Last week I went into town to pick up a water filter and as I walked into Mills County General Store, (it really is an old timey general store), on the counter along the entryway, there was a picture of a nice deer.

A closer look showed that it was a really, nice deer, being held up by a smiling Ginger Spies, obviously the shooter. Ginger and her husband, Rodney, own the Mills County General Store.

Walking to the back of the store I saw Rodney and asked him about the big deer. He told me that Ginger shot him on their ranch west of town, on the last day of the season, three minutes before the end of shooting time! The buck was walking in the general area around a deer feeder and took one step to many and, boom, Ginger dropped him with her .308.

The Spies took the deer to Warren Blesh, owner of [RRR Ranch], for B&C scoring and it came in at a whopping 144 and 4/5ths. The buck was 5-1/2 years old, with the beginnings of palmated antlers, as this picture shows.

The deer also qualified Ginger for the yearly, Texas Parks And Wildlife’s special dinner for bucks scoring over 130 B&C.

Yesterday, visiting Mickey Donahoo to pick up my bobcat mount, I went into his taxidermist shop and he showed me Ginger’s deer. Of course I didn’t have a camera, hence no picture of the beautiful mount.

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”!

Toward the end of quail season, Rob Haney called saying that he had a free Saturday and it looked like the expected, big “norther” wouldn’t hit his area until Sunday night. We, the we being myself and Sonny, my Brittany Spaniel, hurried up to Rick’s ranch Friday afternoon, for a go at the quail. Predominantly white, Sonny, is pictured on my back porch.

Low clouds greeted us Saturday morning along with a medium, south wind that offered us wonderful scenting conditions. Sonny found the quail and we scored heavily during the day. As shooting time ended, our near limits stuffed in our game bags, we decided on something different for our evening meal.

Instead of our usual steak cooked over mesquite logs on Rob’s “old timey”, fired brick, bar-b-que pit, we grilled eight quail halves. They were spiced up with a half of jalapeno pepper, then wrapped with a piece of bacon and grilled until the bacon was done. We added a baked potato, along with chopped, green, Ortega, chilies and onions and we had a feast!

Up early on Sunday, Rick going to church, and Sonny and I heading out for a quick repeat at the quail. Parking my Suburban along one of the ranch roads, we were greeted by more low clouds and a steady, light northwest wind. Uh-oh, it looked like the “norther” had arrived early, beating the forecast by a good eight hours!

An hour later, we were hunting into a strong northwest wind with large flakes of snow blowing all around us. Sonny, mostly white, with a few reddish brown spots, was getting hard to see as he worked fifty yards to the front.

We bumped into two coveys, I knocked down four birds, but the balance of both coveys just melted away into the falling snow. We soldiered on for the next hour, fighting the wind, snow and poor visibility, until we were “whited out”. No Sonny out in front, one mesquite tree, out of the thousands on the ranch, close by, nothing but white, up, down and around me! Stopping in my tracks, I whistled for Sonny to come in, sat down in the snow and surveyed my situation.

As I debated my options, Sonny and I huddled together in the snow for nearly ten minutes,. Those minutes of debate and indecision, along with never having, or dreaming, that I would be caught in a situation like this, caused my feelings to race from panic, to fear, until logical thought took over. Then I used my head for something other than a hat rack, and figured out what to do.

No compass, of course, since I was ONLY hunting on Rick’s two thousand acre, ranch. I knew northwest was to the front, since I had been hunting into the wind. I knew the ranch road, where I had left the Suburban, was behind me. So, I decided to try to walk back to the truck. Even if I missed the truck, I could stay on the ranch road until I got back to the main ranch house.

Always carrying a check cord for the dog, I snapped it on to his collar, he “heeled” along, and keeping the wind to my back, carefully walked the mile back to the ranch road, guessing correctly, I turned right and within two hundred yards found the truck. Of course, it was white too!

Before heading back to Houston, I waited for over an hour for the snowstorm to break, then for the next eight hours (normally an easy six hours) slowly drove home.

All of my life I have tried to beat nature and weather forecasts, and, one more time, I lost again!

