Jacks are Wild

Posted Mar 30, 2007 by Mike DeWitt

Updated Mar 30, 2007 at 05:57 PM

A 16 penny salute,  hikers!

I’ve spent a good bit of time with a friend I made out here.  His name is Jack Mullins.  Jack used to live in Lakeland, where he worked for Publix Supermarkets.  He moved to forest in 1991 and never looked back.

When he moved out here, he bought the 88 Store and much of what it is today is attributable to his toughness and creativity.  Although he bears these traits in spades, his generosity and immense heart is what will always make Jack my friend.

In search of bear, we trolled these woods like Frank Buck.  I so wanted to make some bear pictures for you, but not so much as one bear showed himself.  It wasn’t for the lack of our trying, I can tell you that. 

He knows every joke there is and is a master in the telling of them.  He’s never met a stranger and likely never will.  He’s married to Barefoot Annie, a wonderful woman who never failed to see that I had a delicious dinner and every last measure of that incomparable Mullins hospitality. 

Jack and I built a deck together.  It was good to use those upper-body muscles again.  I shot a 16 penny nail through two of my fingers on that job.  Nailed the bastards together I did.  I pulled it out with my teeth and spat it onto the ground and kept working, not thinking at that rather surprising moment that I might want that nail as a souvenir.  You don’t know the meaning of surprise until you nail your fingers together. 

Jack and Annie’s grandson Chris went out looking for the offending fastener and danged if he didn’t find it.  Jack calls it my “fingernail.”  I laughed so hard at that that I might have cracked a rib, I’m not sure about that, but it still feels like I did.

And might I mention that Jack is about the bass fishin’-ist man you’ll ever meet.  His ability to catch the biggest and baddest bass in the forest is legendary in these parts. We spent several mornings fishing Lake Kerr and never failed to boat our limit.  To actually catch bass while relying on technique instead of pure, dumb luck was a revelation for me.

In fact, that’s how I first met Jack.  He pulled up in front of the 88 Store with George Jones on his Jeep stereo asking “Who’s gonna chop her kindling when I’m gone?”  I looked up from my laptop to see him haul an immense black bass from the live well.  It ended up going just over 11 pounds.  And he got it honestly, no lilly-livered mealy mouthed bed poaching, hikers, Mullins has his poop in a group and his thoughts regarding bed poaching are unprintable here..

As some of you know, before I left for this trail I wrote a weekly freshwater fishing column for the Tampa Tribune.  As bass anglers go, I was certainly the least qualified for that job, and I readily admit it.  How I managed to get lucky week after week astonished me.  Out here, under Jack’s patient tutelage, I caught six and seven pounders as if they were starving and confined to a barrel. Before fishing with Mullins, I considered fish of this impressive size to be bona fide wall hangers.  This is no longer the case. And we used artificial lures all the way, we didn’t use live shiners because there’s just no reason to. 

And lest you think Lake Kerr is easy pickin’s, think again.  We’d meet other anglers who were coming off that lake day after day with nada, nuttin’, zip, zilch, zero.  Wildman, another angler buddy of Jack’s was one of the few exceptions to that rule.

Here was my chance to learn from the Zen master.  And learn I did.  Now, I’ll never be a Frank Sargeant or a Mark Cook, but I’ll do OK. I learned to use a baitcaster, which requires about the same degree of coordination as hitting a three-iron. Well, those who have had the comedic pleasure of watching me play golf know that I possess no trait that would ever be mistaken for coordination.

Hell, that’s why I’m a backpacker, I can walk all day with heavy stuff as long as I don’t overcomplicate the process by chewing gum.

Oh, and one more thing while it’s on my mind - should you ever get the chance to hear the Salt Run Band, don’t miss it.  Those boys don’t just play bluegrass, they grow it and mow it.  They have a CD out and they gave me one to listen to on the trail, As soon as I figure out how to send some of their music to this blog site, I’ll do it. Woohoo, let me tell you something, hikers, these boys can flat bend some strings, now.  Folks come from miles and miles around to here’em lay it down.

Hey, have ya’ll ever watched “Slingblade”?  Well, after a beer or two Jack can talk just like Carl.  It cracks me up. Turns out he was stuck in his cabin on a mountaintop in Tennessee for seven months and “Slingblade” and “Lonesome Dove” were the only movies he had to watch up there.  If you can imagine having a conversation with a guy who has blended and mastered the speech and colloquialisms of these two films, you may begin to understand how one might heartily enjoy the company of Jack Mullins.

And Jack is the owner of Elvis, the 1200 pound boar hog that drinks beer and chews tobacco.  I think you might read about him one of these days in the Tribune. But just in case you don’t have the pleasure of subscription, I’ll get some shots of “the king” up on the gallery. Nuff said about that, just stay tuned to tbo.com.

I reckon it’ll be on there one day, mm-hmm.

“You ought not talk like that, you’re just a boy,” Cheers! From the Florida Trail.  Mike

PS.. With the exception of Jack and a few others, no one around here is called by their given name.  Instead there’s Wildman, Croc-daddy, Cat, Painterman, Snakeman, Skeeter and Barefoot Annie among other such colorful monikers.  I’m known here as the Tampatribuneman.  As in – Hey, yall, the Tampatribuneman nailed his fangers together with a nail gun and kept workin’!

Respect is hard to earn in these woods.  I recommend that you take an easier and less painful approach. But honestly, I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

I aim to writecha soon, mm-hmm.