State

REMEMBER: Fall Mullet Haul tty Bill McDonald The annual predictions of a particu¬ lar period or even a day or two as being a peak* is simply nonsense. This is a continuing process with many trees turning as others remain green, some dropping their leaves as others begin to turn. There is no mathematical way of saying “This is it." Like beauty, all is in the eye of the beholder, and each fall we look forward to the whole period of leaf color change, particularly after fifteen months of having to live in tropical Puerto Rico where the color change was continuing with little known reasons for its occurrence. The 1983 Drought A few final words. The red and pur¬ ple colors in the leaves arc water solu¬ ble. so particularly heavy and pro¬ longed rains could dim the vivid colors — but that any of us would be able to note the difference is pretty doubtful. The drought of the summer of 1983 may play a role in bringing on an earlier color change — but that is only specu¬ lation. We can measure rainfall or lack of it — but no one can measure color change in an area as large as our North Carolina, or even a region of the state. Each fall without doubt is a vivid display of color — the best ever! Fall Travel Notes To go along with the Krochmals' words about fall color, here is the pre¬ diction of Howard Parr. Chief Ranger of the Blue Ridge Parkway, who says we will have a normally colorful fall, despite the dry. hot summer. Dr. I. W. Carpenter, of Appalachian State Uni¬ versity. agrees, citing a sufficiency of rain in the upper elevations. And the water table is well established, ben¬ efiting from winter and spring precipi¬ tation. so that mountain forests arc largely in good shape. For current information on autumn foliage in the northwest mountains, and to request a free Area Guide Map. call North Carolina High Country Host TOLL FREE at 1-800-222-7515 (from N. C. points: 1-800-438-7500 from elsewhere) The "Smokies Guide", published by the Great Smoky Mountains Nat¬ ural History Association, offers a list ( Continued on page 37) THE state, September isn The September migrations of sea mullets down the coast to warm winter water is nearly as old as the sea that owns them and as predictable as the rise and fall of the flood and ebb tides. If there is no hurricane boiling northwards out of the Caribbean ear¬ marked for coastal Carolina, it is the loveliest, most breath-stealing time of the year. The delicious “blue days.” one following in succession on the heels of the day before, and tomorrow will bring yet another. Summer is dying. The sea is cooling. The tourists are mostly packed up and gone. All but the most optimistic mer¬ chants have closed the doors of their shops, hotels and groceries, and you could legitimately play Taps on the bugle at Lake Park and Harper, since it is as still as Arlington, and death has taken the summer. And after the school bus leaves, you don’t see many folks out stirring. True, it isn't in fact a ghost town in this little community beside the sea. but it's kissing-kin close. And that's the way it was in the days when the mullet fishermen out of Sea¬ breeze waited on the golden beach with their surf boat w ith the long haul seine piled high in the stern. Ageless old Ellis Freeman had built the surf boat under the shade of the live oaks beside his grocery on the Carolina Beach highway. Harper McQuillan, a World War I vet with a silver plate in his skull as a souvenir from the trenches, was heading up the pro¬ ceedings. There may have been a dozen standing by. Ellis Freeman was waiting up the strand to the north, his sharp eyes searching the area beyond the curling breakers on the sand bar looking lor a strung out school of leaping mullets shining silvery in the benevolent sun. Then he was walking down the beach toward the waiting men sitting on the boat gun'ls. waving his arms. The fish were on the way! That was the signal, and the crew sprang at their task of putting out to sea in the surf boat off the hill and into the suds. I’he fish were moving south w ith their right eye looking to the beach. One end of the haul seine was left on the beach with the men while the boat crew paid out the long net over the stern that would surround the fish like a horse shoe. The net presented a filmy wall to the fish. Cork floats kept one end at the surface, and a lead line kept the opposite end on the sea floor. The leading mullets met the net. and those fish following gathered at the obstruction. Why the fish never thought of leaping over the cork line will never be known. They are ex¬ cellent jumpers. Ihe fish are not gilled. It's more a case of gathering them like a shrimp net. (Continued on page 36) Wotchmg up the bcoch for the signol Ihot о silver school of leopmg mullets is on the "0». There hove been some chonges. but foil is still о very spcool time for fishermen on the North Corolino coost. 9