With the temperature hovering near eighty, Jake Schroder and I started the long walk back to our truck down Tom Mix Wash. The dogs, Jake’s, Candy, and my, Rooster, were “quailed” out and out of the four canteens we took along, we were down to less than one. Back then, early February 1973, the wash was rough country, now it is probably million dollar homes!

We had hiked, hunted and worked our way several miles up Tom Mix Wash. This was near where, supposedly, the actor, Tom Mix, was killed in a one car, wreck along a road that bisects it. Tom was killed prior to WWII and I barely remember it. Anyway, back then I was a Gene Autry guy.

Starting right after lunch we had headed east, towards the foothills and had bumped into numerous, large coveys of gamble quail and had considerably thinned out the population. That day we enjoyed some of the finest dog work and shooting of all my Arizona hunts. We missed some, the dogs busted a covey, a covey outran us, but within a little less than two hours we had two limits!

With our game bags full, two limits of birds, walking back to the truck Jake was excited, anticipating trying out his new camera with a “timed” shutter. He was going to set it up on a tripod, get it focused in, then we would rush around, kneel down, smile and the picture, certainly a potential Pulitzer winner, would capture the “thrill of our hunt”!

We pose, remotely, along Tom Mix Wash, north of Tucson. The camera worked fine except that most of our hoard of quail was cut off!

Last Sunday, one of our friends, SFC Tim Albee, put an end to the 2009/10 deer season. This past season’s total was four does and one spike.

Summarizing, Sean, a Grandson, kicked it off with his first deer, a spike, bagged during the youth season.

Mickey Donahoo then shot two does that we gave to a friend. One is pictured here.

Then Wesley, another Grandson, scored his first kill with this doe.

Not to be outdone, I chipped in with this big, bobcat.

Overall, no big bucks, but wait ‘till next year! Next up is varmint hunting, then around April 1st, it’s turkey time!

We were miles back in the Arizona wilderness and our guest and friend, Tommy Walker, had been hit with a blast from a shotgun! Part 2 Of “Walking wounded” follows.

Scrambling up the thirty yards I saw him down on his knees, holding his eyes. Oh no, not his eyes, I thought! Jake came racing up, “What happened to Tommy” he exclaimed? “Looks like he got some shot in his eyes,” I answered. Tommy said, “I heard you and Jake say a few words and I got curious and walked to the edge of the canyon. I looked down just as Jake shot, and I think I’ve got some bird shot in one of my eyes!”

I checked his pulse, it was normal, his skin felt normal, one eye definitely had one or more shot in it, the other was normal. No apparent signs of shock, for now. We had him lie down and elevated his feet, while we figured out what to do. Our problem was how to get him the two plus miles back to the truck?

We figured if we bandaged his eye we could lead him out OK. The only problem, we didn’t have any bandages, some were in the first aid kit in the truck, but none with us, so we improvised. We took the back of my tee shirt and Jake’s clean hankie, tied them together, and oops, to cover his injured eye, we had to cover his good eye too. We didn’t have any tape with us. It was back in the truck, too. Covering both eyes, we tied the “bandage” off on the back oh his head.

We started back to the truck and it was hard to guide Tommy. Jake and I took turns, one carrying all three shotguns, the other guiding Tommy by having him lean on and put an arm around our neck. Our main worry was shock, but he told of being wounded in WW II and didn’t feel like he was anywhere near it.

The dogs, bless their hearts, hunted all the way back. With both eyes bandaged Tommy couldn’t see, but he could hear us talking. “Hey, Jake look, point up there.” “Beech, here’s a point.” Whirrrrrrr! A quail took to a hurried flight. as Tommy said, “Guys, set me down here and you all hunt these birds. You can come back and get me.” “Not a chance, Tommy,” we both echoed.
Tommy was a load, weighing about two hundred pounds, and carrying the shotguns for two miles sounds easy, but remember there are no handles, or slings, on them and no easy way to carry three guns at once for any distance. Our two-mile jaunt took almost two hours, but our first goal, the truck and the four wheel drive road, was reached.

