This past Sunday I added two new links to blogs that should be interesting and informative to everyone.
The first is [Ghillie Suit Source] and offers a range of Ghillie Suits, the max in camouflage for the serious hunter. Check them out!
The other is [Camping Tourist] and provides the reader with the best of camping destinations gear, tips and recipes for outdoors cooking. A real neat site!
Growing up, my Grandmother, Linnie Ross Sanders Wallace, told me several times (in no uncertain terms) that the Sanders were SCOTS-Irish, with the emphasis on “Scots”. I heard her and remembered it, but like all youth, I didn’t realize the importance of it later.
Digging through the Sanders’ family’s genealogy, I’ve come across a mystery of sorts. The mystery being was William and/or Lewis Sanders involved in the capture and slaying of Edward Teach, better known as, Black Beard the Pirate. Lewis Sanders was my 6G Grandfather and William was my 6G Uncle.
The plot started when I read an old letter, written in 1895 by Thomas Bailey Saunders and sent to one of his nephews. The letter was posted on Gary B. Sanders website, “Sanders, of Randolph and Montgomery Counties, North Carolina, and Jackson County, Alabama, and other counties in Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas”, and I quote,
“There were two Saunders brothers who came from England long before the Revolutionary war. At that time the pirates were very bad on the North Carolina coast. The governor of Virginia outfitted a vessel to catch them, and in making up the crew he took one of these brothers, and they caught old Black Beard, the pirate, and hung him to the mast arm. The crew got a good deal of money, and when that brother came back he left the U out of his name. This is the reason so many spell their names Sanders”.
Spending a good deal of time researching the events, I was surprised that, actually, the Governor of North Carolina was in league with Black Beard. In fact his Secretary was captured and convicted of accepting funds from the pirate. In reality, the Governor of Virginia gave two unarmed sloops, Ranger and Jane, to Lt. Maynard of the Royal Navy.
On November 22, 1718, Black Beard engaged the two, unarmed sloops in Oracoke Inlet off the coast of North Carolina and opening fire on them with his cannons, he almost destroyed both ships. Teach closed in on Maynard’s ship, Ranger, boarded it and engaged Maynard personally in combat. Maynard shot him and both men swung their cutlasses, Teach’s shattering Maynard’s and as Teach was going to deliver the death blow, according to an Autumn, 1992 article in the “Colonial Williamsburg”, magazine, now online, his throat was slashed by a stout Scot among Maynard’s crew.
To claim the reward Maynard cut off Teach’s head. Returning to his home port of Hampton, as a warning to other pirates, Teach’s head was placed on a stake near the mouth of the Hampton River.
Another quote from Gary B. Sanders website, further whetted my appetite for intrigue, “… I think it’s likely that William Sanders of Anson County, North Carolina may be the brother of Lewis Sanders of Fairfax County, Virginia. William and Lewis appear to be of the same generation. DNA tests show William was related to Lewis. These two may well be the two emigrant brothers described in a somewhat jokingly fashion in the 1890’s letter of Thomas Bailey Saunders.”
Being left with questions that, in all probability, will never be answered, I can only make some assumptions and ask a few more questions. Both brothers were of Scots-Irish ancestry. Both brothers also took the “U” out of Saunders. Was one of the Saunders boy’s a part of Maynard’s crew? Was one of them the “stout, Scot”?
What if the old story is really true?
As I’ve said before, my friends and relatives send me some real neat outdoors pictures. The following ones are no different.
Randy Pfaff in southern Colorado sent me this picture of a truly magnificent bull, elk. This animal, supposedly, was shot in New Mexico, using a very expensive, Governor’s tag. I wonder what it cost?
A very enterprising ‘coon, climbing up a feeder post, to get at the deer corn, was sent to me by one of my softball teammates, Ev Sims. His ranch is in Jackson County, Texas.
And finally, my Cousin, Kathy Pribble, sent me these two pictures of the February 12, snow that paralyzed north Texas. She lives in Henderson County, Texas, on a beautiful lake nestled in Texas’ great piney woods!
This picture would pass for “up north” somewhere!
