Bad Directions

In 1960 the mourning dove season had just opened in Falls County, Texas, and my Dad and I had enjoyed some fine shooting! My Uncle Shelly, Shelton Gafford, had directed us to a couple of stock tanks where doves were watering and we were rewarded with some good action. .

Our mornings were free, because back then, in Texas, dove hunting was only allowed after noon. Uncle Shelly told us about another place where we could fish, but no guns or hunting were allowed by the rancher. No problem with us! He told us to take Hwy. 7, east out of Marlin, cross the Big Creek bridge, and turn right at the second “gap”, or wire gate in the fence, and follow the road to the stock tank.

Following the instructions, the second gap was almost to the road to Blue Ridge and ignoring the “Posted, No Hunting” sign, opened it and followed the dirt road until it came to an old, no longer in use, rock quarry. Not a stock tank, but looking into the very, clear water, it was easy to see bass milling around, plus several large bream beds. We figured this must be the place, got out our tackle and quickly started fishing.

Keeping the sun in our face, we stood several feet away from the water and whipped our Piggy Boat, spinner baits toward the fish. Immediately, we were both rewarded with two sharp strikes and soon landed two scrappy, 12 inch, bass. They were unusual looking little fish with large mouths and small bodies. We guessed, correctly, they were stunted and probably undernourished.

We kept on casting and catching. We added several, good sized, goggle eye perch. These fish looked somewhat like a bream, but slimmer, with bigger mouths and their eyes protruded from their heads. They were good fighters on light tackle and very tasty when fried!

We returned all of the small ones, but ended up with 15 keepers, pictured. We iced them down and retraced our route off of the property and headed back to Shelton’s ranch for lunch.

Lunch was the big meal of the day and as we loaded up, we reviewed our morning trip with him. He smiled and shook his head and asked, “You went right through the “Posted, No Hunting” sign? Did they catch both of you all?” “Who’s they?” my Dad answered. He replied, “Mr. so-in-so or his Foreman. They have some expensive bulls on the place, besides there’s a lot of quail and they don’t allow anyone but family out there!” Answering him, I said, “Uncle Shelly, we didn’t see a soul, or any bulls or quail, all morning!” He just smiled and shook his head.

As he got up and headed into his den, he looked back, smiled and said to both of us, “Turn left at the second gap!”

More Outdoors Pictures, September 27, 2010

Checking my game camera last Friday, there were two interesting pictures.  One, “shot” on the morning of September 21st shows two deer, one walking away and the other, apparently surprised by the flash, looking at the camera.  What was funny was the cottontail, rabbit, also surprised!

All last week was bright moonlight so no bucks showed for a “shot”, but just after daylight on Friday morning a spike showed itself outside of the feeder.  During our State’s special Youth Hunt, this one will be a target for one of my Grandsons!

Last week Layla sent me an e-mail with a very interesting picture attached.  You may know that our State’s Flower is the bluebonnet, but just think about this next time you stray into a bluebonnet patch!

Also last week, I got this “shot” of a writin’ spider with a lot of writin’ on its web.  This one was under another eve of the old, ranch house.

Almost Sneaking In

When our State’s south zone, dove season opened in 1967 my Dad had just retired and I had received a nice promotion from the large computer company that I worked for. Because of the promotion my ex wife and I had sold our old home and bought another. Like so many times happens, our move-in date slipped a month and we had to find an apartment for our growing family; she and I and two boys, one 4 and the other, 11 months old. Storing most of our stuff we found a nice, two-bedroom one on Bellaire Blvd.

As usual, my Dad and I opened the south zone dove season south of Houston limiting out, see my post on November 17, 2008, “[Vacek’s]” and the Monday afternoon following the opener, my family and my Mom and Dad, drove out to see how the construction was progressing on our new home, progressing very slowly, of course! As we drove out Bellaire Blvd and crossed Highway 59 (the freeway was just under construction), south of Braes Bayou, my Dad and I noticed a lot of cars parked along the roadside and out in the cut, milo fields beside the road people were moving around, looked like hunters to me and one quick left turn confirmed this!

At this time, Houston had just passed a million folks and the city limits in our part of town had just been extended out past Gessner Rd. and the hunters were at least two miles out into the “country”. We watched them hammering away at the doves coming in to feed in the milo field, however one problem with this set up, the land was owned by a local oilman and real estate developer and later one of the “powers” behind construction of the Astrodome. He was also one of the benefactors of the Houston Medical Center.

My Dad and I got out of the car and talked to a hunter just going out into the field and asked him if he had permission to hunt in this spot? “No”, he replied, adding as he hurried out to get into the fun, “I was told this was an open spot since the construction would eventually eliminate most of the grain field.”

