The Ducks Obliged

By the third year we were on our McCulloch County hunting lease I had walked over almost all of the 2,000 plus acres. Either hunting quail or still hunting, deer, I kept flushing ducks off of the stock tanks and sometimes, in season of course, would pop one or two.

Noticing one particular spring fed, stock tank, almost a full acre, with a tall dam on one end, that was nearly impossible to sneak was where I had chosen to hunt some ducks. This stock tank was long and narrow, and the end I would hunt was only one to two feet deep with a rock bottom. Since the water was so shallow, I wouldn’t even need to take Gus to retrieve the ducks and “he could sleep in”. There were several mesquite trees around its edge and if I could make me a rough blind, almost under one of the mesquites, I could use my twelve, plastic decoys and I bet, could have some excellent shooting.

In the dark, using dead mesquite limbs, I hastily threw together a rough blind and set the decoys in two groups. Placing one group of four decoys on my right and the other eight on my left, leaving a space between the groups for the ducks to land in, they poured in!

My twelve plastic decoys were bouncing on the ripples as shooting time commenced and never had I had such a terrific duck hunt. With a minimum of calling, the ducks piled in and I thinned them out, being able to clearly identify the drakes of the various species – mallards, pintails, widgeon and gadwall and passing on some beautiful green wing teal.

Just shooting drakes, I was elated getting my limit in forty-five minutes, shooting eight with ten shots, having to shoot two twice. But, bad news, picking up my decoys, I carried four to the bank, laid them down next to my toe sack and returned to the water for four more. The next thing I knew, here came a cow, stepped on a decoy and smashed it beyond repair. Now I only had eleven plastic decoys. I should have carried my sack out with me and only made one trip.

I’m really lucky that the cow didn’t step on all four of the decoys!

Road Closed

In December, 1972, during the second half of a boring NFL game, I looked over at Jake Schroder and said, “This isn’t much fun! Let’s go four wheelin’.” That’s all it took for our families to go on the most bizarre and dangerous four wheel, trip that we ever took.

Since it was mid afternoon, around 2:00 PM, (no daylight savings time), we decided to drive up to Bartlett Damn on the Verde River, cross the river there and then take a four wheel drive only, road over to Punkin Center and then back home. From our houses in Paradise Valley, Arizona, looking at the map, this appeared to be an uneventful two, plus hour trip, but we’d get to see some new country

We loaded our wives and 3 kids (each) in, my 1968 Ford Bronco and Jake’s, brand new, 1972, Toyota Land Cruiser and headed out Scottsdale road to Carefree and then on to Bartlett Damn. We drove down the dirt road leading to the low water river crossing and to our surprise, water was being let out of Bartlett Lake and we didn’t know if we could cross or not. The low water crossing certainly didn’t look very low.

Locking our hubs and shifting into 4WD Low, the Bronco was first to cross and I thought we’d be swept away. Water came in under the doors and the steering pulled heavily to the right, down river, but we made the 100, foot crossing successfully. The kids thought this was “neat”! Jake followed and since his Land Cruiser was heavier he chugged right across.

Climbing up out of the river bottom we started out on the four, wheel drive only, road to Punkin Center. As we kept climbing up into the low hills, we noticed that it had become cloudy and gotten cooler but we thought nothing of it. We did notice that this road, even by four wheelin’ standards, was very bad.

Creeping slowly along, the road had turned rocky and on outside curves, it leaned dangerously, “down the hill”. We came to one stretch, that years back, had been filled in over a small, creek and the road was so narrow, Jake got out to scout and when he did he noticed the mist and called out, “Beech, it’s misting and it’s gotten much cooler”. He guided me across and then I got out in the mist and guided him across. There was no margin for error. We thought of turning around, but hadn’t found a place where this could be accomplished. This road was bad!

The clouds kept us from seeing, what we knew, was a beautiful sunset and the mist had turned into a light rain, and above the windshield wipers, I noticed an accumulation of ice! Everyone asked, “Where did this storm come from?” From the kids, “Daddy, will it snow?” Now, there’s rain, ice, no turn around and a terrible road, leaving us only one choice, soldier on!

Being 4 hours into our 2, plus, hour trip, where was Punkin Center? We continued creeping and came to another “fill”. Jake jumped out into the icy, rain, flashlight in hand, stuck his head inside my truck and said, laughingly, “Women and children out of the truck!” My family complied and he guided me over. I knew that I was going to slide off and I didn’t even know how far down, that down was! We made it but the wheelbase on Jake’s truck was slightly wider than the Bronco’s. His family jumped out and I guided him slowly over to safety. His big tires saved the day!

