The Mojo Of The Lucky Cap Continues
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
I was one of the lucky ones Friday night, we were outside winding up a surprise birthday party for my bride’s big 5-0 when someone pointed to the sky.
“What the heck is that?” he asked.
The red rays were faint at first, but within minutes the sky was illuminated. Admittedly, we were all perplexed but it didn’t take long before someone checked Facebook and discovered we were seeing the Northern Lights in north Mississippi. We took plenty of pictures of the phenomenon, and the “enhanced” memories will live on in our iPhones.
The questions from the kids was the best part, they were almost spooked. Maybe aliens or who knows – find my tin foil hat!
Speaking of hats and luck, I owe Dr. G. a big bag of crappie fillets. He found an exact replacement for my long-battered lucky cap. I had been searching for weeks when my phone dinged at 10:25 one night last week with a link to purchase the replacement. Dr. G. had found it, an identical hat, even though production stopped 10 or 15 years ago.
For full disclosure, I don’t believe in luck in any shape, form or fashion – except when it comes to turkey hunting. Sometimes it can take a little extra mojo to seal the deal on an old gobbler. And, if you have a lucky hat that works during turkey season, it can’t hurt to wear it during deer season or when I am fishing.
Catching a crappie on the first cast is a tell-tale sign that a replacement “lucky” cap has the same mojo as the original cap.
Even better is the back story on my lucky cap. Many years ago the hat appeared in my front yard. It was like new then, a Duck Commander, camouflage cap. I liked the cap, it fit my pin head perfectly, and I started wearing it hunting.
I had a great deer season that year, and for fun started talking up this lucky cap. My neighbor, who is a friend of my step-son, saw me wearing it one day and declared that he had lost a hat exactly like the one I was wearing.
Mystery solved, but finders, keepers I told him and in the years that followed I made sure that everyone appreciated my lucky cap. If I killed a nice turkey or a big buck, the old lucky cap got all the credit.
Sadly, the cap gave out this spring. After several years of my wife complaining about how funky it was, I gently washed it in the sink and it came apart. I kept wearing it during turkey season and had one of the best seasons ever
The new cap arrived in the mail late last week and I tried it out with a fishing trip at a pond I frequent Saturday afternoon. On my very first cast, I caught a big (at least for a pond) crappie. Of course I had to take a selfie to document the mojo of the new cap. Now there was a dilemma. Any reputable country boy knows that if you catch a fish on your first cast while trying out a new lucky hat, you should immediately deem the day a success and go home. First cast catches are often a bad sign, as in you may not catch another fish all day.
I decided to keep fishing and two hours later my buddy and I left with a stringer full of “crappie.” We even got them filleted before my wife could detect that some of the fish didn’t look like crappie. She will only eat “crappie,” but strangely can’t tell the difference when a few bream or bass fillets are in the mix after I cook them.
Yep, It was a good day – the cap was christened and the new lucky hat is a keeper.
