This past Tuesday, Clayton Gist, a Goldthwaite local and a friend, trapped this 27, pound, male, Bobcat on his family’s ranch south of Goldthwaite. Their place is not too far, cross-country, from mine.
Clayton and his Dad operate{RE/MAX Texas Lone Star Properties} featuring prime, central Texas ranch land.
My years of Quail hunting in Arizona, Georgia and Texas have been wonderful and even better is a dish that I accidentally, through trial and error, invented, “Jalapeno Quail”.
As the name implies, the ingredients are Quail legs, however, Dove, Bull Frog, Teal or Woodcock legs can be substituted. However, I do find large Duck, Goose or Pheasant, legs too tough.
Depending on how many legs, one or two jalapenos, sectioned into 1/8 inch slices, sliced garlic pods or a copious amount of Garlic powder, ½ to one full stick of butter (no margarine!). You can’t use too much garlic or jalapenos!
Clean and wash the legs and prepare your ingredients. Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly after slicing the jalapenos! Melt the butter in a cast iron skillet, and when melted, add all of the ingredients at once and simmer, covering the skillet with a lid, for 10 minutes, then stir and turn the mixture, recover and cook until done.
Feeds as many as you have legs for. Small legs are very good served as an appetizer. Frog legs can be a main course.
Best if served hot, but be sure and eat all of the ingredients, peppers, garlic and all!
Wash your hands thoroughly before the meal to remove any jalapeno residue because it really burns when you get it in your eyes!
This past Friday night Sara and her, Copperas Cove, Bulldawgs, won a hard fought game against Garland 21-7, and now, move into the next round of the playoffs against Cypress Ridge, a Houston area team from the Cypress- Fairbanks School District, that features one of the best quarterbacks in the nation. Of course, Texas is the breeding grounds for great quarterbacks! Having lived in the Cy Fair District, the largest in the state, for over 25 years, I feel like I helped build many of their seven, high schools and my son, Randy, even played for Cypress Creek High School.
While the Dawgs continued their winning ways, Goldthwaite’s season came to an abrupt end with a 33-7 loss to a big, and just as fast as us, team from Shiner. One good note is that next year, Goldthwaite returns 15 of their 22 starters, 8 on defense!
Middle school basketball chugged along with Austin being sick and missing the first 2 games. Mikayla and her 7th grade team’s record was 0-3, but the team started coming together against Deleon.
Here Mikayla has her opponent back on her heels, as she begins a drive to her left towards the basket.The Lady Eagles beat De Leon and then edged the good San Saba ‘Dillo team (our bitter rival), and this was the first time since “Little Dribblers” began 4 years ago, they had ever even come close against the ‘Dillos!
From 1966 to 1970 Bill Priddy and I were members of an “exclusive” hunting and fishing club south of Danbury, Texas. The club catered to Duck hunters, but allowed fishing and frogging, when it didn’t conflict with the hunting.
My Dad and I show off a Wood Duck we had recently shot over our decoys. Bill Priddy took the picture and we gave him the Duck for mounting.
The club offered a nice air conditioned and heated lodge that slept twelve, a complete kitchen, including a cook and caretaker during Duck season, game cleaning facilities and six, flat bottomed, aluminum boats and, on top of all of that, family members could use the facility for fishing, etc. without the member being present.
Besides the camp house and a hundred acres of thick woods, the club had three, 20 acre, lakes that served as rice field reservoirs. A deep channel was cut all around a square impoundment with the excavated dirt piled up to form a type of dam, or levee. There was about ten feet of shallow water along the dam’s inside, before the excavated channel dropped off to over six foot depth. The channel, the only structure in the lake, was approximately thirty feet wide, sloping up to a large, shallow flat, two feet deep, that covered the center of the lake.
The lakes were over twenty years old and the aquatic vegetation flourished in and around them and provided some excellent hunting and fishing memories for my family and me!
Plenty of snakes but, strangely, no ‘Gators!
We had been on this lease in McCulloch County, for the past four years and finally, had just the right hunters on it; Bob Baugh, Bill Priddy, Randy Stephens, Hank Schneider and myself. The rancher was glad it was down to the five of us since he liked us and knew that we respected his land, cattle and wild game. Being the ‘jefe’ of our group he passed on to me that he was adding 280 acres, located just outside of Rochelle, to our hunting property. The new place was only a short drive west of his main ranch and brought our total of huntable acres to 2800.