It had been dark for over an hour and we hadn’t seen a single light, only our headlights, reflecting on the rain/sleet. The kids were wet and cold now, “Daddy, I’m wet and cold,” they echoed, as I turned the heat/defrost up higher. We creeped on around a hill, with the truck tilting dangerously to the left and when we reached the top we could see the car lights on Beeline Highway and we knew that Punkin Center was close by.

Inching down the hill, as we neared the highway, we noticed a sign beside our, what may be called, road, that read “Road Closed”. That explained a lot! We crept on into the small hamlet of Punkin Center and the one, store, was closed, so we cranked up and drove on down Beeline to Shea and turned right and headed home. Six hours from our start, I pulled into our cul de sac and the kids were all sound asleep.

I still wonder why there was no “Road Closed” sign at the Bartlett Damn end of the road?

The Big Country – The Emus

A rancher friend told our rancher that he had had good luck using emus to check the coyotes. His rancher friend also told him they were tough on bobcats, badgers and coons and, by eliminating these predators, it would help to insure good quail and turkey hatches.

Other benefits were that emus would be self-sustaining and their meat was delicious! His “friend” had 15 of the large birds and told him that he could have them for no cost! Our rancher couldn’t pass up that deal.

Opening morning of quail season found me and 2 other lease members, trailing 2 of our dogs as they tried to locate a covey. Thinking nothing of it, we saw an emu about 400 yards to our front as the dogs worked 75 yards out. Before we knew it, the emu was charging and an emu at top speed is a sight to behold! Whistling our dogs to come in, they responded and we grabbed them as the emu stopped about 50 yards away and looked “daggers” at us. We retreated to our Jeep, loaded the dogs and found an emu free spot to hunt.

During the following week, another one of our hunters was hunting alone with his 2 dogs and was attacked by two emus. They killed one of his pointers and he shot one emu, killing it. The visibly shaken hunter made tracks to the main ranch house and told the rancher of the events. Soon the predator controllers, the emus, became the hunted.

Next trip up the rancher warned us of the emu menace and said to go ahead and kill as many as we could. His son had dropped 3 this past week!

We began our hunt around the stock tank and sure enough, an emu spotted our dogs and charged. We whistled the dogs in, reloaded our shotguns with #4 lead shot and waited for the emu to challenge us. It did, we unloaded on him at 45 yards and scratch one emu. Breasting it yielded 2 ham size pieces of dark meat that I took home for Layla to cook like a roast. It smelled very, good, in the oven, sliced well with a sharp knife, but was uneatable, being too tough to chew. So much for emu’s food value!

The rancher told me shortly after the last emu was lured in and shot, “Jon, I worried about those birds from the start. I had never worked with any creature that literally fought me the entire time I was loading them into the trailer. They were awful to deal with! Good riddance!”

That Aint No Coon

This story has been passed down through my family for well over 100 years. I have heard it from my dad and his brothers and sisters. Brinson and Fannie Bryan, who, at the time, were living near Riesel, Texas, McLennan County, were my paternal Great Grandparents and Peyton Bryan was my paternal Grandfather.

The dogs were raising a racket outside, waking Brinson Bryan and his wife, Fannie, up from a sound sleep. He figured they had a possum or ‘coon treed in the large oak tree near the hen house. Next thing he knew all eight of his kids were awake and asking him “Papa, what is all the racket with the dogs.” Fannie was expecting their ninth, and she hoped the last, child the next month, December 1889.

Brinson slipped on his heavy clothes, it was cold for mid November, and lit a coal oil lantern. He was going to “chunk” the “coon out of the tree and not even mess with loading his .44 pistol. With all these kids around, it didn’t pay to leave the old pistol loaded. He handed the lantern to his oldest son, Peyton, slipped on his boots and said to him, “Let’s go run that varmint off.”

Stepping outside and heading the 100 feet to the old, oak tree with the dogs furiously barking, Peyton held the light up towards the tree and he and his Papa were rewarded by seeing two of the biggest, yellow eyes staring back at them. “Papa, that aint no ‘coon,” he exclaimed, as he and Brinson edged closer to the tree, plainly making out a very large cat, rather a very large mountain lion, crouched on a branch about eight feet off the ground.

