as ugly as a flathead catfish taste so delicious battered and fried?
17. If a rabbit’s foot is so lucky, how does one explain the squashed bunnies in the middle of the highway?
18. Why do I always get outfished by obnoxious children and preachers?
19. How did that squirrel get into my attic, and since when do squirrels attack humans?
20. Are there any male members of the titmouse family?

Y’all got any answers for me? By the time I come up with some, I’ll have thought of at least 20 more questions.

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