We still had four, hard, four wheel drive miles, at least two hours, to cover before we got to the dirt road. Jake drove and I sat with Tommy in the back of the SUV. The dogs were packed into two kennels behind the second seat. We were all tired and as we bumped the four miles to the dirt road, Tommy’s eye was beginning to throb. Our second goal was reached. It had been over four hours since the accident, but we could make this eight-mile leg in about thirty minutes.

The sun was setting as we reached the hard top road to Payson and it had been almost five hours since the accident. Jake and I knew there was a small hospital in Payson, twenty-five miles ahead so we hurried on into town.

No cell phones then, so we stopped at the first convenience store we came across in Payson and called the hospital, alerting them of the accident and getting directions. We found the emergency room and checked Tommy in. There was a short wait for the local eye specialist. An hour later the doctor came out and told us that he had removed the shot from Tommy’s eye, but he was concerned that the vitreous fluid could leak out, causing Tommy to loose his vision in that eye.

The doctor would end up keeping Tommy in the hospital for a week. His eye healed and he returned to shooting and hunting almost as soon as he got back home. I hunted and shot skeet with Tommy for the next ten years and all of us started wearing shooting glasses!

This is a story about a terrific Gambel quail hunt and also the story about an avoidable accident. The story took place in over fifteen hours and is a long one so I divided it into two parts. The first part follows and the second part will posted on January 15th.

In 1973 on this particular hunt, to an isolated canyon along the Salt River, Jake, my hunting buddy, and I were taking a good friend, Tommy Walker. Tommy was in Phoenix for a business meeting that ended the coming Friday, so we planned the hunt for the next day, Saturday. Tommy was excited at the prospect of some real good Gambel quail hunting!

The trip to the hunting spot was a real doozy! We took a ten-mile, dirt road, short cut, off of Bee Line Highway, to reach the main road from Payson to Roosevelt Dam and on to Globe, Arizona. Back on the paved surface, heading east, we took a dirt road south, following the west rim of the Salt River Canyon, for eight miles before it turned into a four wheel drive only road for four more harrowing miles. When the four wheel drive road ended, we were “there”. We probably made six or seven trips to this spot and never saw another soul. Gas was only $.50 per gallon then. Nixon had just begun the Arab Oil embargo that marked the beginnings of our energy problems!

We hunted along a wash that fed into the Salt River. The wash continued west up into the hills for several miles, then turned into a mini canyon almost two hundred feet deep. The little canyon had nicely terraced sides along its north rim. We, our dogs and hunters, would spread across the wash and head up it until the coveys of birds were found. At the time the coveys were enormous, a hundred to two hundred birds each, and needed to be seen, to be believed.

Back to our story, we, Tommy, Jake and I, along with two of our Brittany Spaniels, began our hunt around 8:30 AM. After the usual checking of our gear, we trekked a quarter of a mile in, spread out and began our hunt. Once the birds were found, we pursued them up the wash into the small canyon. At the same time, this split the coveys into more manageable groups with some flying up and over the canyon rim.

Then the shooting and walking really began! Up the canyon, up the terraces, back down the terraces, up the terraces, not for the faint of heart! The dog work was excellent, the shooting bordered on fantastic and the Arizona desert hills made for a perfect setting.

We hunted two dogs for two hours then circled back, took a break and got two fresh ones. Around noon we broke for a quick sandwich, sat a spell enjoying the scenery, counted our half limits of birds and headed back up the north rim of our little canyon. Earlier, several bunches of the main coveys had flow up there.

We saw the birds running on the ground ahead of us, before we saw them flush wildly over the rim back to the bottom of the canyon. These were a group of birds that flew up there earlier this morning.

Jake said, “I’ll take the dogs and go down into the canyon and try to drive them up on the terraces.” I added, “I’ll take the middle terrace,” knowing that I could come under fire from Jake if the birds flew straight up the canyon wall. It was safer for Tommy to be up on the top sixty yards or more from the bottom.

He was to walk slowly, a safe distance away from the canyon’s edge and mark the birds that flew up and out of the canyon. I had already told him that I would not shoot at a bird flying up the canyon wall toward him. Tommy wasn’t used to the rough hunting terrain, and especially to the erratic behavior of the birds when being pursued by dogs and hunters.

