About 4:00 AM on 8/17/13, during a night tournament on Lake Austin, I hooked a 20″ bass. This feisty fish broke the line as I was bringing it into the boat. When the line broke, my partner Tom Clark, felt weight on his line and he started reeling. Oddly, he reeled until he could reel no more when he found his lure at his rod tip and there was still line and a fighting fish beyond. Read More→

Got my first turkey ever opening morning.  Called him within 60 yards but he would not come closer.  When he started wandering off, I chased him for 1/2 mile before I actually got in front of him.  He was walking a fence line.  When he got within 15 yards, I let the lead fly.  My friend Bill Doughty also got one and his son missed one.  Hope to get another chance or two before the season ends.

It was pretty cool. We got into the area we wanted to on our lease at first light. I called a couple times and we didn’t hear anything. We went up a hill, I called again, and this time we heard a gobble. We rushed back down the hill because there was a gate opening there…all the rest of the area had a fence between us and the turkeys. Read More→

Fall 1998

It was a glorious piece of the Oregon Coastal range. Two small draws encased in a larger one. At the head, where the two small draws came together was a small section of fairly level ground that was rich with vegetation and crisscrossed in every direction with game trails. The walls of the large draw which encased the two, were steep enough to make any elk hunters heart pound. Read More→

My good buddy, Mr. Charles Batts, invited me to the legendary Y.O. Ranch for an exotic hunt thispast weekend (6/2/06 – 6/3/06).  Derrich Pollock and his two boys came along looking for a trophy as well and/or, any wild hogs that may shown up. Read More→

We had a successful bow hunt this weekend at my lease in Eden Texas.  I finally twisted my good buddy Larry’s arm hard enough to get him to take a weekend off and spend some time in the woods hunting the elusive white tail deer.  Larry and I have been hunting together for many years but his business has taken him away from deer hunting for the last few years. Read More→

Here is the report on our latest trip to Lake Huites Mexico (on 10/12/06 – 10/15/06).  But first I have to thank my good friend Charles Batts.  Unfortunately Charles was scheduled to go on this trip but he had to have back surgery at the last minute and I took his place. Read More→

Well I just got back from a 4/26/06 – 4/30/06 Fishing Trip to Lake Huites deep in Mexico with Derrich Pollock, Charles Batts, and Bob Duda.  It was an amazing fishing trip.  We took off in Derrich’s plane from the Jonestown airport.  We had to stop in Del Rio, Texas to check in with customs before leaving US airspace.  We flew from there over the Sierra Madre Mountain range down to Los Mochis airport to refuel, check in with customs then on to El Fuerte air strip.  At the El Fuerte air strip there was a small army guarding Derrich’s plane while we were fishing.  It looked like a small barracks with young men with automatic weapons. We all felt that there was no problem leaving the plane there. Read More→

Well it took us a long time but Jordan finally got his first buck.  We hunted the Dunkinville stand Monday evening.  Bob and I went out early in the day and put out a lot of corn near Jay’s new pop-up blind.  In the afternoon we got in the blind and it wasn’t long before there were tons of doe all around us, however, there were no bucks. Read More→

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Well, as most of you know there is no reason to hunt opening weekend in South Texas. It’s usually too HOT and everyone knows that the hunting doesn’t get good until December. Well, on the 96 opening weekend, my friend Larry and I disproved that idea. We headed for our lease in Encinel, Texas. I took my four year old, twin boys, Hunter and Jordan and Larry took his twelve year old son, Adam. After all, we weren’t seriously hunting opening weekend in South Texas: We were mainly going to take the boys, fill feeders, and do some scouting. Read More→

Larry Dowden and I went to our lease in Coleman over the weekend. On the way there we saw a massive buck right next to the Hwy that has a 5 to 6 inch drop tine, 20+ inches wide, at least 10 points, just before we got to Lampasas. It was the first time either of use have even seen a drop tine buck in the wild. It was beautiful. Read More→

11/3/06 (early)

Hey guys, greeting from the beautiful cold state of South Dakota.

