Dutifully carrying my camera on my Monday and Tuesday walks, The only unique thing that I had the opportunity to take a picture of was this young, jackrabbit. We had a pair around here, but the male got himself hit by a truck!
A Sweaty Hunt
Last Saturday evening, with the temperature still hovering around 95, I snuck into one of my deer blinds just to see what I could see. Packing my trusty .17 HMR, I was looking for a stray predator, but with a full moon and the temperature, my chances of seeing anything were slim.
In the picture, notice how green and lush the cover looks, but in reality, our area is locked in a severe drought!
There was a nice breeze, but my ghillie coat was blocking most of it, and the sweat was pouring off of me as I sat and saw nothing! Right at dusk, I half-heartedly blew two rounds of an injured rabbit call, not expecting results and none presented themselves. My sweaty frame of mind didn’t “excite” my confidence much!
I’ll keep trying! Just think, it’ll start to cool off in about 3 months!
A New Link
Check out the new link to Natural Track Safaris in Kenya. Kenya doesn’t allow hunting and on these safaris, your shots are with a camera, but the scenery and pictures are great!
Morning Walk, July 20th
Nothing exciting on my last 2 morning walks, but yesterday, I took my camera along anyway. Layla was in Tulsa running a national championship softball tournament for 50, 55 and 60 age classes, so my other 2 “walkers” Bo and spike, joined me and I did get a good picture of them.
Walking along and coming up to a cross fence, there was a yearling doe and you can see we both surprised each other, so I snapped a “shot” at her.
The deer and I were standing in the shadows, so the flash was automatic and was picked up in both of her eyes. Bo and Spike kept on walking as she nervously trotted off, keeping her tail down.
Nothing else of interest, but I’ll keep taking the camera along!
A Trophy
By 1997 the Tarpon had returned to the Galveston/Bolivar/Freeport beachfronts in sufficient numbers to convince a number of bay fishing guides to concentrate on them and start a fishery consisting of Tarpon, Jackfish, Kingfish and Black Tip Sharks. The guides used light to medium tackle and, to protect their livelihood, vigorously practiced catch and release of the Tarpon.
Bob Baugh and I decided to take a day off and go fish with Mike Williams, owner of Tarpon Express, and considered to be the best saltwater/Tarpon guide in the Galveston area. We hadn’t used a local guide before but figured he’d know about catching the Tarpon, where they were, and most important, he was on the water every day
We met him in Galveston, at the Exon Station, at the corner of 69th
Street and Seawall Blvd., and followed him down the sixteen miles of
beachfront to San Luis Pass and launched his twenty-three footer,
powered by a two hundred horse outboard. He had already picked up a
supply of frozen cigar minnows, that we would be using for bait. He had
made the decision for us not to use artificials since he said the
Tarpon were really spread out and hadn’t been hitting artificials for
the past week. That’s why we hired him!
The morning was picture
perfect, light southeast wind, tide rolling in bringing in the clear
green Gulf water, reminding me of another picture perfect morning, not
two miles from here, where, over forty years ago, a shark ate my
Specks.
We loaded up in the boat and motored under the San
Luis Pass Bridge and two hundred yards past the last sand bar Mike, Bob
and I all spotted a circular slick about the size of a number 5
washtub. This usually meant Trout. Trout will voraciously feed and
while feeding, regurgitate their stomach contents and continue feeding.
The slick is made by these contents floating to the surface.
Mike
cut the boat back to neutral and since I was already baited up, told
me, “Jon, cast right into that slick.” I did and was rewarded by a
solid strike, taking my bait, but no fish. I quickly baited up and cast
back into the slick and this time a big fish hit my bait and headed
east down the beachfront, pausing only to clear the water and expose
its silver/green sides a big Tarpon!
Wow, my first real
opportunity to land a big, Tarpon. I had the utmost confidence in the
fishing tackle I was using, a seven foot, medium action, fiberglass rod
Bob had made for me several years before, with an eighty pound,
monofilament leader and twenty pound line wrapped onto an Ambassadeur
7000 reel,
The fish continued to run, then stopped and cleared
the water again, and just like the outdoor writers say, to create a
small bit of slack in my line, I dropped my rod tip, as a “cushion” as
the Tarpon entered the water. Now, while I reeled furiously to keep the
line tight, he ran right back toward us. Another jump, another lowered
rod tip, another long run, then I started gaining line as it wallowed
on the surface, then Mike put a hand gaff right in the point of the
Tarpon’s lower jaw, and I had my trophy.
