All posts by Jon Bryan

Fishing

It Was Free

Dove hunting season had started on September 1st, duck season would kick off late next month and with nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon, Bobby Baldwin and I were headed down to Galveston for some fishing.  As high schoolers, our spare time, when not involved with girls, athletics, hunting or studying (ugh) was spent fishing and most of the time this was around the Galveston’s South Jetty, either walking the slippery rocks or wading along the Gulf or channel side.

Today we were wading along the channel side of the South Jetty, casting into a small gut at the base of the rocks.  Bobby had a backlash and as he was removing it, his Dixie Jet spoon with a yellow buck tail attached, floated down to the sandy bottom.  One of my old Dixie Jets with a yellow buck tail is pictured.

Removing the snarl Bobby began retrieving the excess line and when his line came tight, he grumbled, “I must be snagged on the rocks,” just as his line headed east for deep water, he was into a nice fish, what kind, we didn’t know.

After a short, spirited fight a big flounder, 2 or 3 pounds, was on the surface.  Of course we didn’t have a landing net. That would have been too easy!  So Bobby tried to grab the flounder across its back like a spec.  It was more like pinching the fish since a flounder doesn’t have the width or “grabbing” surface that a trout has.  When grabbed, the fish flopped away, the hook came loose and the flounder headed for the bottom.

Sensing something, we cast our spoons toward the rocks, let them settle to the bottom, slowly retrieved them and for the next hour had some terrific fishing, not catching, but fishing!  Like my dad always said “If you caught fish every time you went out, it would be called catchin’ not fishin’!”  Without a net trying to grab one was next to impossible.  We tried hugging them to our chest and they just squirted up, away from us, trying to use both hands proved fruitless and no matter how hard we tried, they proved to be ungrabable too.  Anyway we had fun hooking them and trying to “capture” one.  We probably hooked 25 or 30 and landed zero!

The tide changed and the fish quit hitting and as we were wading out a man fishing from the rocks yelled to us, “Boys, that was a great show, and it was free!”  Being well brought up and taught to respect our elders, we said nothing and dejectedly walked back to our car.

Pictures

The Corn Feeder, October 22, 2011

Getting to know the feeding habits of the many deer using my 2 feeders is one of the benefits of game cameras, one remains at the feeder by Ma Maw’s Blind, the other is on a game trail near a tripod stand.  One buck, a nice 8 pointer, but with scrawny brow tines, keeps showing up around Ma Maw’s feeder, showing up with several other bucks and any day now, the fights will start!

On the 12th, he was with a young 8 pointer.

Then on the 14th, early in the morning when it was still dark, he showed up with another buck, horn size unknown.  Then 3 hours later he was staring down a cottontail and another hour passed he then showed up with the wide 6 pointer.  Notice in this “shot” his neck is filling out.

         

Just before sun up on the 15th, the young, scraggly 8 pointer and our pot bellied buck are staring down a coon.


Just before sunrise on the 16th, our big, buck and another unidentifiable deer are feeding, while the wide 6 is outside of the feeder enclosure looking on.

At almost the same time the next day, the 17th, our big, buck is teamed up feeding with the young, scraggly 8 pointer.  His neck is getting bigger too!

For the past 14 months, besides enduring extreme heat, our southwestern states have undergone a severe drought!  The heat and lack of rain has taken their toll, especially on the formation of buck’s horns.  Our rain of 2 weeks ago has brought a real “greening” up of forbs (broadleaf weeds), a mainstay of deer’s diet, with fruit and acorns making up much of the balance.  Around here, central Texas, we’ve had a very poor season for acorns and pecans, fruit, when the deer can find it is a bonus, but with the lack of rain, fruit trees didn’t produce either.

All of this leads me to say that I may not shoot a big buck this year.  With our one buck, with the horns outside of the ears, limit this year, maybe I’ll hold out for the 9 or 10 pointer that I’ve gotten 2 “shots” of earlier, but a young spike for the table and several doe for the unfortunate of our community, may max me out this year.

Hunting

Food Plots

Hoping for rain, Saturday, October 1st, I planted 2 food plots, one by the Porta Potty blind and the other by a tree stand.  This was not just “another” tree stand, but one that, in the past, has produced some nice bucks, see my post “[Rattled In]” on November 10, 2007.

Since I had finished spreading the seed, which was a can’t miss deer attractor (aren’t they all!), I had already drug my rake, a real contraption made with a 6 foot piece of hog wire with a hundred pound cedar post attached on top of the wire, over the Porta Potty plot and was raking the tree stand plot when disaster struck.  On my knees, I attempted to move the rake slightly, it moved slightly, but during the move I pulled both quad muscles in my back, putting me in bed for 3 days!

