Blastin' and Castin' in the Texas Outdoors

We havea lot of good times, the road was a drug when we started way back, our wheels rolled on steady, now its forgetting the race to find an open space and leaving that city far behind We’ll be up in the morning before the sun, since anything beats working on the job and everyone knows the early worm gets the fish. The world is your oyster, let the high times carry the low, walk where the sun is shining, lay your burdens down and think to yourself that it sure feels good feeling good again.


Wednesday, December 22, 2004

Merry Christmas

I hope some of you get the chance to sneak out and kill something over the holidays.

See everyone in 2005. Save some for me.

Monday, December 13, 2004

Hog Trapping in Brazos County Texas

Sunday morning My wife and I went for a drive to look at a truck bed topper. After determining that the item for sale would not fit on my truck I asked my wife if she would like to go check the pig traps with me since we were within a couple miles.

I pulled up to the gate and eyeballed the small box trap that is in the neighbors pasture, finding it empty I opened the gate and drove into the pasture. I drove to about 40 yards from the trap when I saw a big black head peak up over the grass. There was a big 175-200lb black pig and a pack of little pigs laying down outside the trap. I dove into the back seat and frantically dug around looking for a gun underneath all the stuff back there(I really need to clean that truck out!). Lindsey said to me, ÿou better hurry, they're leaving!! Finally after a couple seconds that felt like an eternity I got out the the only firearm I had, a 22 Magnum. I turned the radio down, quietly opened the driver's door and I stood on the door frame and rested the rifle on the roof of the cab. By now the big black pig was moving away from me slowly, with a bigger rifle I would have taken the shot still but knowing I had only a 22 mag I looked for a shot at one of the 50 to 70 pounders, I found a grey colored piglet and pulled the trigger, suddenly all the pigs outside the trap ran away and to the right, I ran the bolt and fired twice at some of the black pigs as they ran for the huisache They decided not to go into the huisache but stopped, I shot at the grey one once more then and a final shot as they ran straight away. I was fairly certain I had hit the grey pig since he hadn't been running well as he went straight away from me. I got back into the cab, reloaded and went to look into the open pasture the pigs I had shot at had run into.

I was surprised to see another large grey pig in the trap, plus there were 9 3- to 50 lb pigs in there with her. I grabbed my cellular and called chris to tell him his trap had worked and asked if he wanted to come shoot those inside it with me. Lindsey said "It's a whole family!", Just then the big grey sow got upset by our presence and started ramming into the corner of the trap trying to escape, I knelt down and looked through the scope to see if she was going to get out, the stopped ramming and stumbled back into the middle of the trap and looked up at me. Since I was concerned she might wreck the trap I pulled the trigger and she fell over sideways with a thud. Lindsey exclaimed "You shot the momma" with a horrified voice. I decided to definately wait until she left to take care of the rest.


Chris arrived at the trap, we sent lindsey home with my truck and we both took a box of bullets and a 22 back to the trap. It didn't take long for the piglets to figure they really had to get out of there if the planned on living much longer. Pigs that couldn't fit through the fencing suddenly did and at least three escaped, as each one got out chris and I tried to cut it down with a hail of bullets but a .22 doesn't have much takedown power unless it hits them in the central nervous system and a running animal can be tricky to hit. We popped all of the pigs we could inside the trap, tossed them over the fence, then wrestled the big sow over the fence and stacked all seven pigs on the tailgate for a real Kodak moment

We hauled our prizes off to the home of James, the land owner, who was to say the least pleased by our morning's work. After some pleasant chat and lots of showing off to the neighbors We offered him as much pork as he wanted. He took most of the cleaning off our hands so that Chris and I could get back into the books and prepare for our finals by early afternoon.

Monday, December 06, 2004

In the wake of carnage

West Texas is recovering from the traveling circus of destruction. We cut a swath through several sections of canyons, prairies, and draws. Too much to type. My typing finger also serves as trigger finger and my typing finger is wore out. Pictures will be about a week out. Heres an approximate tally from Alan and me:

Mule deer- 1... Ask me, I need to use my hands to describe it.
Texas Mountain Goat- 2
Turkey- 5
Quail- 6 or 7
Ring necks- 6ish
Coons-1
Skunks- 2
Cottontails- probably 25
Porcine with leprosy- 1
Pumpkin- 1
Jack rabbits- between 75 and 75,000
Misc other stuff- ALOT

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