Of Woods and Waters: A Kentucky Outdoors Reader

An Essential Ingredient

WALTER L. CATO JR. An Essential Ingredient From Happy Hunting Ground (September-October 1991) MY 14-FOOT Grumman boat floated in calm water in the Ohio River at the Westport ramp. A pretty picture, I thought, as I walked down the slope. The dull, grass-colored painted boat in the deep green late summer river was framed by bank-side sandbar willows and cottonwood. The cottonwood leaves were beginning to bleach out before changing to the autumn graybrown hue that reminds me of the color of a whitetail's coat. The boat was piled high, gunwale to gunwale, with a cargo which included tent, sleeping bags, cooking gear, groceries, my Browning automatic, my friend Moose's Ithaca pump, spinning rods, fly rods, trotlines, bait, buckets, cameras, and cooler. On top of the load, the heads of Moose's duck decoys peeked from their open-topped burlap sack. Next to the decoy sack was my smoke-blackened enamelware coffee pot. Heading upstream in the late afternoon sun on the eve of opening day of early wood duck season, I thought about how Moose and I had anticipated this trip for months. Our plans included camping out Friday night, hunting ducks over decoys Saturday morning, then a trotline run on lines set Friday evening, bass fishing, dove shooting along a sandbar and finally back to the ramp in obedience to inflexible schedules which prohibited a longer expedition. We had put together a list of gear to take and groceries to buy. I bought the groceries in a hurry the evening 39 before our departure, but was fairly confident I had not overlooked buying any of the listed items. Before an hour had passed, we beached my boat downstream from the mouth of Camp Creek at a campsite we had used before . It must have been attractive to prehistoric men too, judging from the occasional chert (flint-like rock) shards and points we found along that stretch of riverbank. We pitched our version of a Whelen lean-to, built a rock fireplace and stowed our gear out of reach of the wash of passing tows. By the time we set two trotlines , evening shadows were lengthening and we were hungry. Dinner preparations began. While I set up a grill over the driftwood fire and unwrapped the rib eyes, the setting sun glinted off the clip blade of Moose's stockman's knife as he peeled and diced potatoes and sliced onions and bell peppers. The vegetables would be sauteed in lard in an iron skillet. The end product was standard fare on our cookouts. We called it "Potatoes Moose." The remainder of the dinner included the steaks, homegrown bib lettuce and tomato salad with store-bought fried pies and coffee for dessert. When I set the skillet on the grill, I discovered that I had forgotten to bring the lard. No matter. "Potatoes Moose," we decided, could be brought off by the addition of a little water in lieu of lard if we covered the skillet. As I mentally retraced my steps through the familiar grocery store aisles, trying to reconstruct how I could have forgotten to buy a one-pound container of lard, a chilling question popped into my mind. Did I remember to buy the coffee? I frantically 4 0 OF WOODS & WATERS searched the cardboard grocery boxes and was shocked to discover that I had, in fact, forgotten the coffee! Moose noticed my agitated state as he looked up from his vegetable chopping. "What's the matter?" "I forgot the coffee." "Oh, no! Not that." "I don't want to abort this trip, Moose, but as much as I enjoy your company, I'm not going to enjoy my dinner knowing I can't have coffee afterward. Moreover, I refuse to get up in the morning and spend the day on the river without coffee." "You're right, of course. We could run back to Westport and try our luck at finding the general store operator and persuading him to reopen to sell us a can of coffee, but that's chancy and it would be a long round trip." I stared at the river in desperation. Dusk was coming on. A string of summer cabins across the deserted river about a half-mile upstream offered some hope of finding someone who would sell us some coffee. We decided to try. We put dinner on hold and within...