The next day, 3:30 in the afternoon found my Dad and I hunkered down with fifty or so other hunters in the milo field awaiting the doves. Our wait was a short one, we enjoyed some fine shooting and within an hour we both had our limits. We repeated this, limiting out, for the next three afternoons and after our Friday hunt and we had cleaned the birds, we hosted a tasty, dove, cook out for our apartment dwellers.

This was fine shooting while it lasted, but the road construction moved on, progress came to southwest Houston and today, the grain field is gone and the part of the area south of the bayou is taken up with a shopping center and the other part, to the north, is a nature conservancy.

Fencing The Feeder

The State of Texas allows hunters to “bait” or feed deer. Some states don’t allow this practice, but when in Rome etc. Real big, bucks generally will not come into feeders but they draw many doe and spikes, so we do have corn feeders near some deer blinds on our ranch. During the 2008/09 season on the ranch we shot 8 doe, 2 spikes and one 15 pointer, see my November 12, 2008 post, “[Randy’s Big ‘Un]” and last year we added 4 doe and two spikes. The feeders pay off!

The best deer hunting on our ranch is in what we call the back part and earlier this year we decided to open it up for the cattle to graze in. Besides food plots there was one corn feeder near a tree stand and corn feeders and cows just don’t mix because eventually they’ll just turn the feeder over. The solution to this is to put a fence around the feeder and yesterday Layla and I completed this project.

Here’s a pictures of the empty feeder before we put up the fence. Building it wasn’t hard but two operations of the installation require two people. One is holding up the fence posts before they’re driven into the ground and the other is holding up the 20’, hog wire, panels during attachment to the posts.

After a couple of hours work, here’s the finished product.

Morning Walk, September 21, 2010

My morning walk on Monday actually started (some may say) the Sunday evening of September 19th. After coming home from church, I was sitting out on my porch with our pets and looked out over the hay field and there was the melanistic deer feeding away.

Retrieving my camera I got this “shot”.

Being greeted by cool air as I walked outside yesterday morning, the sarcasm in me was thinking, Fall doesn’t start until the 21st and not having walked fifty yards, there was a deer standing in my neighbor’s field.

Maybe this morning the deer will be moving around, but for the mile plus of my walk, there were no more deer.

As I walked back toward the old, ranch house, out in the other end of the field stood the melanistic deer! The doe, mother of the dark one, was standing in the sunshine about fifty yards away. The contrast between the two is fascinating.

        
Maybe the fawn/yearling is really a melanistic deer

Game Camera

Being a very tight person, I finally invested in a brand new, digital, game camera and last week on the 15th, installed it in one of my corn, feeder pens. Pens, yes, because to keep the cows away from everything, we’ve built fences around them. This feeder wasn’t my first choice of locations, but will be fine for the next couple of weeks.

After installing the camera, I was careful to move away from it outside of the range finder, so no pics of me slinking away, but the first visitor that afternoon was, not the mighty buck I’d been expecting, but a cow.

Friday afternoon was hot and muggy and before cleaning up to go watch Goldthwaite’s homecoming, football game, I took a quick trip out to check on the game cam. Not thinking about the camera’s range, it captured me driving up in the Jeepster.

Sure enough on the morning of the 17th the deer had found the feeder and, because of the human scents in the fenced area, I was not expecting any “shots” of bucks. Here at 8:29 AM a doe is in the pen and her fawns are outside and at 8:39 another doe has jumped in.
     

Transferring the pics, I even got one of my PC.

At the game Friday night there was a nice rain, the ranch got .3”, but the halftime activities were halted because lightning was detected in the area. Goldthwaite came out smokin’ in the second half and won the game 25-0. This was a hollow victory because three of our starters, my Grandson, Colton included, were held out of the game with injuries. All three were All State last year: a running back that gained over 1900 yards; A middle linebacker, the leading tackler in the State with 211, and a tackle, the team’s second leading tackler!

We always need the rain, but a second bright side is that the human scent will be washed away and when I check the game cam next Friday there should be some buck pics.

More Outdoors Pictures, September 17, 2010

James Crumley, my neighbor, just got back from an elk hunt near Cuba, New Mexico with his son and brother and we talked at length about it.  He said they were covered up with elk, but kept passing up shots with their bows, until it was too late to get one.  They didn’t take cameras on their hunts so nothing but mind pictures of all the elk they saw, but they did take a pic of James and his son loading up of loading up a mule. 

Here’s a pic of James riding into the camp with Brownie in tow.  James said that after they made camp, he rode Brownie for                                              the rest of the trip.

Everett Sims sent me some game cam shots from his ranch in Jackson County, Texas.  This one shows a nice deer looking right at the camers.  Is he smiling?

 

The other one shot by the same game camera shows two of the big boys dukin’ it out.  It’s too early for them to be fighting over does so they are probably just practicing or fighting over the corn?

