The eighth annual Bayou Meto Wildlife Management Area cleanup began with a call for help.
George Cochran's directions to the assembly area were indistinct. The first turn did not lead to Long Bell Road, but instead to a section road that gave a scenic tour of soybean fields.
I called Ray Tucker and said with some degree of irritation, "I'm lost."
"So am I," Tucker replied with greater irritation.
Tucker asked a policeman in Wabbeseka where to find Long Bell Road.
"Long Bell Road? Never heard of it," the policeman said.
We followed the most logical route for a couple of miles until I encountered Cochran standing in the middle of an intersection.
I rolled down my window and yelled, "Ain't no Bayou Meto Cleanup signs, Lieutenant Dan!"
Actually there were. They started roughly where Cochran stood. Irritation quickly yielded to the good cheer that set the tone for a festive and enjoyable event. In that way they were just like the Bayou Meto cleanups I attended in the past.
Joining us at Cochran's cabin, which sits at the edge of the WMA, were George Talbot, Talman Prier and Larry Nixon. The last time I participated in one of these events, in 2014, Cochran and Prier managed to extricate a refrigerator from the Salt Bayou Ditch and load it into Prier's boat for removal. The effort had to have been superhuman.
After eight years, the cleanups have taken a collective, positive toll. The large accumulations of trash that were present in 2012 are gone. That first year, about two dozen volunteers collected enough trash to fill a large bin trailer. We revisited one of the most egregious sites, but they have largely returned to a natural state.
"People used to back their trucks here and dump their trash," Cochran said. "It filled this big hole and the one next to it."
Now, only the rusted remains of a barrel are left.
"When we tried to pull it out, it just came apart on us," Cochran said.
There's no longer enough trash in the woods to justify volunteers venturing into the woods. Nowadays they the just police the roadsides, campsites, parking areas and boat ramps. Tucker, Talbot, Cochran and I joined Will Hafner, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission employee, to pick up trash at the Long Bell turnaround. We collected a surprising amount of trash, but we would have gotten even more if the grass hadn't been so high. Hafner nearly stepped on a cottonmouth sunning in a four-wheeler track, and that made everyone else reluctant to wade into thigh-high grass.
Huge mosquitoes were rife, and they drew blood the instant they landed. We drenched ourselves with repellent, but when we stepped in the shade, they swarmed in overwhelming clouds.
Afterwards, we gathered at Cochran's cabin and listened him and Nixon share stories about their Hall of Fame bass fishing careers. Cochran won two Bassmaster Classics and a Forrest Wood Cup. Nixon won the Classic, but he also ushered in the modern era of bass fishing in the 1990s with his victories in Bassmaster's MegaBucks series.
Lunch, which consisted of fried striped bass nuggets, was served at a neighbor's cabin. Talbot and I walked there together, and he seemed to be walking on air.
"I can't believe I was in the same room with George Cochran and Larry Nixon," Talbot said. "They're like royalty."
I have a lot of memories from that corner of the WMA. At the end of Cochran's road is a ramshackle cabin that my dad owned in the 1960s and 70s with my uncle Jack Jernigan.
Before you get to Cochran's place, a bridge crosses Wabbeseka Bayou over to a cleared area. At the foot of the bridge is the wooden frame of a cabin that my uncles Demp Ramsey and Earl Dukes owned. I spent the 1977-78 duck season at that cabin, and I spent many an hour sitting on that bridge picking feathers off ducks.
"I knew those two old gentlemen," Cochran said. "When I bought my cabin, they invited me to dinner. They had just gotten there. One of them pulled out a cot, and there was a big water moccasin sitting in it. It took a swipe at him and barely missed him.
"I figured right then it was time for me to be on my way," Cochran said.
Although it was hot and sticky humid, the volunteers were excited and abuzz with anticipation.
We're all ready for duck season.
Sports on 09/02/2018