P-Dog Camp??

I just got access to about 1/2 a hundred, 000 acres in extreme south eastern Colorado. The quary...Critters. Mainly prairie dogs, millions of em, seriously. My plan is to throw out the open invite, I'd kinda like to get enough for a good game of bones to go on, but more would be OK too. All it would cost is gas, booze, food, and bullets. Any takers? The date is wide open, but it would probably be most productive before they stary to hibernate. Think of it as some damn good sightin in time before deer season.

Sargent (8/19-8/20)

I went fishing with two graduate students from my department. Both have recently passed their qualifying exams and were ready to party like Ph.D. candidates. We left Houston around 4:00 and arrived at the Cedar lakes cut with enough daylight to catch bait and pick a camping spot. Conditions were not quite what I hoped. The wind was blowing between 10-15mph. The surf was brown and very choppy. The tide was very low and still going out.

We drove back down the beach several hundred yards from the cut. Kasey helped me set up the rods and take the lines out. Colin grabbed his camera, binoculars, and bird book and disappeared. Fishing was very slow at first but around 11pm I noticed that the tide had stopped falling and was starting to rise again. This got me a little more motivated since I didn’t believe the fishing could get any worse.

The surf was too heavy for kayaking so Kasey and I crossed the chest deep second gut and casted from the third bar. Every time we made the perilous journey we swore it would be the last. Even with the light of a full moon it is creepy as hell out there. Around 1:30am one of the clickers started screaming. I tightened the drag down and handed the rod to Kasey. The fish fought very hard and I was sure it was a shark but it turned out to be a 40” red. Not bad for his first redfish!

A short time later I heard a quick burst of line come off my far rod that had a small chunk of cut bait in the second gut. I caught up to the fish and beached a 27” red. I love it when you catch big fish and dinner. At 3am we reeled the lines in and called it a night.

We got a late start on Saturday morning but still managed to soak baits for a couple of hours. At 11am we started to pack the gear up and reel the lines in. Two lines were tangled pretty badly but it turned out that Kasey’s line had a redfish on it. I was tempted to fish more but it was getting too hot. Colin came back from birdwatching and reported that he had positively identified 36 different species.

One less pig in Gause

Gause has once again proven itself to be a highly productive source of protein for those willing to rise early enough to shoot a hole in a pig.

Jeff and I left Bryan at Six and we proceeded directly to the main ranch to walk around and look for a good place to drop a trap. We entered the ranch by the main entrance, came past the house adn went into the low pasture and were quietly making our way down the creek when Jeff heard some squealing from back behind us.

We went down to the point where the creek meets the woodline and crossed back over the barbed wire fence. We were advancing toward a stand of bamboo like weeds when we heard the pigs squealing the dense brushy woods. There were two areas open enough to see and shoot pigs, one to the left, the other the right.
I heard one shot but no squeal just as I was entering the clearing in the brush, I hunkered down and waited for the thunder of the herd but it never came. I heard another shot ring out and I went looking for Jeff.

I did not have high hopes, two shots and no death squeal sounded like bad news to me.

I went to the left and when Jeff had took the right, he intercepted the delicious black critters just before the creek and was able to track one in the rear of the group through the brush and when it got into the clear Jeff gave her have a 130 grains of copper jacketed lead through the neck. Jeff said the standard sized (65-80lb) pig dropped in its tracks without a sound. Jeff knowing a downed animal when he saw one pursued the rest of the herd of pigs and when one was foolish enough to stop and look back Jeff shot at him. The pig took off with a stumble but showed no sign of slowing down as it headed into the dense nasty brush.

It was my pleasure to help in the cleaning of the pig and I found that the larnyx and several vertebrae of the neck were shattered, no wonder she didn't make a squeal.

One ham went to the landowner and the two front legs became some really delicious sausage on Sunday afternoon after a trip through my meat grinder.

Currently the trap is fixed up and ready to be set, there is pig sign on at least of the three ranch segments and it ain't even fall yet.
If you are ever in dire need of a little freezer filler I would recommend a trip to
Gause.