This was strictly catch
and release fishing, so we measured the Tarpon as best we could, Bob
took pictures of the fish in the water (he can’t find the picture now)
and we released it to fight another day. Our estimate was that it was
sixty inches long and weighed eighty pounds! I took the measurements to
a taxidermist and had a shoulder mount made up of the fish coming out
of the water. The mount was displayed in my office for many years and
now, Bob has it.
We continued fishing that day and caught
several Kingfish and one five foot, Black Tip Shark and lost several
Kings and Sharks when they bit through the mono leaders. We did not see
or connect with another Tarpon.
One
good thing was that Mike cleaned the Kings as we were fishing, so at
the end of the day, we plopped them into the cooler and headed home. It
figures that the only picture of the day’s catch was this small King.
This
was my second experience using a fishing guide, the first being on the
Suwannee River, and both times, I really got my moneys worth!
A New Link
Before swapping links with Jerry, at Easy Hunting Tips, I went through many of his posts. The blog offers good outdoors tips, is family oriented and is easy reading. I’m happy to add his link!
Morning Walk, July 16, 2008
Each morning I get up around 6:00 AM and go out and walk a mile plus. Most days it is already warming up, some days it’s cold, some, very rarely, it’s raining and I stay in. Today was bright and clear, so walking outside and enjoying the rising sun, I thought to myself, take the camera, you might see something of interest.
The next thing I knew, here came Bo, our cat. Bo is fearless and extremely protective of his territory. Last week he successfully drove off a large dog that had strayed into our yard Note Bo’s lack of a tail. It fell victim to a fan belt! And, right behind him came Spike, the wonder dog!
They began walking with me and I snapped this picture.
They walked on for several hundred yards, then their short attention spans kicked in. Bo started hunting and Spike sat and rested for a while.
So much for today’s walk, but, from now on, I’m taking a camera with me.
One Of Those Days
Up well before the sun, I loaded up my 13’ Boston Whaler, putted around to Louis’ Bait Camp And Caf, and bought me a pint of shrimp. Using the moonlight, I cruised slowly down Highlands Bayou, across Jones Lake and followed the channel to the flats on the north side of Tiechman Point, near the mouth of Offats Bayou. Fishing around this spot in West Galveston Bay for over 30 years, navigating over in the dark wasn’t a problem.
Here, I’m going wading on another day for Specks. Note the stringer looped on my belt and my “sting ray protector” boots.
Anchoring the Whaler and slipping into the water, it’s always cool even in the middle of the summer, I looped the stringer on to a belt loop on my jeans, let out a lot of line on the stringer so my bait box, tied at the end of the line, wouldn’t wrap around me and cause me to lose a good fish. The bait box would drift to my left, with the tide, that at the time was strong enough to keep the fish (I hoped), on it and well away from me too!
The sun wasn’t up and with the light southeast wind to my back, waist deep and sliding my feet along the sand/shell bottom, I let fly with a long cast. I was using a standard popping cork rig, a live shrimp, a 7’ popping rod, with 15 pound, line on my Shimano. Popping the cork once I was rewarded with a solid hit and the fight was on. The Speck wallowed at the surface, made several short runs and soon, I grabbed it behind the gills, put my rod under my arm and added number one, a nice 3 pounder, to my stringer.
Before the sun was up and over the horizon, I had 5 Specks strung, when I noticed two teenagers wading out close to me. They knew what they were doing and quickly caught a Speck and because the fish were keeping me busy, I wasn’t paying attention to them. My last fish, number 10, the limit at the time, was another solid one and the splashing fight put on by the fish, caused the boys to stop and watch.
As I shuffled back to my boat, pulling the heavy stringer, I heard one of them say, “That old guy can really catch Specks!” I thought to myself, “Old, I’m barely 50!”
Texans Come Up Short
July 10 and 11, Stumpy and his team, The Texans, played in the Mid American Senior Softball Championships in Liberty, Mo, just outside of Kansas City. They came up short in their bid to add this championship to their laurels.