Randy Pfaff in Colorado sent me this pic of a bear in his tree stand.  Randy said he let the bear have it and walked, hurriedly away.

More Pictures of Writin’ Spiders

On September 13, Donna from “[Rubber Ducky Nursery, Donnas Reborns]” left a comment on my post of August 8, 2008, “[The Writin’ Spider]”. Checking out her site, I’ll admit that I’m not much into dolls, but what this lady does remaking dolls is unbelievable and I heartily recommend that you check this website out!

Yesterday I was out mowing the yard around the old, rock house and found two webs in progress from two writin’ spiders. In 2008 I came across one web and spider, but didn’t notice any last year, but it looks like the 2008 hatch was successful!

The first one that I ran across was in the yard and it was just building its nest under the branches of a cottonwood tree.

The second, under an eve and behind a hanging ladder, was busily adding to its web and I “shot” these two good                                                pictures of its endeavors.

Remember, don’t kill these big spiders because they are one of a gardens and a yards good guys, specializing in undesirable insects!

Sprayed

In the last days of summer, 1974, Tommy Walker, my friend and former manager, and his wife, called from Houston and said they were coming out to Arizona the next weekend to hunt some doves. This was an exciting event because Tommy, this past hunting season, had been accidentally hit by a blast from another hunter’s shotgun, took several pellets, #8’s, in one of his eyes and, blessedly, was healed now and ready to go hunt some more! My, two part story, January 13, 2010, part 1 of “[Walking Wounded]” and part 2, on [January 15, 2010], describes this event. Also, Tommy assured me that they would be wearing shooting glasses too.

Three, plus, weeks into the dove season, our best bet was to drive down toward Picacho Peak, turn left off of I-10 and drive toward Florence and then follow the signs to the Lake Picacho area, find a flyway and have a go at some white wings. Before sun up, thank goodness no traffic, we left my Paradise Valley home and made the one-hour trip. During the drive down, we discussed the safest method of hunting these birds, only shoot at birds passing over and don’t shoot at low flyers, no matter how easy or great a shot it is!

We didn’t find a flyway, but found a grain field the big birds were feeding in and set up along a line of mesquites. The white wings were feeding then flying over us towards the lake to water. Good action! A lot of white wings and we were the only hunters using this field!

Tommy was to my immediate left about fifty yards away and our wives were on the other side of both of us. We were about half way from our limits and I turned and looked at a low flyer between Tommy and me, just as he turned and let go with his twenty gauge, Superposed. He was using a “hot” reload with one ounce of number 8’s and before I could turn my back to him, my shooting glasses were hit and I felt a sting below my right eye. I was shot, not bad, but thanks to the shooting glasses, my eyes were spared!

Many times I have turned my back to a shooter and been “peppered” with bird shot, but this time it was different. With Tommy’s hot loads and him being relatively close to me, one shot had nicked me, bringing blood and as I rubbed where it hit, I could feel it still embedded under the skin. Yelling over to him, “Don’t shoot the low flyers!” His reply was, “Sorry, the bird came in so fast, my only reaction was to shoot at it.”

Increasing the distance between Tommy and me, soon we had our limits. Back at the truck, cleaning the birds, Tommy looked at me and said, “You have some blood under your eye, did you run into a mesquite. Good thing you had your shooting glasses on!” Under my breath I replied, “Amen!”

Off To Paris

Paris, Texas that is. Today I’m beginning a journey that will take me, eventually, to the northeast part of our fine State, Paris, Texas.

This morning I’ll be driving to Austin to pick up Layla’s new Suburban, then up I-35, the scene of serious flooding this past Tuesday and Wednesday, to Alvarado, a neutral field, to watch Goldthwaite play Callisburg in football this evening. My Grandson, Colton, won’t be playing in this ones since three weeks ago, in Goldthwaite’s first scrimmage against Bangs, he suffered a broken, forearm. But, it’ll be a good game!

Back to the flooding, the stretch of I-35 from Austin to the Dallas metro got swamped this week. Thanks to tropical storm, Hermoine, up to 13” of rain, that was badly needed, fell, across the area. In Goldthwaite, the eye passed over near us and we only got slightly over 3”.

Why Paris? On Saturday morning, another Grandson, Wesley, age 11 will be playing in his first football game. Last I heard he was playing fullback. This past summer, Wesley finished fourth overall, nationally, in the 11 and 12 year old, tumbling events in the Junior Olympics, held in Virginia Beach, Va.! This is the same Wesley, that in my January 3, 2010 post, [“Wesley Breaks The Ice]”, shot his first deer on our place.

When I was younger, and gasoline was under $.35 per gallon, we thought nothing of driving half way across our fine, State to watch multiple football games in one day, now I’m watching Grandsons!