Without hesitation I would ask my mom to take me to Wingate’s Meat Market in Orange every single time we passed by which was at least twice a week.vAnd about once a month, she would relent. It had nothing to do with their meat but because the owner Nick Wingate had an amazing taxidermy collection featuring mainly giant fish he had caught in the Gulf of Mexico. There was a hammerhead shark, tiger shark, grouper and a huge alligator fish along with cool, aquatic critters. The shark mounts were my favorites.
All of this blew my mind and allowed me to visualize things I wanted to do in the future.
My Dad took me fishing but my mom was equally important at feeding my love of the great outdoors by doing things like this.
If you continually feed an outdoor-loving child’s love of the great outdoors then you are planting seeds that will take root. The might get into other things that take precedent for awhile but the outdoors will always be there.
And in a day where kids can’t hide from bullying because it follows them home via Snapchat and other social media platforms, the outdoors is safe place. And sadly many kids have never experienced the pull of a redfish or a bluegill.
Do whatever you have to do to keep kids outdoors connected.
Get them a CCA membership and connect them with conservation. Turn them onto the Sharktivity or Shark Tracker apps.
I’m living proof that it makes a huge difference in people’s lives.
Feed their outdoors need before someone else introduces them to things that lead them to destruction.
I think back to that cool, old meat market and I’m glad I got to see it but I’m also glad the shark mounts on walls these days are realistic fiberglass replicas that allow anglers to catch sharks, take a photo and release them to produce more of their kind.
Chester Moore
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