We are all getting ready to go out and find some pheasants.  I big group of guys are cooking breakfast and I’m drinking coffee.  The lodge is really nice.  It has a big dinning area and kitchen, a big screen TV for football, and a place for lots of stories.  There are guys here from all over the country.  Three are from Alaska; one’s a retired attorney.  I could never afford a hunt like this.  I can’t wait to put a pheasant in my bag. Read More→

Introduction: I was introduced to the Y.O. by Mr. Charlie Batts. Derrich Pollock wanted to bag an axis buck and I got to tag along to hunt pigs. I had heard whispers of the Y.O. before but nothing I heard prepared me for what I found upon entering the Y.O.’s gates. Read More→

On the morning of 4/15/05 I hunted turkeys on my lease in Ochiltree County.  I started out behind the house and across the creek.  I got the decoys set up and sat down.  Next, I hear turkeys, and of course, they are in the parking lot behind me where the house is.  I start calling.  Read More→

Sometimes things happen that are so funny that just the thought of them is enough to make you laugh out loud.  The following is not only true but also completely spontaneous and self-inflicted.

It was a dark and cool night on lake Travis when Eddy Chance, Randy Rowley, David Brandt, and I decided to go white bass fishing.  Well as most such trips go, first you have to scoop up the minnows.  After fishing at one location the four decided to move to another and on the way scoop some more minnows.  After reaching the second location, the Jonestown pump station, I suggested to Eddy that he add a little water to the minnow bucket.  Little did I know the intensity he would demonstrate at accomplishing this task. Read More→

My friend, Gerry, and I just got back from a wild chuckar hunt in the Owyhee mountains in Idaho, just west of Boise.  It was an eventful trip.  We started hunting in the mountains west of Murphy, Idaho and east of Reynolds, Idaho.  We jumped three and I got a double.  Gerry shot the third one.  He was about to shoot my first one but shifted targets when it started falling.  We saw them from the road and went in after them.  Read More→

In May of 2004 I had a great black bear hunt in Alberta, Canada.  I was with two customers at a remote base camp about 100 miles from the community of Peace River.  We were all fortunate enough to take bears with our bows. Read More→

It started with the boosters (decoys).  Half a dozen poorly painted dekes rescued from their sentences as yard art from an in-law.  Most addicts can trace their demons to a similarly innocuous encounter…a puff of tobacco behind the barn, or a nip of hard cider to ward off the cold in a deer blind.  My addiction was more insidious, in that it could only be enjoyed in season, leaving long months of the DT’s (delirium tremors). Read More→

The call came, unexpected as all such calls…with the urging “come quickly, time is short.”  Hurried packing and calls to the airline followed, with tense foreboding of what the morrow may bring.

It is strange how funerals draw family together to the old home place from the far-flung corners of the map.  Conversations in hushed tones, hugs, tears, and even laughter after the ceremony do little to fill the single empty seat at the farmhouse dinner table.  For a boy of twelve, losing a grandfather is bewildering.  Death has an unhappy way of forcing an end of innocence… especially when it comes at Christmas. Read More→

On a cool and overcast Saturday in mid-January, three friends and I headed to the marsh between Corpus Christi and Port Aransas for a weekend of duck hunting.  We made it to our launch point at Wilson’s Cut a little after sunrise.

The blasts of several shotguns going off in the distance greeted us as we unloaded the kayaks (yaks) from Greg Souther’s trailer.  Mark Dillow brought two yaks – one for himself and one for Kevin Wall, Greg brought one, and I used one that Mark rented one for me at a Corpus Christi yak shop on our way down. Read More→

Former Club President Eddy Chance was ticketed in 1993 by a Game Warden and fined $80.00 for possessing a killed doe without a tag.  Witnesses testified that Eddy shot the doe and placed the properly filled out tag deep inside the doe’s ear (due to a lack of twine). Read More→

On a Friday evening in April, 12 friends, four sons, and I left Austin for an FCS hog hunting and work weekend at the 10,000 acre Uno Mas Ranch.  The agreement was to hunt on Saturday in exchange for work on Sunday.  We arrived at Artesia Wells four hours later.  We only had 15 miles of dirt roads to travel to reach the ranch.

Unbeknownst to us, the area had gotten heavy rain, and the dirt roads were now mud.  Paul Wilson’s Ford Ranger hit a big puddle within a mile, drowning it out, followed by several vehicles getting stuck, and missing our turn three times.  Randy Slagle’s four-wheel-drive Chevy Z71 pickup truck with off-road tires pulled the stuck vehicles out, which took a lot of time, as he had to unhitch his trailer, pull a stuck vehicle out, and re-hitch his trailer.

Four hours later, at 3:00 AM, Kevin Font’s Chevy Suburban got stuck to both axles.  Most of the group decided to camp next to Kevin’s SUV, but Paul and I decided to look for the ranch.  We thought we found it but were unsure, so we camped on the side of the road by our vehicles.

