Pictures From Randy Pfaff, Outfitter, Colorado

 

 

Warren was guided on his hunt for this fine Muley by Randy Pfaff. Randy sent me pictures of some of his client’s successful hunts this year including one of his son Adam and his Bighorn Sheep. Obviously, the huge, muley was photographed and not rifle. Randy’s e-mail is rpfaff@bresnan.net.

         

    

 

 

 

 

High School Football – District Champs

All four of my Grandkids enjoyed winning weeks last week and all four of their teams won their respective district championship!  Quite a feat for the four first timers!
First off, Austin and his San Marcos Diamondbacks, won a squeaker over cross town rival, Goodnight, by a 14-12 score.  The Diamondbacks, losers of their first 2 games,  claimed the 7th grade, district championship and ended up with 6 wins and 2 losses for the year.
Mikayla and her Goldthwaite 7th graders won their district championship, beating a scrappy team from Meridian 29-20.  Goldthwaite lost their first game then coasted to a 7 and 1 record!

Sara’s, 13th State ranked, Copperas Cove Bulldawgs, survived being upset last week by A&M Consolidated and came back and hammered Harker Heights 38-6, winning their Class 5A district championship and moving on to play Mesquite in the first round of the State playoffs, this Friday night in Waco.

Meanwhile, Colton and his, 19th  State ranked, Goldthwaite Eagles traveled to Meridian, came from behind twice and won a close, hard fought game over the Yellow Jackets, 33-26.  The win ran the Eagl’s record overall to 9 and 1 and gave them the district championship with a mark of 5 and 0.  This Friday, the Eagles begin the State Class 1A playoffs and square off in Moody against Thorndale.

Coach Spradley is all smiles after the big win against Meridian and poses with his 3 Freshman stand outs (L to R) Sergio, Colton and Tyler.
High school football playoffs begin this Friday night and middle school basketball started for Mikayla on Monday with her Lady Eagles taking on Dublin and losing 29-20.  Mikayla did not score but collected 2 rebounds and had 3 steals.  Austin will also be playing basketball but his season hasn’t begun.  Sara will run track and Colton will participate in track and baseball.  Much more high school sports to come with my Grandkids and their teams.

Randy’s Big ‘Un

My Son, Randy, is the pastor of Fellowship of San Marcos Church and he has to carefully pick his times to come up to the ranch and hunt deer. He missed opening day this year, but really made up for it with the trophy he shot.
Here, my Grandson, Sean, proudly shows off his Dad’s deer. This picture was snapped from Randy’s iPod and I’ll have better ones later this week. This big buck was 3-1/2 years old and had 15 points! Randy will have the horns scored when they dry out. We’d not seen this buck around the ranch.

Veteran’s Day – Buck Barry

After rereading Buck Barry’s, diary, edited in 1978 by James K. Greer, I thought the following tale of a battle fought over 160 years ago would be appropriate. Referencing Mr. Greer’s book and discovering more details on the internet, I’m pleased that I can summarize it. These men, Texans, all volunteers, responded to an urgent plea from an American General. Remember only two years before, Texas had been annexed into the United States, but old ties are strong.

Fight Along The San Juan River

Buck Barry, my 3G, Uncle was a veteran, a veteran of the Indian Wars, the Mexican War and the Civil War and was, I’m sure, a supporter of the fore runner of our Veteran’s Day – Decoration Day. Decoration Day began in Virginia in late 1863, with southern ladies decorating the graves of Confederate soldiers with red and white bunting. It quickly spread across the South, then the North and finally in 1867 was named, Memorial Day, a national holiday.

In 1846, before Decoration Day was even thought of, Buck had joined a company of volunteers in Franklin, Texas, under the command of Capt. Eli Chandler and the unit had made haste to south Texas, responding to the urgent request for reinforcements from Texas, from U.S. General (later President) Zachary Taylor. Arriving, ten days late for the battles at Resaca De La Palma and Palo Alto, the Texans, Buck included, were formed into a regiment of other Texas units and elected Capt. Jack Hays, who Buck had served with as a Texas Ranger in 1845, their Colonel and Samuel H Walker, their Lt. Colonel.

Digressing, Walker, a former Texas Ranger, was the inventor of the famous Walker Colt pistol, that until the .357 Magnum was introduced in 1935, was the most powerful, hand gun ever produced. Walker was later awarded a direct commission in the U.S. Army and served under Gen. Winfield Scott during the march to Mexico City. In 1847, Capt. Walker was killed by enemy fire while leading a charge into the Mexican city of Huamantla.

Buck and the Texans were the lead units of Gen. Taylor’s column heading up the San Juan River, a tributary of the Rio Grande, until their advance was stopped outside of Monterrey, by a regiment of Mexican Lancers and this led to a very, spirited fight!

The Texans had stopped for a break and unsaddled and were rubbing their horses down when the Lancers surprised them! Buying time for a hasty defense, Col. Hays rode out and challenged the Mexican Colonel to a saber duel. Hays mentioned to Buck that he knew nothing of saber dueling. The challenge was accepted and valuable time was gained when the Mexican officer removed all of his accoutrements and then rode out to meet Hays.

The Mexican drew his saber, and unceremoniously, Hays drew his pistol and shot him! At that breech of etiquette, the infuriated Lancers came boiling down the riverbank and charged the Texans! Hays ordered his men to fire from behind their horses using them as shields. The Lancers rode through the Texans three times, rifles and pistols were emptied and the fight continued with bowie knives against lances, until the attack was beaten off. Texan losses were one dead and many wounded and eighty of the Lancers were killed. Both sides suffered heavy losses of horses.