During my recovery, early on the morning of the 9th,  Layla and I were awakened by thunder, lightning and rain, not just rain, but a flooding rain, of course, it hadn’t been forecasted to hit us, but to remain in far west Texas.  My first thoughts were, Thank you Lord for bringing us rain and my second was I hope the rain doesn’t wash out my food plots.

These pictures show both plots, the one by the Porta Potty blind survived and is flourishing, while the other taken from the tree stand is mostly, washed out. I say, “Flourishing”, but what I really mean is that we still need rain badly, even with the 6 incher we received on the 9th, our water table remains over 19 inches down!

It looks like I’ll have to replant the one food plot.

Uncategorized

First Buck

The last week of October 2004 was comfortable not hot, nor sweaty warm, as my grandson Colton, 11 years old, and I climbed into our famous Scaffold Blind, called by some an elevated contraption. It’s ideal for young hunters since it has plenty of room for 2 people and 2 real comfortable chairs. There’s only one drawback, it has no roof, but as I tell everyone, “Don’t worry, if it’s not raining, you won’t get wet.”

Texas hunting law enables hunters to feed or bait deer and there was a feeder 95 yards west of the Scaffold Blind, tucked into a clearing along several deer trails. Texas law also requires that youth hunters take a hunter safety course.  In many other states hunters are required also to take an online [hunter education course].

That afternoon we watched doe and yearlings feed on the corn that was on the ground, and to our surprise, a gray fox trotted not 20 feet in front of the blind. We both wondered what in the world this fox was doing out this early in the day?

We knew the doe would hang around and Colton could take one for camp meat, but he was holding out for a nice buck.  Watching and dozing as Colton whispered, “Poppy, I see a real nice deer!” “Where, son” I replied?  Keeping his hand under the blind’s window he pointed toward a nearby mesquite tree and sure enough, tucked into the tree was a very nice buck, but I was afraid there was too many branches for a clear shot, then Colton said, “Poppy, I can hit him in the neck right below his chin.” I replied, “If you’re sure, take him!”

Pow, Colton’s .257 Roberts barked, and the deer crumpled in his tracks!  Colton had hit him dead center!  A fine shot!  “Poppy, I got him,” he said as he jumped up to admire his feat, but I told him, “Boy, let’s give the buck 10 or 15 minutes and make sure he’s done, no sense rushing it.”  In Colton’s case, the objective of the youth hunt was fulfilled. The boy shot a nice buck, received proper training from an adult and, 7 years later, is a successful, careful hunter.

Colton admires his nice buck and is a very happy, youth hunter!

Today, even though he’s now a senior in high school, weighs 200 pounds, has played in 2 State Championship football games winning one, was chosen All-State in 2009 and 2010 and is really into saltwater fishing, he still remembers this hunt.

That afternoon a new ranch rule was also set up, the next buck he takes must be bigger than this one!

Pictures

Finally Rain

Monday night I had gone to the Goldthwaite High School Booster Club meeting to watch the film taken October 10th of us playing Reagan County in football.  We won the game (again), but when I got home, Layla told me that she had counted 29 deer browsing in the field behind our house and that’s a lot of deer!

We had 6, plus inches of rain last Saturday night and Sunday morning, not a real drought breaker, but enough to fill the stock tanks, get the creeks running and even getting the Colorado River flowing again!  The rain revived the Johnson grass in our field and, in turn, stimulated the forbs and deer browse, drawing the deer like magnets.

Thursday night, sitting on our back porch, I got these “shots” in total of 19 deer, since the camera lens wasn’t wide enough to capture all them.  This “shot” is of 5, not joining the big “herd”, browsing along the fence line.

This “shot” shows 14 deer, count ‘em, out in the field.  Every evening there are anywhere from a dozen to the 29 that Layla saw, they come from all around!

Hunting

The Big Country – A Late Riser

Opening morning of quail season, I was driving up to Goldthwaite to pick up my son-in-law, Mike Mitchell, for an afternoon hunt out to my lease in Millersview. This year’s quail season opened up a week before deer season and with no deer hunters around, we’d have the place to ourselves,

Driving west to my lease, our guess was correct, but the quail weren’t responding. We’d already tried a couple of likely places, but our dogs, Sonny and Red, my Brittany Spaniels, hadn’t found any quail sign, where were the birds? An hour and a half before sundown, we were worrying that the opener this year would be a bust, but 30 yards ahead, as we bounced along in the jeep, there was a bevy of bobs running down the road.

Quickly stopping the jeep, we both piled out, unsheathed our shotguns, fumbled with the latches on the dog boxes and, the dogs, being as excited as us, bounced out, quickly took care of their business, then took off down the road after the birds. Pushed by the dogs, the covey took wing and me, feeling like Capt. Angora of goat rodeo fame, told Mike that we’d do better if we slowed down and let the dogs do their work.