This looked like another “tight spot” shaping up. Brinson had had his share of “tight spots” in his life. Joining the Texas Rangers in 1845 he had fought Mexicans and Indians during the Mexican War. After that war he guided wagon trains to California facing more Indians, wild animals and thieves. Next was his three and a half years of service with the Confederate Army of Tennessee and experiencing some of the fiercest battles of that war. He had married Fannie in 1867 and settled into a life of farming, mule trading and raising his family.

Now, he is being stared down by a big cat and knowing the dogs would keep the cat treed, he told Peyton, “Boy, hold the light on the cat while I get something to finish it off with!” That “something” happened to be his old Bowie knife, almost two feet of it, which he tied onto a walking stick, or Moses stick. Counting the knife and stick, his “lance” was nearly 6 foot long. He knew if he shot the cat with his pistol that it would die, but not before it would leap down on he and Peyton.

As Peyton held the light, Brinson shinnied up into the tree and with one thrust shoved the knife into the cat’s throat and then, with both hands, held tight to the stick as the animal thrashed about, impaled on the knife. After it was over and the cat lay still on the ground, Brinson thought it funny that his three dogs could tree the lion and keep it treed, while the lion could easily kill the dogs and also how the light from a coal oil lantern had kept the cat off of them.

The dogs had apparently intercepted the cat before it had gotten into the hen house. It ended up a very lop sided victory for Brinson and Peyton, no dogs or chickens injured, just a little lost sleep.

This may have been the last mountain lion killed in McLennan County, Texas.

Poachers

The next weekend, after signing up on our new Deer lease in McCulloch County, my sons, Brad and Randy, and I headed right back and begin construction of two sturdy tree blinds. The boys have the blinds since I prefer to hunt birds, but, eight years later, by the time we left the lease, I will be hooked on deer hunting.

Brad’s blind, later named “The McCulloch County Hilton”, was a two level affair by a cross fence of the back trap, as the rancher called each pasture, right beside a big, rock, water trough. Randy’s blind was less spacious, but set near the property’s back fence. From their elevated positions, both boys could see each others blind.

Early in the morning the day before deer season opened, my boys and I rushed, as much as you can with a fifty-five miles per hour speed limit (another bad idea forced upon us by a politically correct government), up to our lease and began the annual ritual of making sure the deer feeders were full, checking equipment and sighting in the guns. We finished by late afternoon and began helping with the communal dinner, when the last two hunters arrived.

Mac handled the introductions and my boys and I met the Taub brothers, Ralph and Dennis. Ralph, the oldest seemed like a good guy, but brother Dennis seemed like a jerk. It is funny how first impressions are, so many times, correct.

Supper, steaks, potatoes and green chilies, hits the spot and after dark we retired to the side porch to swap lies, when we saw headlights moving down the road by the railroad tracks that bound the east side of the property. Then from the vehicle we saw a spotlight searching out over our east trap – poachers!

Brad has an M-1A, a predecessor of the M-14, and Jerry Thrash, a lawyer and private eye, came up out of his kit with three .308 Cal. Tracer rounds. I loaded them into the M-1A and prepared to welcome the poachers to our lease, when the legal uproar began.

“Don’t shoot,” “You may hit them,” “We may be arrested,” (do they think we were shooting at law officers), “We may get sued,” Bam, Bam, Bam, I let loose with the tracers, three rounds over the poachers heads.

Results were immediate. As the reddish/orange tracer rounds arced over their car, the spot light went off, their car lights went off, they did a quick uwey and sped off for safer poaching grounds. Poachers never bothered us again for the eight years we were on the lease!

The legal uproar continued, but my boys and I went on to bed.

Bekah’s Big Buck

My grand daughter, Beckah, (Rebeccah), scored on a big buck on November 9th, she was watching the buck for about 10 minutes then she shot him, with Randy’s old rifle, a Remington 660.  We bought this gun at Oshman’s in Atlanta, Ga.; he has shot 36 deer with it.  See my post, [Buck Fever], of July 24th, 2008.

There was a lot of activity around the thick stuff, turkeys were gobbling, doe and bucks were moving, then Bekah saw her opportunity and nailed him, about 50 yards from MaMaw’s blind.

Yes, MaMaw’s blind.  She had gone out with her dad and they had gone to MaMaw’s blind, because Randy had good luck there in the past seasons.  I had planned on going to Sunday School, but that wish was cut short when Randy called to let me know that Beckah had shot a nice one, so I took the tractor down to pick it up, however we did make Church!

The buck was fat, had 10 points (almost 11) and scored 130 raw on Boone and Crockett!

