My good friend and fishing companion Dennis Whiteside floated and fished an Ozark river last week during the heat with his son Ryan. He says he saw the biggest smallmouth he has ever seen, well over 6 pounds.
He was hooked well, but cleared water and threw the hook, like the big ones do. 
I know right where that big bass is, and I am sitting here thinking about going after him soon, or maybe in September. 
It is early in the morning, and they say it will be one of the hottest days of the year. But on my back porch, which is screened in to keep the bugs out and with a roof over it to keep the sun out, it is fairly cool as I write this. 
There’s an abundance of life in the big oaks around me. Every morning about this time, a summer tanager and a pair of bluebirds seem to be into a fight over nothing more than an insect or two. The blue-jays fight with the gray squirrels and the humming birds are constantly into a tiff.  It’s like that when it gets this hot, nothing can get along.
But about 5:30 each morning, before it is light, cardinals begin to sing loudly in these oak trees, and their song cheers me up a little. 
Two of these white oaks are about 3 feet in diameter, giant trees which may be close to 150 years old. They are absolutely loaded with big acorns, which is a welcome sight, considering the fact they produced none last year.
The heavy rains and cool weather we had into July this year will cause wildlife more problems than the heat will.  The hatch of all ground nesting birds has been slim-to-none, thousands of young turkeys and quail in this region killed by the drenching rains. 
There is almost always a late July or early August hatch, and there will be some young turkeys and quail even yet. But they will have the problem of growing fast enough and strong enough to survive the first cold spell in October.
Doves lost some early nests too, but they keep bringing on clutches, two eggs at a time way up into the summer. It is difficult to believe this, but dove season will open only about three and a half weeks from now.  
I have a young Labrador that will go hunting for the first time then, if it isn’t too hot. About two weeks after that, he will get his first opportunity to retrieve a duck when teal season opens.
While you are sitting there in your air conditioning reading about this sweltering August heat, take comfort in knowing that in only about three or four weeks you will see the first migrating waterfowl come through the Ozarks.
Blue-winged teal are staging on marshes in the northern prairies of the Dakotas and Minnesota and the wetlands of Canada at this very hour. And if you are observant and have been anywhere close to a creek or river or pond lately, you have seen maturing wood-ducks in pretty good numbers right here, getting ready for their own migrations in November, whenever a good, hard, cold spell settles in.
Right now it is hard to think about cold spells! Still, I think I prefer August to February. Do you realize that only about 75 years ago, no one in the Ozarks had air-conditioning?  My grandpa just went about doing his work and ignored the dire warnings on the television…   Oh yeah, I forgot … they didn’t have television!   
The heat was something they were accustomed to and lived with.  Of course, I remember there were lots of cool, clean creeks which had plenty of water then. Those creeks are dry now, and where there is water, it is much too dirty to swim in. 
We have progressed to a point where we don’t need clean streams and creeks – we have air conditioning and swimming pools.
For generations, grandsons were much like their grandfathers, and lived a life very similar to the one their grandfather lived. 
My grandson, however, will know nothing about the kind of life my grandfather knew. 
He will nearly be a different animal entirely. There are so many ways that is a very good thing, but there are some ways it is not so good.  It might be that what my grandfather could survive, my grandson will not be able to live with at all.
I think it is important that our generation pass on and teach our grandchildren about the wisdom, the customs, beliefs and knowledge our grandfathers had, which will be lost without it.  
Some might say it is of no importance that a coming generation remembers or knows how to do the things our ancestors knew.  After all, there never will come a time we do not have enough oil or electricity or water or food, right? 
My grandson will never need to know how to set a trotline or how to hunt squirrels and clean them, or how to make a tonic from the roots of plants to treat some ailment.  But I think I will teach him anyway.  What I can’t teach him is how to live in 100-degree heat without an air-conditioner. Like it or not, I think that ability died with our grandfathers. 
I don’t do so bad early in the morning sitting outside on my porch, or wading the cool river in the evening fishing for bass, and so I might go catch that big bass Dennis saw, before long … or maybe in September. 
It’s the working in the heat that I can’t get good at.  I have to remind myself that during hot weather grandpa never mowed the lawn!  But then he didn’t mow the lawn in cool weather either.
In the great scheme of things, I think the catching of a big bass is more important than a mowed lawn.
There will be a gathering at the Stonecrest Mall on Saturday inside out of the heat, wherein all types of artists and other exhibitors will be on hand to show their work. 
I intend to be there too, even though I am not an artist.  I’ll have all seven of my books there for sale at special reduced prices, and will sign them for you.
I will also bring a number of my magazines, the summer issue of the Lightnin’ Ridge Outdoor Journal, and will give one free to any readers of this column.  I will be there from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. 
Come by and say hello if you can.
We have a stack of old summer issues from years past we are giving away while they last in an effort to get subscribers. 
You can get one by just sending me an address and two dollars in postage.  The postal service won’t mail them free, unfortunately.
You can e-mail me at lightninridge@alltel.net, or write to me at Box 22, Bolivar, MO, 65613. 
My executive secretary, Ms. Wiggins, very often answers the office phone if she has nothing better to do, like her nails. Call 417-777-5227.