In what turned out to be the deciding game, The Texans came out flat and lost to The Oklahoma Blast, 13 to 10. What makes the loss even more frustrating, going into this tournament, their record against The Blast this year, was 7 wins and 1 loss! Later, talking about the game, Stumpy said, “We play on a square field, with a round ball and a round bat, and you just never know what will happen!”
In the picture, Stumpy shows off the team’s “purse” full of Snicker Bars. Notice his pose and modeling skill!
The Texans, sporting a record of a record of 34 wins and 12 losses, will play next, Sept. 3 through 7 in the SPA National Championships in Dalton, Ga.
Surprise
My Great Uncle, sketched below in 1927, Judge Lee Wallace’s, book “The Waif Of Times”, is loaded with funny stories dated from 1890 to 1930, none more entertaining than the story of Hy Hasardt, a colorful citizen of Kerrville, Texas.
Surprise
By Lee Wallace
It’s harder to unwrap than it is to wrap nature. In other words it’s harder to straighten things than it is to crook them. Find someone who is naturally, or rather unnaturally, wrapped and it’s a harder job to get the kink out of him than it would have been to put that same kink into him. For instance, you find one who is inclined to lying and it’s a much harder problem to incline him away, than it would be to incline a normal one to such a vice.
Same way by animals, some dogs would hunt coons on a dessert or on Fifth Avenue, some horses fox-trot in a funeral procession or hitched to a fire wagon. Some people lie for you as readily as against you. Nature, or rather the lack of it, wrapped them that way and there you are or rather there they are.
Old Hy Hasardt, with a Teutonic accent was one of such kind. Flung out into the procession of life wrapped, but Hy’s wrap was fighting. Fight for you, fight you or against you; anyway, just so he was doing something in his line, exercising his leading talent, always looking, listening, feeling, smelling, hunting for trouble and finding it aplenty. Somewhere by someone a flaming scar, perhaps from a knife slash, had been left across his face, a crashing blow had unmatched his jaws, a twisted and broken nose that resembled a down payment on some of Hy’s belligerency, but Hy was still for war.
Here is a summary of Hy’ life. Mother had died when he was an infant, father remarried within a year, Bodo, a half-brother, born within another year. Hy’s bad treatment of his half-brother causes resentment from the mother of Bodo and a final separation between the senior Hasardt and the stepmother Bodo going, of course, with his mother. Seventeen years pass, Hy gets married, occupies his father’s house, raises a family, the father forced to to move into a shed beside of the barn where, unhonored, he finally dies. All the while Bodo and mother are stuck away in some obscure corner of the earth unknown to the other Hasardt’s, and maybe to all but a very few others.
When the Hy’s father dies, they find no will and then it dawns upon Hy, that Bodo, if alive, or with heirs, owns interest in the Hasardt’s estate. This intensified his hatred for Bodo. Hy drinks heavily, consults lawyers, hangs around the courthouse and saloons, and keeps a lookout on for strangers.
Finally, one fine day, one checks in at Fosters Saloon whom Hy takes for Bodo. He makes a rush with an open knife on the stranger that results in a “sedative”, delivered from the stranger, that puts him to sleep for many hours. We placed Hy lengthwise on an unbusy billiard table in back of the saloon and finally brought him out of the fog. The first indication of returning sanity was when he asked, “Deed Poto keele any potty else?”
The sheriff witnesses the attack and refuses to arrest the stranger, who disappears leaving the whole affair in mystery, until six weeks later we read of the killing of Hally Gilbert by Mike Heenan in a prize fight held in Langtry.
Gilbert’s neck was broken at a time when seemingly the fight was going his way. Heenan in an interview with reporters, his picture alongside, told and demonstrated how it was done, and when asked if he had ever applied the method before, said, “Yes, six weeks ago in Kerrville, through which I was passing and had stopped for a glass of lemonade. I turned the same “ether” slightly on a hoodlum assaulting me with an open knife.”
We saw the picture of Heenan, read the interview and then we knew that Bodo had not come to claim his part of the estate, and that Hy was lucky that the “ether” had not been turned on full force. That same day we showed Hy the paper with Heenan’s picture and interview. He read, reread and studied the paper like someone nursing a memory. Then handed the paper back to Charley Reed, saying as he did so, “I pe tam; I fight no more, not efen with “Poto”. He kept his word and Bodo never showed up.