Just Taking Pictures

Having gone out to just take pictures of some bucks on opening day, I climbed up into MaMaw’s blind, she always said, “Big bucks are shot from my blind”!   Being more into bucks chasing doe, I was more interested in pictures.  Not wanting to shoot a buck, I was surprised when I saw a doe and following close behind her was a buck, definitely a shooter!  This one had a tall rack, 8 or 9 points and was definitely, definitely a shooter!

I had carried along my .270 I really wasn’t looking to shoot a buck this A.M. being more interested in pictures.  But what the heck, centering the crosshairs behind the shoulder, I fired, the buck hopped took one step and fell dead!

He was 5-1/2 years old, he made it this far by being cautious, but chasing a doe got him in big trouble. This was the same buck that had challenged the buck I shot two years ago.  The pic shows him kicking up dust, (we have a lot of that around here).

He scored 134 4/8 B&C, I was surprised he scored so low, but weighed around 135-150.

Cinco Ranch

In 1953, the early November opening of goose and duck season was hailed by hunters for the rain and high winds that back, to back, to back, weather systems fostered. Blow from the southeast for two days, then blow from the northwest for a few days, the cycle repeating it self continuously. Me, and my group of hunters, using the term loosely, “sneakers” would better apply, took full advantage of the weather to try the patience of many of the rice farmers and our parents.

The area west of Highway 6, along FM 1091, all the way to Fulshear on the Brazos River was prime goose country, part of the Katy prairie. All of this area now is subdivisions and shopping malls and the geese have vacated it. Back then, after a driver passed Post Oak Rd. street signs changed from Westheimer to FM 1091. Now, Westheimer extends for miles, out past Highway 6 and is the center of commerce for west Houston!

Four of us were heading home around 11:00 AM from a reasonably successful goose hunt, success being measured by; a vehicle not being stuck beyond retrieval, not one of the hunters injured, not being stopped by the law and, maybe, even, a few geese. We were coming in, heading east, on FM 1091 and wishing we could get permission to hunt on Cinco Ranch, a large ranch, twenty sections or more, laying north of 1091, all the way to Highway 6. The ranch now sports country clubs, shooting ranges and some very, large, ritzy, subdivisions.

Probably four hundred yards north of the road, inside the fences of Cinco Ranch, we spotted a huge gaggle of geese. Immediately, one of our group said that we should sneak ‘em. A quick uwey and we stopped on the soggy shoulder, donned our hip boots, hooded parkas and grabbed our shotguns. Going over the barbwire fence, hitting the ground, we started our sneak.

Four hundred yards is long crawl, shotguns cradled in our arms, military style. Keeping our heads down we inched along with each inch the noise of the geese grew louder. No alarm calls so we were doing OK. Inches turned into feet and feet into yards as we reached the hundred-yard mark, only sixty or so, more to go. Then raise up and let fly!

Hearing a strange peeping sound, I knew it wasn’t a rattler, then, the whirring of twenty or more quail bursting into the air startled me so much that I leaped to my feet and shouted a few choice expletives! That’s all it took for the thousands of geese to spook and get airborne. Standing, we could only watch as they gained altitude and “honked” their way to safety.

That was our first, and last, “sneak” on Cinco Ranch!

More Outdoors Pictures, October 21, 2014

Here are 2 more bucks that showed up at the corner feeder, it’s funny they were chasing doe around the feeder, but really, they were not interested in them.  Wait for a couple of weeks!  The first buck is a really good 8 pointer, you’ve seen him before, but here’s a good “shot” of him.

Another buck dropped by and he was a really good 10 pointer, but he and the 8 pointer, don’t have swollen necks.  When they start fighting, they will!

You can see this buck has 2 points on his brow tine, the same as the one I shot last year that won the “Mill’s County Big Buck Contest”! This one is heavier on the horns than last year’s.

More Outdoors Pictures, October 15, 2014

The bucks haven’t been coming around the feeders since there is too many acorns. Too many acorns means a buck doesn’t have to move around very much and they don’t have to come around feeders!

However, there’s a few good “shots” of some pretty good one’s, also the bucks are out of their velvet.  First is a good buck, an 8 pointer, with big brow tines, definitely a shooter!

Then, there’s a cull buck, a big bodied, 7, pointer, that should be shot this season.

Then, in the background, an “iffy” one, maybe just outside of his ears, if he makes it through the season he’ll be a good one next year!

Bits and Pieces from Jon H Bryan…