Around noon we drove over to the new place and he told me that he’d seen a couple of really nice bucks hanging around the does. He also told me that this place was overrun with does and he wanted us to eliminate part of the problem, but definitely, try to get a nick buck!
As we drove through the place, glancing out into the middle of a newly planted, winter wheat field, I noticed a buck, not your run of the mill, Texas hill country deer, but a big, heavy racked, guy, just standing there and looking at us. We didn’t stop and kept on driving and the rancher remarked, “That’s a big ‘un, I told you there were nice bucks on this place.” I agreed!
That afternoon, Brad and I were the only ones on the lease, so we decided to check out our new addition. Brad was in a tree line about a hundred yards north of me and I had chosen a natural depression in the wheat field, almost like a fox hole. By 4:30 we hadn’t seen anything. The same for 5:00, but at 5:15, here came the deer – does, bucks, spikes and yearlings, at least 100 of them. At the east end of the field Brad saw big ‘un.
Big ‘un and a smaller 8 pointer, but still a nice buck, were chasing a doe. Brad couldn’t get a clear shot on big ‘un, but when he grunted, the 8 stopped, bam, Brad shot, and he told me, “Dad, he hopped when I hit him, but he ran 15 or 20 yards and jumped the fence over on to the adjoining ranch. It was getting dark and not having ‘hot pursuit’ permission, or even knowing the next door, rancher, we were in a dilemma.
We walked to the fence and a clear blood trail went from the point of impact to the fence and we were stymied. Our solution was to wait for dark, climb the fence and then sneak the deer over the fence and out. We had one problem, less than a half mile away, the ‘over the fence’ rancher was having a party and there must have been 10 or 15 cars parked there. We still had to get the deer.
As the party ‘roared’ on, over the fence we went, got into a low sneaking position, clicked on our lights and soon found the buck, a nice one with an 18 or 19 inch spread. Still in our sneaking crouch, we drug the buck back to the fence, a standard west Texas one with hog wire for the first 48 inches and two strands of barb wire above that, and it was all both of us could do to muscle the 120 pounder, up and over the wire. The ‘party goers’ never noticed us and the party ‘roared’ on.
We took the deer to a processor in Richland Springs and there, Brad decided not to have the head mounted. Bad mistake, because when we went to pick up the buck, the horns, had somehow gotten themselves lost and we were presented with the horns of a scraggly 7 pointer.
We never got big ‘un and I understand, another hunter shot him, but could never find him.
Brad came over Thursday afternoon to try and hunt, and I say try, because a ‘norther’ had blown in around noon packing 25 to 35 MPH winds. It never dawned on us that this particular afternoon we’d see a lot of deer.
Because of the wind, Brad decided to hunt in Colton’s blind and I thought I’d give the haystack another try.
It had been 8 days since I had hunted in the haystack, in the feed lot, right by my house and 4:50 PM found me ‘schrooched’ down looking over the top of the hay. Nothing happened until 5:30 and then, almost as a group, here came the deer, a total of 3 does and 5 yearlings. Within thirty yards of me, I felt like I could reach out and touch them, they began browsing and watering. It was getting dark, when all a sudden, the deer froze and looked, not at me, but into the thick cover.
Way back in the thick stuff I could see movement, two big deer, couldn’t see horns, but they were big. They came steadily on toward the feed lot and water trough, all of the deer around me were still frozen, and I was caught in a very uncomfortable position, but like the deer, held my ground!
With the wind still howling and the mesquite trees blocking a clear view of them, the two deer came on. In the quickly fading light, I cautiously raised my rifle and scoped them and could barely make them out. The does began moving off, warning the yearling with hisses that sounded kinda’ like a buck’s snort/wheeze, without the snort. Still no luck with the scope, it was just too late, but there’ll be another time!
In the dark, driving out to Maw-Maw’s blind, I picked Brad up and he told me that around 5:20, after the feeder had gone off, he saw a total of eight deer, including a spike with just one horn. He said, “Seeing movement near the feeder, I looked around and there was the spike. I noticed he was limping and had only one horn and by the time I got my rifle up to shoot he was back into the thick stuff. Maybe I’ll get him tomorrow?” Laughing, I replied, “Maybe it was a unicorn?”