Central Texas is a wonderful place to live! After spending years fighting the humidity in Houston, plus a few years handling the ice storms in Atlanta, not to say the heat of Phoenix, Layla and I were ready for the moderate climes of central Texas. Not too hot and not too cold, not too much rain, with a little snow sprinkled in once every four or five years. Except for the “cedar fever”, hard to beat!
Last year, 2009, we were blessed with over forty-three inches of rain, close to two years of our annual amount. Through February we have received almost nine and a half inches, almost one half of our yearly average. Praise the Lord!
However, there is a problem. This year we have experienced snow, five times. Not a dusting, but accumulations that even stayed on the ground, the last being on Tuesday, the 23rd. The weathermen hit that one on the nose, saying it would begin raining in the early morning hours, then change to snow, with a total of six inches possible. We got more than that, snowing continuously for fourteen hours, completely shutting the area down!
Before lunch I took this picture of the snow pouring down.
Another one of our shooting range and the target almost obscured by the snow.
This one of the garden and the mid morning accumulation.
Layla and I went out to lunch last Tuesday and snapped these pictures of our central Texas snowstorm.
I’m a sucker for snow and water. It makes the water look black and the lack of color in the woods is neat.
The oak trees, normally an evergreen, are covered with snow.
With the temp hovering around thirty, even the fence had ice on it.
I only have two comments about this weather. One, it looks like I might have to buy a snow shovel. And two, who are we kidding, global warming is a hoax!
Our score on our hog trap is two captures, but no hogs!
Last year in early November, our first score was on a young bull, calf. He had ambled into the trap to sample the corn scattered about. We released him and he scooted back to mama. But, of course, on that release we didn’t take a camera along with us!
On this past Monday a Deputy Sheriff stopped by our house and told Layla that we had a doe caught in our hog trap. I was in town talking to a natural resources rep about cedar eradication and when I was returning home she called and told me the news, adding, “Hurry up!”
We hurried out to the trap, and sure enough, there stood the doe, securely ensconced!
When I walked up to release the doe, she became quite excited and banged around the trap, but as I opened the door she took off in full high, speed; way to quick for a picture.
Maybe, our third score will be a charm and we’ll trap a hog?
This is the second part of “Business Trip” and it covers the fishing excursion. The action was hot and heavy and some good pictures were taken!
The Captain gave us instructions about how to apply the hook to the whitebait. He said to hook them just above the pelvic fin and that hook placement makes them spin around on the bottom and, in turn, excites the predators into striking. We baited up and looped casts into the area behind the boat.
My first strike was solid, the fish made a nice run, then headed towards the boat. Another shorter run and, keeping the line tight, I reached over and grabbed the nice bonita by the tail and lifted it into the boat. Before tossing the fish back into the water, our host posed with me as I held it up.
We only caught one more bonita, but the kingfish moved in and supplied us top flight, action. With our medium/light tackle, their initial runs were spectacular and they battled us all the way in, until subdued with a coup de grace, a billy to the knoggin.
We fished for over three hours and the action was constant. On one cast of mine, as the bait floated toward the bottom, my rod was jarred with a heavy strike. My first thought was another king, and I braced myself for its characteristic long first run. But to my surprise the fish came straight up, out of the water in a beautiful arc.
The fish was identified as a barracuda and I started getting ample instructions about landing it. The instructions were interspersed by how good it was going to taste! After several more jumps, the mate gaffed it, careful to apply the gaff in the barracuda’s head area. It was bonked on the head with a billy and into the cooler with it. For me, I will have no part in eating that fish!
We took this picture of the barracuda as we were unloading our catch. The two smaller ‘cudas, pictured, are under twenty-eight inches and supposedly free from ciguatera. The one I caught was over thirty-six inches and, I imagined, full of the disease.
Cruising back into the dock area, we counted up the fish we kept, ten kings and three ‘cudas, a good mornings outing! As the ‘cudas were being cleaned, I commented to our host that I still would have no part in eating one!
This is the first of a two part story about a business trip that my business partner and I took in February of 1996.
We had opened our computer related, business in early 1994 and by the end of February 1996 it was rolling along very well. One of our suppliers in Florida invited us down to get to know them better and to try some mid winter, off shore, fishing. The last part really interested us and we took them up on their offer!