In the bottom of the canyon, the dogs pointed a group of twelve to fifteen birds, Jake, letting me know of the point (Tommy heard the exchange too). Jake walked in on the birds and they went everywhere, bam, bam, two shots from his over and under, that ,as I ducked down whizzed over my head and then heard Tommy yell in pain, “I’m hit!”

Continued on January 15.

Leaving work after lunch; I stopped by my house, picked up my Brittany, Sonny, my shotgun, my hunting stuff, loaded it all in my Jeep Scrambler and headed out Highway 290, past Hockley to my hunting lease. The 1993/4 duck and goose season had just ended, but this one was a year round lease so quail hunting was allowed.

The lease was on the Katy Prairie, thirty-six hundred total acres with over half of it being harvested rice. But the rice fields weren’t our targets. Sonny and I were going to hunt along the edges of the woods bordering the cultivation where, during duck hunts, I had seen and marked several coveys of bobs.

Parking the Jeep, crossing over the creek and edging along between the cultivation and the woods, I knew that I would only get, at the most, two shots at the quail, since they would high tail it back along the creek banks into the real thick stuff. Single hunting would be definitely out this afternoon.

Sonny stopped dead in his tracks; nose halfway to the ground, a picture perfect point! Walking in, the twelve bird, covey blasted out toward the woods, two of my shots found the mark, but my third one pasted a tree with the bird escaping to the safety of the heavy brush. Sonny retrieved both birds and we got back down to the bird finding business.

Several hundred yards along, another point, and a ten bird, covey flushed to my left and the creek. Two shots netted me one more bird and another tree. This scenario was repeated one more time, yielding two more birds.

The sun was getting low and we found a dry place to cross over the little creek to head back down toward the Jeep. Sonny was “making birds” and slowed his pace, carefully mincing along, then he stopped, not a point, no tensing of his muscles, just stopped! He took two steps then stopped again. This really got my attention so I hurried up beside him, he took two more steps and up into the air, cackling, rose a cock pheasant!

It was an easy shot because when the big bird leveled off his flight, I leveled him with a load of eights to the head! This was my second pheasant, the first being on a preserve in Arizona. Then it dawned on me, is there a season around here for pheasants? In the past I had heard that the State had tried to start a pheasant program on the Katy Prairie, but it failed because of too many winged and fanged predators. With the nearest hunting preserve being several miles away maybe this was the last of the State planted birds?

We ate the bird that night, Houston continued its sprawl, and now, this once prime hunting area is a golf course! At least it’s not a shopping center!

Wesley and his family arrived in Goldthwaite last Wednesday, the 30th, in time for an afternoon hunt. Wesley hadn’t gotten a deer this season and he was primed for success on this one. His Cousin, Sean had nailed a spike during this years youth season.

We headed out, Wesley and his Dad, Paul, went to Ma-Maw’s blind and I chose a hide where two, well used deer trails crossed. Three deer came to the feeder shortly after Wesley and Paul had settled down, but he couldn’t get a shot because the biggest doe kept bobbing her head feeding, so he waited impatiently.

Not long after I had settled into my hide I saw movement crossing one of the trails. It was a cat, a big cat, quartering toward me. My first thought was, Why am I sitting here curled into a big cedar tree when what may be a mountain lion coming toward me? Then I saw the cat’s short tail. Picking out an opening in the thick brush, I centered my cross hairs on where I hoped the cat would cross. He did. I fired and it dropped like a rock.

Stepping out of my hide, I took two steps and heard, craak, from the direction of Ma-Maw’s blind. Sounded like a .223, Wesley had shot and I hoped he had scored. He told me, “Poppy, the deer kept bobbing its head, but when you shot, it raised its head and held it up for several seconds. My Dad told me to take her and I fired, a perfect head shot and down she went!”

Here are both of us with our kills. Notice that Wesley, with the big smile, has followed a family tradition and daubed some of the deer’s blood under his eyes.
A good ending to two good hunts!