This past weekend was a big one for the Goldthwaite Eagles and Copperas Cove Bulldawgs, with both teams winning their first round playoff games. Sara cheered Cove on as they beat beat Mesquite 21-7 and The Eagles, with Colton playing a good game with 5 solo tackles and one ‘pic’, whomped Thorndale 42-10. Last Friday a serious cold front arrived in our area with 25 MPH winds, gusting to 40. Both games were played in the Waco area and in those windy, conditions, the best defenses won both games!
The Bulldawgs with a final, Class 5A ranking of 15th, next opponent will be Garland, ranked 17th, while Goldthwaite, ranked 17th in Class 1A teams, takes on a tough, 15th ranked team from Shiner. Digressing, Shiner is known statewide for the best locally owned and produced beer. The brewery is over 100 years old and still going strong. Both teams will face stern tests as they strive to move on in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, this past Sunday, Sara and her Bulldawg cheerleader squad defeated 15 other teams and won first place in their division of the American Cheer Power competition. The judges scored their routine the highest in all of the different classes.
In the picture, taken at the first of their routine, Sara is flippin’ on the right.
Having never seen a real cheer competition, this one was an eye opener for me. The girls, from all ages, are marvelous athletes and some of the routines were outstanding! There were over 75 teams involved, representing all of our great State, except for the far western portion.
Austin quickly switched to basketball, making his middle school’s ‘A’ team and they had their first game Monday, but he came down with a stomach virus and didn’t even go to school. Mikayla’s middle school basketball team played played at Commanche and came out on the short end of a 40-19 score.
I didn’t get to watch Mikayla’s game because I went to the booster club meeting and heard the scouting reports on the football team from Shiner. The game this Friday should be a good, tough, hard hitting one!
My Grandkids continue to rack up championships! This past Saturday, Wesley, age 10, and his soccer team, The Gators, won the Paris, Texas Soccer Association’s, 11 and under, boys division championship. Wesley is a veteran having played soccer for 5 years. He also stars in youth baseball, makes straight A’s and because of his athleticism and trampoline skills has been asked to try out for the local, competition gymnastics team.
Wesley, left, and his brother, Will, 5 and just getting started in sports, look down as they try to figure our who to blame for spilling the ice water.
At 5:00 PM this past Wednesday afternoon, I had defied logic and was sitting behind a tree scouting for deer. What’s illogical about that? The tree that I was hiding behind was in the feed lot, not two hundred feet from the east side of my house and by dark, within fifty yards of my hide, I had seen eleven does and two young bucks! My cover was so sparse that I couldn’t lift up my camera for pictures.In the thick fog Thursday morning, on my ranch,near Goldthwaite, Texas, sitting in a tree stand by a food plot, I had only seen four yearling does. Then it dawned on me, the bucks will be close to where the does are!
So, then and there, I decided that I would convert one of the partial round bales of hay in the feed lot, into a blind of sorts and see if that would provide me sufficient cover to get a shot. Moving the hay around for a makeshift ‘blind’ proved to be easy, but the hard part was angling into the chair so only the top of my camo’d head would show. Thursday afternoon found me ‘scrooched’ into a bale of hay, watching a spike about a hundred yards away down a lane in the trees, stop and rub his head against an overhanging limb, put his back legs together and urinate over his glands on to the obvious scrape. In quick succession, he would be the first of four more bucks, a six pointer and three shooters, to repeat this act. This was a first for me. I’ve seen one buck ‘work’ a scrape, but never two and certainly not five and don’t ask me why I watched and didn’t shoot!
A doe walked across the clearing not forty yards in front of me, followed by the spike. Soon the spike beat a quick retreat and I got ready. Out walked this nice buck, guessing his age on the hoof, probably four and a half with heavy body, wide horns and muscular neck. He looked at the doe as I centered my cross hairs in the heart, lung area, bam, down he went and bounced back up, ran for twenty or so feet and fell dead!
During the fall, through junior high, high school, college and my first 2 jobs, my afternoons, when not otherwise occupied, were spent outside of Fairchild, in Ft. Bend County, Texas, hunting on the Vacek, Stavinoah and Franek farms. From 1949 until 1969 this was a Dove and Duck hunting paradise for my Dad and I! Today this area encompasses a huge, Reliant Energy, power plant and an upscale subdivision. Progress and municipal sprawl equates to loss of hunting grounds!