A hundred yards out, Sonny, a real pro of a bird dog, pointed first, Red, his son, backed as Mike and I hurried up to them, then 3 birds burst from the cover and boom, boom, boom, down they dropped. The dogs, being more interested in going after the rest of the covey, were reluctant to fetch the birds in, but after repeated, “Dead birds”, they complied.

The quail, probably 20 or more, now minus the 3 we just shot, had spread out over a wide area and we let the dogs find them. Up ahead, Red pointed and Mike and I walked in on them, a single got up on my side and, boom, chalk up another. Red didn’t go after the dead bird, but was glued to the spot right off his nose, Mike walked in making a swishing sound and a bob flushed, Mike’s gun boomed, Red brought it in and chalk up another one. Telling him that 5 was enough out of this covey, I whistled in both dogs, we walked back to the jeep and kenneled everybody up.

This was a good start, but we were running out of time, but the next hour scenting conditions would be good and this was prime time for the birds to be moving around. More bouncing along when we came up to a cross road, with some thick cover off to one side, the other side being an old cattle feed lot, then a covey, a big one, thirty birds or more, ran across the road toward the thick stuff, maybe we could head them off!

We unkenneled, unlimbered our shotguns, let the dogs out and hurried to our head off point, where we were in time and as far as we could tell had succeeded in cutting off the birds. This was a big covey and from what we could tell, we knew they hadn’t been busted up, both dogs pointed, this looked like, as Saddam Hussein once said, “The Mother of all coveys!”

Mike and I walked in on the birds, then pandemonium as the quail flushed wildly, most heading west into the setting sun. Six times our guns boomed, four birds fell, the dogs fetched them to us and to let the birds bunch up again, we sat for 10 minutes, precious hunting time, but we sat! As we got up to press on after the rest of the covey, a late riser, a hen, buzzed off, but we let her fly to safety.

As the light faded, we kicked up the remnants of the big covey, downing 5 more, then we called it a day. It turned out to be a nice afternoon hunt, even though I hadn’t been in the field welcoming in the new quail season.

Fishing

Under The Birds

During the spring of 1970, drifting around Greens Cut in Galveston West Bay, I caught, at the time, a personal record, 29, inch, 7-1/4 pound, speckled trout.  In the late fall of 1991, just before deer and quail season opener, I tied, or maybe surpassed this feat.

We wouldn’t be deer hunting that year because our rancher had hired a ramrod for his ranch who would be using the house that we’d used for the past 10 years. The end result of the rancher’s decision and my frustration was that on opening day of quail season, I didn’t have a place to hunt.  Solving the problem was easy I’d just go fishing!

The last weekend in October, the quail opener, just after sun up, found my son, Randy, his friend, Doug and I drifting toward a shell island in Jones Lake, with a light wind blowing from the north and the tide, that just changed, was rushing in.   This morning’s tide wouldn’t be high until well past mid morning and as Randy spotted a shrimp hopping on the top of the water, he looped a cast, a shrimp under a weighted popping cork and was rewarded with a solid strike, a nice spec’ and the fight was on.

Many times, foraging fish will drive shrimp to the surface, causing the shrimp to hop around trying to escape the hungry predators.  When sea gulls, always on the lookout for an easy meal, spot these tell tale dimples in the water they rush over to inhale the hapless shrimp.  A well placed, cast usually results in a savage strike from a spec’ or a red.

Randy’s fish was netted and put in the cooler and Doug and I, both with fish on, soon boxed our own specs’. The action slowed and we moved out into the lake to start a new drift and about 200 yards ahead Randy spotted 3 gulls circling what must be fish ‘on’ shrimp and a closer inspection showed 2 birds floating on the water, another sure sign of fish.

Cutting back the throttle, we eased toward the birds and Randy and Doug let go with two long casts and started vigorously popping and retrieving their baits, and bam, bam, two hard hits.  Under these birds there was a nice school of specs’ and for the next few minutes we thinned their numbers.  The fast and furious action ended and admiring our almost full cooler we decided we’d try one more spot and maybe pick up a couple of reds.

Easing several hundred yards towards a channel marker, we started our drift over a hard shell bottom.  If a red or a trout were around, the shrimp couldn’t burrow in the mud and would be inhaled by the predators.  Casting toward the channel marker, and only keeping my line tight, I let my rig sit for several minutes and didn’t pop it.  Then one pop of the cork and it disappeared and I felt the weight of a very nice fish.  The fish made a long run and I couldn’t tell what it was, until, a long way out from the boat, it started to circle us.  While a red will burrow his nose in the bottom and grudgingly fight a fisherman all the way to the boat, this tactic, circling, is reserved for big trout and after a long, spirited fight, Randy slipped the net under the monster spec’.