Buck said, “After that fight, I never called Mexicans cowards again!”

Where There’s A Will, There’s A Way

Previously, I had mentioned seeing out in my field, a nice deer, with tall, uneven antlers and a pronounced limp and I had decided that if given the opportunity, I would dispatch it.

My neighbor captured a picture of the deer coming in to his feeder and it clearly showed that it was missing its rear, right hoof and leg, just below the joint. Barbwire or a bad shot, we couldn’t tell. As expected the deer’s left horn was deformed and much smaller than the right one and with only one rear leg, I was wondering if he could perform his yearly reproduction duties?                                                                                                                                         Last Friday was the first cool morning of the year and I was in a tree stand overlooking thick cover and a feeder 110 yards away and here came three does right to the feeder. On time at 7:30 AM, the feeder spread the corn, the deer jumped over the low fence and chow was on!

Deer Pictures

Our scouting, hunting and preparations for this deer season has afforded us a good chance to get some interesting pictures of some does and yearlings.The bucks just won’t sit still for a picture.

         

 

 

No Results So Far

Tuesday afternoon, even though it was 86 degrees and 25 MPH winds, I went and sat in a tree stand near a corn feeder, thinking that I would probably see some deer, maybe even a nice one.A nice one wasn’t to be found, but I did spy, and took a picture, of a young buck.                                                                                                                                                               This was the first one that had stood still for me since August 4, in my yard, near my compost pile, and, thinking back, since this stand is the nearest to our house, it could have been the same one.

        

Several doe came to the feeder and this young one couldn’t understand why the feeder had stopped throwing corn

We had a cool front come in early Thursday morning with .1 of rain and, to change my habits, I went out at 8:30 AM and stayed until 11:00. No luck and no camera ‘shots’. The big ones still aren’t moving, the does are bunched up and the rut around here hasn’t kicked off.
Who knows, maybe today?

High School Football

My two middle school Grandkids, Austin and Mikayla, played and cheered their teams to victory last week. Austin caught a 50, yard pass in his San Marcos Diamondbacks 28-0 win over Kyle Middle School.Here’s Austin going after a block against Kyle.

Mikayla cheered on the Goldthwaite Middle             School Eagles to a 34-6 victory over Bosqueville.She is trying to watch the game looking into a bright, setting sun.                                 Meanwhile, in College Station, Sara was cheering but the 7th ranked, Class 5A, Copperas Cove Bulldawgs lost to a tough A&M Consolidated team 31-27. Cove fans said 2 questionable officiating calls sealed the Dawgs doom in this one. The Dawgs are now 8-1.

All wasn’t lost because the 23rd ranked, Class 1 A, Goldthwaite Eagles ran their record to 8 and 1 with a 48-7 win over the Bosqueville Bulldogs. The Dogs were favored in this one but it looks like the Eagles didn’t read the papers. My Grandson, Colton, was awarded the ‘hit of the game’ honors for a QB sack during a crucial moment of the game. I think the hit, turned the game and momentum to Goldthwaite and they never looked back, coasting to an easy win.

Opening Weekend

Day 1-Saturday
Opening morning of deer season dawned bright and clear, with the temperature hovering around 60. No one told the deer that they should be up at sunrise and the usual fusillade of shots didn’t happen, just a few scattered bangs.

Sweet Or Un-Sweet Tea

Ice tea, sweet or un-sweet, must be the State Drink of Texas. On this trip, ice tea saved the day!
Layla, decided she would start Deer hunting and on a warm, sunny afternoon in early November we were alone at our lease in McCulloch County, and had selected our ‘hides’ for the afternoon.. She had chosen a small ground blind along a draw on the north side of the property and I was snuggled, near a feeder, into a clump of buck brush on the edge of one of our small, Texas, ‘mountains’.

A group of Turkeys was visiting the feeder that I was protecting and I was trying to pick one out, when, boom, from Layla’s blind! Quickly collecting my wits and gear, I followed “the sounds of the guns” until I saw her. A big smile on her face, standing over a Deer and as I hurried closer, I saw the horns.

She had just shot her first buck! She was excited, happy, laughing, and as she ran up to me, said, “I saw his horns, put the scope on his heart, shot and he fell in his tracks!”  Picking her up and hugging her, I offered my congratulations and told her we’d get it mounted!

  Layla’s first Deer
We gutted the buck and loaded him into the back of our Jeep Scrambler. Before we headed to the processor in Richland Springs, we stopped by the camp house and fixed us celebratory glasses of ice tea and headed out.

Driving east on U.S. Highway 190, we noticed a smoky smell and looking around, couldn’t see any signs of a range fire, so we proceeded on. A half, mile farther, looking into the rear view mirror, I saw the source of the smell. The Jeep was on fire and trailing smoke!

Quickly pulling on to the shoulder, we both hopped out and I crouched down to inspect the source of the fire. The smoke was pouring out just above a skid plate that was hung below the transmission and closer inspection showed a mass of weeds and debris had collected in the space between the two pieces of metal. The only thing we had to put the fire out was our ice tea and gathering both glasses and crawling under the Jeep I slung/threw the contents of both on to the fire. Luckily, it worked!

Not having my gloves on, they were in the Jeep, I found a stick and started poking the weeds and debris out. My stick broke so I reached into the space and, ouch! I had grabbed a sand burr that had been picked up during our off roading. Getting my gloves, clearing out the space was no problem and we headed on, “tealess” to get the buck processed.

Thinking through as to how the fire got started, driving through the weeds and brush, we had, unknowingly, packed this space tight and the heat, magnified by the tight space, had ignited, hence, our fire.
Thank goodness we had our tea!