Mr. Vacek was an Uncle of one of my Dad’s employees, and us getting to hunt down there started innocently enough with my Dad buying eggs and fresh produce from them. It was also a pleasant, 30 minute, afternoon drive for us, and soon, Mr Vacek, said, “Bryan and Jonny, vy don’t you come shoot ‘dem Dove and Duck covering my place?” That was all the invitation we needed and Mr. Vacek even got us permission to hunt on the other 2 properties.
From mid September until Duck season we concentrated on Doves then switched our pursuits to the Ducks. Mostly they were in a wooded, creek bottom that is now gone, covered by the power plant’s cooling lake.
Mr. Vacek would call my Dad and say, “Bryan, them bottom got ‘dem Ducks” and off we’d go. I remember several occasions when my Dad even got me out of school on “an emergency” to go hunting. He correctly surmised that being out hunting with him, would keep me out of trouble and teach me valuable lessons for the rest of my life. He was correct!
The hunting was excellent, sneaking the Ducks in the bottom or pass shooting Doves in the cut milo and corn fields, but one trip taught me a valuable lesson. Taking another computer salesman with me one afternoon almost cost me “big time”! I had loaned him one of my shotguns and explained its action to him and I was leading us down a small creek on our “sneak” of a bunch of Ducks, when Boom!!!
His shotgun exploded and the shot plowing into the ground right beside my foot and I froze. I turned around and checked the safety, and sure enough, in his excitement, he had clicked it off, accidentally touched the trigger and almost blew my leg off!
This taught me three valuable lessons, never loan out a shotgun, always try to walk abreast with another hunter and don’t take a “cicero” hunting until you’re sure of his capability and judgment! This man and I remained friends and neighbors until his untimely death in 1990 but we never hunted together again, we fished a lot, but no more hunting!
Both my Dad and Mr. Vacek died in 1969 and I moved away and when I returned to Houston in 1979, the power plant had gobbled up our hunting area.
At 5:00 PM this past Wednesday afternoon, I had defied logic and was sitting behind a tree scouting for deer. What’s illogical about that? The tree that I was hiding behind was in the feed lot, not two hundred feet from the east side of my house and by dark, within fifty yards of my hide, I had seen eleven does and two young bucks! My cover was so sparse that I couldn’t lift up my camera for pictures.In the thick fog Thursday morning, on my ranch,near Goldthwaite, Texas, sitting in a tree stand by a food plot, I had only seen four yearling does. Then it dawned on me, the bucks will be close to where the does are!
So, then and there, I decided that I would convert one of the partial round bales of hay in the feed lot, into a blind of sorts and see if that would provide me sufficient cover to get a shot. Moving the hay around for a makeshift ‘blind’ proved to be easy, but the hard part was angling into the chair so only the top of my camo’d head would show. Thursday afternoon found me ‘scrooched’ into a bale of hay, watching a spike about a hundred yards away down a lane in the trees, stop and rub his head against an overhanging limb, put his back legs together and urinate over his glands on to the obvious scrape. In quick succession, he would be the first of four more bucks, a six pointer and three shooters, to repeat this act. This was a first for me. I’ve seen one buck ‘work’ a scrape, but never two and certainly not five and don’t ask me why I watched and didn’t shoot!
A doe walked across the clearing not forty yards in front of me, followed by the spike. Soon the spike beat a quick retreat and I got ready. Out walked this nice buck, guessing his age on the hoof, probably four and a half with heavy body, wide horns and muscular neck. He looked at the doe as I centered my cross hairs in the heart, lung area, bam, down he went and bounced back up, ran for twenty or so feet and fell dead!
Pictured is my ‘Haystack Buck’.
Whew, that was some deal, but where’s the smoke coming from? The muzzle flash had ignited some of the hay, but it soon smoldered out. Getting out of my ‘blind’, I hadn’t taken two steps, when I saw movement ahead in the brush and three bucks exploded out.
Walking up to the buck, I noticed he was a seven pointer, with his left, main beam broken from fighting. Earlier in the week I’d passed on a big buck with only one antler. These guys around here are getting aggressive!
The big boys are moving and they were certainly were close to where the does were!
