Father's Day comes in June, of course. Writer Don Rathert tells of his father and how he insisted on sticking with the letter of the law when it came to outdoor pursuits. Don's story is repeated below.
On the news front, wide-ranging changes are being made in Missouri's deer seasons this year and Traveler brings readers a glimpse of the new rules in the June Issue.
A trip to Dillard Mill State Park finds a seldom-used trail from which a different view of the old mill and dam can be obtained and photographed. Clearwater Lake and its problems are in the news again. The fix the Corps of Engineers is proposing is apparently going to cost about as much as the new Bill Emerson Bridge over the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, yet will produce no new benefits.
The last in a series about Hannah Cole, Missouri's pioneer mother, is told by Jim Featherston. Hannah is the great-great-great grandmother of co-publisher Pat Todd. A statue to Hannah is being dedicated by the City of Boonville June 6.
Chris Kennedy kicks of a set of stories about Missouri ponds and how the Conservation Department has geared up to help pond owners get what they want from these bodies of water.
Charlie Slovensky writes about sleeping under the stars, and Bill Cooper writes about gravel bar camps.
There's a story about a fishing float on Meramec River and another about a short get-away on Huzzah Creek.
The Presley Center is still in the news, with the National Park Service becoming more involved in the debate over whether to rebuilt it or replace it.
Some new approaches as well as stepped up enforcement of the law are to be tried this summer to correct the river behavior of those who can be corrected, and to weed out the hard core lawless people
As usual, Traveler is also full of regular news, seasons, recipes, Indian lore, sun and moon tables, travel maps, and coming events. Among news items was a report that the Missouri Legislature passed a measure to outlaw glass bottles in canoes and kayaks on Missouri waters. And there was a report on the Conservation Department's new catfish plan..

Gone where bass season never closes

By Don Rathert
There is something magical about the entry of Spring, especially for those of us who spend most of our free time on a stream or in the woods. There used to be a spot on the Bourbeuse River that had an antiquated mill adjacent to it and a dam that allowed the river to spill over it. The river below fairly teemed with smallmouth bass in early bloom-up time and my Dad and brothers used to go there and play catch and release.
It was such a hot spot that many times a game warden would just plant himself there for most of the day to make sure no one was tempted to take a bass before Memorial Day. But let me tell you, you could have put a gun to my Father’s head and ordered him to break a law and he would have told you to go . . . . you know where.
Pop was a stickler about obeying the letter of the law and was constantly on his eldest to follow suit. When my brothers and I wanted to bend a rule on size or limit, we would feel his ire post haste.
Fishing was our heritage with that man and the budding of the leaves and flowers are the triggers for a flood of pleasant memories of bobbing corks and minnow buckets full of seined minnows and endless hours on rivers and lakes with a caring man.
Unfortunately in his 70s, a misstep while going down to his basement, he incurred head trauma and six weeks of coma left him to eventually recover physically but his cognitive skills were impaired.
He and I would still fish when the red bud trees and the dogwoods painted the woods but there was a difference. There was a role reversal that I reluctantly accepted as we would ply the old haunts.
While on one of our jaunts on a creek that lies in the western part of the state, in April some 20 years ago, I set him up with a bucket of minnows and left him casting to a deep hole as he stood in the riffles. There were some things he still retained, one being his love for fishing.
“Pop, you stay right here and fish, don’t move,” I said. “I’m going just around that bend. OK??
He waved me off and up stream I went. An hour later I returned to find one excited old man. He was waving me back as soon as he saw me.
“Look what I caught,” he gleefully exclaimed. “You went off and there were all these big fish right here that I got.
“Well, where ARE all these big fish,” I said.
He reached down and picked up a stringer and my heart fairly landed in my throat. He had four roe-ladened bass that had to go at least three pounds apiece strung up with jaws agape along with mine.
“Pop, you can’t keep them they’re out of season,” I said.
“What!! NO Way” he responded.
“No, Dad you can’t keep these fish. You are going to have to release this catch immediately.”
I thought he was going to cry, but little by little I got through to him what we had to do so he reluctantly released every one of those ladies much to their delight as they swam with a flick of their tail back to the deep water.
After the shock of having to release his fish subsided, he began to relay the events of each fish he caught in his own aphasic way which pleased me. At least he caught fish. That was more than I did that day.
On the way out the farmer stopped us and asked if we had any luck.
“Yep,” Pop said as my heart sank. “Caught a whole passel of BASS.”
“You didn’t keep ’em did you?” the farmer said.
Dad looked at him indignantly and said, “OF COURSE NOT, THEY’RE OUT OF SEASON . . . . . EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT.”
I miss that old man, and I’m sure where he is now the bass are never out of season.

The Past - June, 1980
Traveler did a wrap-up of all the recreation areas in the Mark Twain National Forest in the June, 1980 issue. There were more then than now. The Forest Service was in recreation mode back then.
A float from Pin Oak to Van Buren on Current River was featured. It included a photo feature, which in turn included photos of Old Man’s Beard, an unusual plant that looks a lot like Spanish Moss from the south.
Charlie Slovensky outlined various strategies for taking frogs in the upcoming season.
Something called “bubbling” was being done to catch buffalo in the spillway below Lake Wappapello. Looked like snagging, but using a special technique, the people doing it were catching rough fish in the mouth with bare hooks.
An attempt to paddle back to Stanley Creek in Mingo National Wildlife Refuge was reported. A large chunk of the refuge had only recently been designated a wilderness area , and things were adjusting.
Beavers had dammed up many areas and log and brush jams had developed on the old ditches and on the Old Mingo River that the paddlers hoped to take to reach Stanley Creek. They had to give up.
Briefly, Traveler’s office in Jackson had a red buckeye on the property that was a state champion. But it was a champion only because it was the first submitted as a state record. A much larger tree in Cape Girardeau quickly took the honors.
Camp fees were increasing at Lake Wappapello. It would cost $4.50 for a camp with electric hook-up, $3.50 without electric. Some campgrounds were $3 per night, and Old Greenville was $2.
The Conservation Department was taking a serious look at instituting a slot limit on bass in Lake Wappapello.
A new record turkey harvest of 16,713 had been recorded.
Central Missouri’s Truman Dam, due to the way the Corps of Engineers designed it, was killing large paddlefish. The dam had already flooded the free world’s largest paddlefish spawning area, and now it was grinding up adult fish that tried to reach the old spawning areas.
The History story continued the tale of a young white man who was raised by the Osage, but fled to the white world. The story follows him as he lives with white frontier hunter-trappers.
They take their furs to sell at Natchez and go on down to New Orleans to sell the boat they made for the trip. The year is 1818 and he walks “the trace” back to Kentucky, then goes to Cape Girardeau. There, he is enrolled in a school run by a G. Simpson, where he learns the basics of reading and writing English and gets a white name.
The Osage had given him the name Hunter, which he keeps. And he admired a Cape Girardeau businessman by the name of John Dunn. So he becomes John Dunn Hunter.

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