Ribeye of the Sky

Went out saturday morning with some of the boys from work, destination...big birds. We got decoys set up pre dawn and hunkered down in our coffins, out of the wind, which had just began whippin (as the weather channel had predicted). A sip or two of whiskey in the pre dawn sure can knock the chill out of the air. When we hit shooting light, we were covered with crane, however all out of range, even for the 3 1/2s loaded with Ts. Soon the artillery began bangin. The wind, 30 ish and gusting well above that, hampered our shooting with many a folk letting loose of the 3 rd FU shot, I even did it once myself, well maybe twice. Once they were dialed in, they fell well. No full limit for the batch of us, 3 each, but a good time had by all. If that cold front had not pushed in at dawn, I believe things would have been better.

One more time in 2005

With the impending cold front, holidays, and work deadlines I had to hit the beach one more time before 2005 expires and the surf rods start collecting dust. My fellow postdoc, Jeff, is in the same predicament so we decided to spend all day Sunday at the cut. We left H-town at 6:30am stopping only for ice and a bag of fresh-dead. Finger mullet were plentiful but large mullet were scarce. There is so much exposed clay that it was tough finding a sandy spot near the cut to fish. I hate fishing over clay because it is impossible to walk on and the spider weights really dig it.

I used shrimp to catch a couple of whiting which became cut bait. We used a combination of shrimp, cut-bait, live and dead finger mullet on the 4 rods. It turned out to be a pretty busy day. We ended up catching 8 bull reds, 1 slot red, 2 small bull sharks, gafftops and baby sharks. The bull reds were caught on casted and kayaked baits. Location didn’t really seem to matter as long as you got over the first bar. Most of the reds were between 39 and 42”. The sharks, while small, were the biggest I have caught this year. I don’t know why I haven’t been able to catch sharks this year.

The water temperature was 75F and it was a nice sunny day. The waves were fairly large and choppy considering the light on-shore winds. The tide was at its lowest when we got there and came in all day. I believe we left right at slack tide which occurred at dusk.

Jeff used my .270 and handloads to nail this black and red sow at dusk on Tuesday 

ANOTHER GOOD BUCK FROM THE RED RIVER

Yet another great buck has been taken from the lease. This freak was arrowed saturday morning with a 52# draw custom longbow, and cedar arrow from a distance of about 18 yards. He was grunted in and shot by my wifes uncle.

He is a 14 pointer with double drop tines. Total gross boone and crockett was 145+. the inside spread was only 14" but i think he makes up for that with character. He weighed 160 on the hoof and dressed at just under 120lbs. the coolest part of this buck was not that he was shot with a bow nor that he has these crazy horns but that he was only 3 hooved. One of his real hooves was completely nubbed and he seemed to be walking on it just fine with only a slight limp.

Good times in Gause, TX

I left Houston around 6:30 on Saturday morning and picked Steve up around 8am. After stopping to buy some corn we went straight to Gause. We unpacked the guns and went straight into the field.

I told Steve that I had a new rifle that I needed to get acquainted with before we went hunting. It is a scoped, Remington 710 chambered for 30-06. I was having problems seeing the correct sight picture. After reposition the rifle several times I pulled the trigger and the recoil jammed the scope into my right eyebrow. Ouch.

Steve gave me some pointers and after a few adjustments, I was hitting the target right where I was aiming. Satisfied with the 30-06 we started shooting many other calibers (.22, .357, .44, .270, 7.62 x 39). Next, we checked the hog traps, scouted for hog sign, and put out fresh corn. We found several places with lots of fresh sign. Things were looking good for tonight. We went back to the house to rest and have an early dinner. Based on the intel., Steve developed a strategy for the evening hunt.

At the piggiest location we had a close encounter just before dark. A group of 6-8 pigs ran by our position but they did not take the expected path. Instead, they ran around the far side of a pond and went into the woods. The hogs did not hesitate long enough for us to try stalking them. They taunted us from the safety of the woods. Steve’s only mistake of the night might have been letting me pick the ambush point.

We loaded up and went to another pasture where we sat in a very dark and quiet field for a while before deciding to head back to the house (we forgot the whiskey and steve was getting bored). On the drive back, Steve illuminated some hogs in a pasture we hadn’t scouted. I quickly stopped the truck which encouraged the pigs to move farther into the field. Steve held the red light on them but I couldn’t make them out through the scope. He removed the red filter and I was able to find them in the scope. After nearly jerking the trigger, I calmed down and took a shot. I felt good about the shot but Steve was awfully quiet…. Finally….he announced that it was down. At first glance I thought that I had gut shot the pig but upon further inspection it turned out that I had hit him very close to where I was aiming. When I looked back to the road I was surprised to see how far I had shot.

Steve showed me how to butcher the pig and I got to use my new hunting knife. Steve managed to slash my thumb while I was pulling the hide back. It was a shallow cut but I bled for the second time on this trip. After tending to the pig we revisited our hunting spots. Everything was quiet and a full day of drinking was starting to take its toll. We called it a night around 10pm.

In the morning we went back to the spot of our close encounter. Many pigs had moved through the area that night but we will never know when. Both traps were empty. After a big breakfast we cleaned up and took the scenic route back to aggieland.

Chris's Toys and Toy Box

Home-made flounder gig.

The guy gigging our flounder had a home made gig that I was impressed with. The business end consisted of two lengths of all-thread that he had ground into points. The advantage of all-thread is that you don’t have to reach under the flounder to pick it up. You can actually lift them straight out of the water because they stick to the threads. I saw it in action and it did work as advertised, however, the guy did admit that one had come off.

He also shaped a piece of tubing into a really nice lantern handle. I think a good handle would reduce fatigue on a long gigging session.

Heres mine

Unfortunately he's from last year