In the afternoon, we flew into Tampa and early the next morning, met our hosts for breakfast and drove on down to meet our Captain and get loaded up for the day’s trip. First thing on our agenda was catching bait for the day. The Captain had his fish finder on as we cruised along a sandy shore, the finder flashed showing bait fish, we stopped and began chumming and several times the Captain tossed out his cast net and we helped him pick out the bait, he called “whitebait”, but they were really a type of sardine.
We cruised on out under the big bridge that spans Clearwater Channel and headed on a course west/southwest for about an hour and anchored in fifty feet of water. The Captain said we were over scattered rocks and as we cast out he said we could expect to catch different kinds of grouper, kingfish, barracuda and maybe even, an amberjack. We could catch all of these species out of Galveston and Freeport, but the barracuda were an added treat.
Barracuda are pretty rare out of our Texas ports and if we caught one, which wasn’t very often, we would throw it right back into the water because of the chance to acquire ciguatera. This is a disease that is prevalent in the tropic zones, not deadly, but has no cure and causes extreme diarrhea!
Grouper, amberjack, snappers and barracuda feed on reef dwellers that feed on the coral that carries the disease, which is then transferred to the flesh of the predators. Cooking or freezing will not eliminate ciguatera! Fish shorter that twenty-eight inches are supposed to be free of the malady?
We were told that we would keep all the barracuda that we caught and I didn’t want any part of that.
Part two will be posted on February 24.
Many times I’ve heard that if you’re going to have a gunfight be sure and “Bring Enough Gun”. I didn’t have a gunfight this past Wednesday afternoon, however I sure did need a bigger gun!
Wednesday afternoon was beautiful, no wind, the temp around fifty, with bright blue skies, so I decided to go out and sit in a tree and try to call up a red fox or ‘coon. To dispatch one of these small critters, I took along my .17 HMR, plenty of gun for one of them!
Climbing up into the tree, I was “guarding” about eighty yards of a rough track through the thick stuff. Before me, several game trails crossed this track, the nearest one was not over twenty-five yards away. Having seen both ‘coons and foxes use this area, I began my deception using a distressed rabbit call. Blowing for about twenty seconds, then waiting for three minutes, I repeated the process several times. Then I noticed movement behind the brush along the nearest game trail!
Out trotted a coyote! It was a big one, dark fur along its back shading to a lighter hue on its sides, so I didn’t even think about shooting at it with the .17HMR. In about five seconds it crossed the track and disappeared into the thick stuff on the other side. This was the first coyote that I’ve seen on my place in the seventeen years that it has been in my possession.
Keeping up my calling, with no results, I finally slipped down out of the tree and walked back to my truck. It was “neat” seeing the coyote, but for this particular, twenty-five yard shot, I needed my twelve gauge, auto, with number one, buckshot!
All the way back to my truck, I kept thinking, Always be sure and “Bring Enough Gun”!
Randy Pfaff sent me the two following pictures.
The first is of a mountain lion, the picture taken through a screen door, that was caught rooting around a cabin in the mountains in Colorado. This would be something to wake up to!
The second is of a huge deer shot near Thrifty, Texas, ten miles north of Brownwood and about forty-five miles northwest of Goldthwaite. The “Brownwood Bulletin” carried the story on December 23rd. The buck, shot off of a ten acre place, was between three and a half and four and a half years old, with twenty-seven points and scored a whopping 210-6/8 B&C! Monster bucks like this one generally don’t come from around Thrifty.
Finally Joe Tryba sent me this picture of some construction workers taking it easy on a job site. 
Not a hunting picture, but at least these guys are sitting in the outdoors!
With high hopes for a rerun of our 2009 championship, Stumpy and The Texans went to Winter Haven, Florida this past weekend and participated in The Tournament Of Champions. Our hopes were high, but our performance stunk!
We opened the tournament with a 19-4 pounding of a good Michigan team, then four innings into the game, the rains came, washing out the tournament for Friday. Saturday morning was cloudy and windy with the temperature between 39 and 41. Terrible conditions, but they were the same for both teams and an excellent team from Florida handed us two beatings, 11-7 and 13-8.
Better conditions on Sunday, not quite as cold and not as windy, but Oregon handled us 11-6, then we were embarrassed by Michigan, 16-4. This loss sent us home with our tails between our legs!
Next tournament is in Georgetown, March 18-21. With The Texans, hope still springs eternal!