StingerRay ala Zeisloft

Steve, if you haven’t chucked in yet, I'd recommend you use my recipe to a T with one exception... add 1 lb of salt, this minor modification will help to cover that distinct taste of rotten meat.
If this seems dicey I suggest you run a tent stake through the cut of carrion and hammer it into the yard. When buzzards come to feed on it, kill one (I leave the method of dispatch in your capable hands). Once you are sure the bird is dead, this will be obvious as it will stop vomiting at you and all dry heaving will have ceased, jam a transmission funnel up its back side and pour the yummy dove sauté in the orifice. A small wooden dowel will help force the slurry through the funnel and into the cavity. If it seems as the bird is not roomy enough to accommodate the mix, I suggest some hardy "fisting" to stretch it out. However this should not be necessary as I have been dove hunting with you and between the both of us, we couldn’t fill a dove with the amount of dove we generally shoot. Once full, resist the urge to pluck the buzzard. The feathers are to be parched off over a medium heat fire, do this slowly so as to impart a nice "earthy" flavor. Once all the feathers have burned off the carcass, close all windows to the house and boil the bird in a 4qt pot with 8 dirty diapers (if you do not have a 4qt pot, use a 2qt and reduce diapers to 4). Bring to a full rolling boil and reduce heat to low. Allow to simmer until the house becomes uninhabitable (the smell should permeate every orifice and inundate all upholstery and carpeting, 200 sheets deep in the toilet paper should smell of this less than delightful flavor). At this point, open all windows, pay the neighbor kid to watch the house, send the wife and kid to Austin, pack dogs and guns and head to Amarillo to shoot dove with me while house airs out. To hasten the process and for an enhanced aroma, the bird may be parched indoors in a gas or electric range top.
Vola… enjoy and see ya soon.

hmmm, mmm, good - stingray

I cooked some stingray last night. I tried two different preparations. 1) sauteed in butter, garlic, salt and pepper 2) breaded and deep fried

It was pretty good sauteed but it was excellent fried. I am sorry that I didn't keep more of it.

Anybody else tried it yet?

daddy's little hunter

Fellas i would like to introduce you all to my new huntin buddy. Please meet Hunter James Peel, born August 11, 2005 at 11:41 am. He weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 19.5 inches long.

Congrats!

I want to offer my congratulations to Woody on the birth of his Son.

Welcome to the fatherhood club Woody.

On my day off in California I drove three hours to the coast, fished for six hours, caught a five inch long fish called a bullhead, took this picture of some starfish in the surf and drove three hours back over the mountains to the Desert called the San Jauquin Valley  

Before we went fishing I spent a week in the Southern San Jauquin Valley of California, I took this pic showing the irrigated green areas from the Temblar range of mountains between the valley and the coast. 

Matagorda, Aug 5-7

Since nobody else is going to post a report I'll get things started.

Steve, Jeff, Santos, & Ali arrived on the beach about 30 minutes behind Me & Jeff. We waited for them at 3 mile cut and then convoyed down the beach in search of a good fishing and camping spot. We stopped about 10 miles down because pelicans were divebombing a school of bait. After several empty casts I threw my net on a menhaden bait ball. We completely filled up a cooler and left the rest on the beach for Steve's dogs to eat.

There was a lot of surface activity so we rushed to get lines out. I immediately caught a nice spanish mackeral. After that we caught a variety of small sharks (blacktip, sand, sharpnose, bonnethead, and a hammerhead). It got dark and we continued to fish and set up camp. Many, many beers and some whiskey later we heard the sweet sound of a long steady run. I grabbed the rod and felt a very heavy fish. It made a long continuous run and then stopped dead in the water. I knew then it was a big stingray. Eventually I worked it into knee deep water and that is when the fun began. Jeff W. & Santo began unloading on it with a .45 and .410 shotgun. Somebody also broke a flounder gig off in it's head. I'm really not sure how effective this was but eventually we beached it. I passed out a short time later. The tide came up into camp and ruined my new lantern.

The surf was still calm and clear on saturday morning. The least hung-over person (Jeff U.) immediately caught a nice 17" trout. I was disappointed that there weren't more trout. The surf rods were a little more productive with the occaisional spanish being landed between small sharks. Around noon Jeff W. and I went for a drive to get ice. We stopped to watch a school of jacks crushing menhaden on the beach. Several people were hooked up with jacks. A little farther down we stopped at another school of fish and I caught a nice spanish on a silver spoon. We returned to camp and sat under the shade in preparation for another night of fishing.

Late in the afternoon we had a short run on a large piece of stingray that I had kayaked 200-250 yards off the beach. Santos reeled in a much smaller piece of ray. It was a clean bite and there was no bite radius to give an indication of size. Minutes later another rod goes off and Steve gets to it first. Excitement soon turns into boredom as it becomes obvious that it is another large ray. This one was accidentally broken off after about an hour. Not much happened after that. Most people retired early. The nice breeze that we had all weekend suddenly died early sunday morning and the mosquitos had free reign. I got up and made coffee. Steve and Jeff W. who were also sleeping outside were already up. I caught a medium size black drum before the sun came up.

When the sun came up sunday morning, there was a school of menhaden along the beach as far as you could see in both directions. Jacks moved in and started busting the bait. Steve was the first to hook up followed by me and then jeff. My fish was gut hooked so I kept it for bait and Jeff's fish could not be revived so it also went in the cooler. After breakfast we packed up and left the beach.

mmmm mmmm mmmm buck fever is gonna getcha

heres a little taste of what we been seein. these were taken sat morning