The trout was shining, the black spots seemed as big as dimes, it was a beauty laying in the net on the bottom of the boat.  The big fish was spent from its loosing fight, then I noticed one egg had slipped out of the fish’s vent and right away, as I carefully measured her, 29-1/2, inches, a new record for me, I told Randy, “Slip the net and fish back into the water.  We’re letting her go!”

It wasn’t long before I gently removed the fish from the net and it swam off.  In our cooler we had enough fish for several messes and we were happy that this big one, that measured over 29 inches and probably weighed nearly 8 pounds, would be free to spawn for the second time that year!

More on Jones Lake, Randy and I had been fishing in Jones Lake, the shallow 4 to 5 foot estuary of Highlands Bayou, for almost 12 years and were familiar with the reefs and underwater structure.  It was a year around, except for very cold fronts, fishing place and I have caught nice fish, specs’ or reds, in every month of the year.  Adding to this, in 1988 Layla and I bought a canal home in Bayou Vista on Highlands Bayou, just a mile by water from Jones Lake.  We sold the home in 2005, retired and moved to our ranch in Mills County, Texas, so for 26 years we hammered the fish in Jones Lake!

P.S. It was just as good on my last trip as it was on my first one, see my post “[A Hot New Spot]”, May 14, 2007!

Pictures

The Corn Feeder, October 8, 2011

One big buck coming into a feeder is unusual, two big bucks coming in is really unusual, maybe the secret is the protein pellets I’ve added in equal amounts to the corn!  The past month the big, pot bellied buck has regularly come into the corn feeder close to Layla’s blind, or “Ma-Maw’s Blind”, as everyone calls it.  He shows up every day around 7:30 AM and on the morning of the 3rd he showed up at 7:25 and started feeding at 7:27.
    
On the morning of the 4th, 7:09 found him feeding again.  He kept at it until 7:22.
    
Then after 6:00 PM on the 4th a big new buck showed up. He could be anywhere from an 8 to a 10, heavy horns, with good mass judging from his left horn.  The pot bellied buck is in the foreground, his face is shortening up, his neck is already getting thick and notice how “trim” the new buck is, really good for a low fence place, but in two to three weeks both will be competing for doe.  My money is on the new guy on the block!

Either of these bucks would be a “wall hanger”, either buck would probably give anyone in central Texas buck fever, so lets see if they keep coming around the corn feeder and maybe somebody will get lucky.

Pictures

Deer Watching, October 7, 2011

Last Saturday, while working on my food plots (where’s the rain?), I pulled both my right and left quads in my back and have been laid up since then, not even knowing there were any quads in my back, I tried to keep going, but finally, I couldn’t even stand up straight.  Monday, the doc advised me to keep heat on the back and he gave me some stretching exercises for the muscles, but it hurts like heck getting in and out of bed!

After breakfast Wednesday morning, still laid up, I happened to glance outside and a spotted fawn, it seems late for them to still have spots, was walking in the backyard, right by the house and hurrying (slowly) back to get Layla’s camera, raising the blinds and through the window and screen, got this “shot” of the fawn walking in the backyard.

Then the fawn walked the length of the house, turned around and started browsing and I got these “shots” through the back door.
     
Then the fawn did something most strange, it walked over under a big mesquite tree and lied down, giving me this “shot”.

Hunching down, the only way I can walk now, I shuffled over to the old, rock house to scan the pictures of the deer and out of the corner of my eye, as I walked, stole a glance and the fawn was still under the tree, happily snoozing!

Later in the afternoon, as I was walking back to the “big” house carrying my camera, glancing over, I saw the fawn had moved and was sitting in the shade of the grand kids playhouse and I got this “shot”.

Thursday afternoon the little deer was back under the mesquite tree.  Looks like it’s got a new home!

 

Hunting

Deer Watching, September/October, 2011

Keeping harping about our serious drought, over the last 2 weeks we’ve had .7 inches of rain, not a drought breaker, but enough to wet our whistles and the little front even lowered our temps 10 to 15 degrees!  The rain has encouraged forbs and other things that deer browse on to grow just a little and the deer have responded!

As we were sitting on our back porch enjoying the cool afternoon, doe and fawns started to congregate in our field causing me to make a mad rush into the house to get the camera.  Camera secured, I waited until the deer got in somewhat of a group, the results being this “shot”.

The ground was damp from 2 showers and this picture is of a nice, big deer, track, right beside the gate to my garden, the gate being shut, of course.  At night we’ve seen 6 or 8 deer browsing around our yard, but thank goodness, they haven’t learned how to open gates!


Not only did this doe and her 2 fawns browse in our yard, but they did it when Layla was sitting outside waiting for me.  Now, with zero cows, the gate into the ranch proper remains open and these 3 deer walked right past Layla, not caring if she was there or not.  Rushing into the bedroom to get my camera, the results was this “shot” of the doe and fawns browsing around!