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As with most products and tactics that claim to make a hunter quieter, less smelly, invisible, or that will bring the deer into your blind with you, I’m as skeptical as the next guy.  However, one idea that I was introduced to several years ago seemed to make sense.  The idea is fairly simple.  One just needs to take two deer antlers (or fake antlers) and beat them together until they break or you do.  Supposedly, buck deer will believe that two other bucks are fighting and will charge in to run the rivals off or maybe sneak off with the doe that the other bucks are fighting over. Read More→

On January 1, 2005, my son Ryan and a host of other soldiers headed for Iraq after attending a ceremony in Waco.  Ryan specializes in forward reconnaissance, a skill that wasn’t needed in a country that had already been secured.  Therefore, he spent the bulk of his time guarding VIPs.  He guarded Four Star Generals, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Donald Rumsfield.  He also guarded the editor and staff of the Veterans of Foreign War magazine.  They took pictures of him and interviewed him.  He was quoted in the feature article and even graced the cover of the October 2005 issue of the Veterans of Foreign War magazine!

Ryan was gone for almost a year, but it seemed like ten.  Every time that I would hear or see in the news that a soldier had been killed or maimed, I would flinch.  I have to admit that I often said a prayer of thanks when I learned that the unfortunate soldier wasn’t him.  I wasn’t glad that someone else’s son was hurt or killed; rather I was happy that it wasn’t Ryan.

Ryan and I always had our best times in the field or on the sporting clays range.  Before he left we went deer and hog hunting on 11/26/04 – 11/27/04 on the Haun Ranch near Victoria.  I killed a hog during that venture but Ryan was skunked.  He was disappointed that he didn’t get his first deer and I was determined to help make that happen for him upon his return. Read More→

Many FCS members and prospects have read a brief history of or heard about the Appletree Ranch hunts…the hunts that gave birth to the Burp & Poot (B & P) Club (the predecessor of The Fellowship of Christian Sportsmen) but have asked to hear more.  Therefore, by popular demand, I offer from my memory banks excerpts from my five trips to Appletree. Read More→

On 12/22/04 – 12/23/04, Allen Neumann and I went on a deer and hog hunt at the Siller Ranch near Derby in Frio County.  The Ranch is about 15 miles as the crow flies from Lee Ewald’s ranch near Dilley.  Mario Siller has about a 200 acre field that he once farmed.  The field is surrounded by woods and contains five of his seven blinds and nine of his 13 feeders.  His other 50 acres are heavily wooded.  His blinds were the best that I have ever seen.  They were big, carpeted, and insulated.  The one that I hunted from on 12/22/04 had a propane heater in it and a chase lounge pad.  You could easily sleep in them.  They also had little shade ledges over each window. Read More→

On a Saturday in mid-September my SUV croaked about 100 feet from a clinic in East Austin.  Fortunately I was able to push it into the parking lot.  The next afternoon I waited on a wrecker to come get my SUV.  As I waited, I listened to shotguns blasting in the distance.  After the wrecker left I drove over and found the source of the noise.  On Exchange Blvd. I saw seven parked vehicles and at least 20 hunters in a field, who were shooting at dove.

When I got home I called the police to report people hunting in the city limits.  However, the officer informed me that Exchange Blvd. was the city limit.  The field (which was on the west side of the street) was outside of the city limits.  I verified this information with a Travis County sheriff’s deputy, who informed me that the Hardin Corporation owned the field and they allowed people to hunt there without written permission. Read More→

A week before the 1990 – 1991 general season, I spent the morning in my box blind and had the privilege ofwatching a large 8-pointer feed for over an hour not more than 20 yards from me.  His rack was perfectly symmetrical, tall, and wide.  For some reason, he reminded me of Babe, Paul Bunyan’s blue ox.  “Babe” certainly didn’t seem to fit him, so I named him “Blue.” Read More→

In early February, Jimmy Cohenour and his teenage son, Jim Bob, and Eddie Lee Toohey joined Jesse, Tim, and Isaac Price, David Chalmers, my son, Ryan, and I for a three-day weekend FCS hog hunt with Texas Wild near Charlotte.  I killed two hogs, Tim shot a bobcat, and Eddie Lee shot a Javelina on Sunday morning – not great for nine of us. Read More→

Saturday, November 19, 2005 started at 4:30 AM, when Ron Denison picked me up for his first deer hunt.  We proceeded to a ranch near Hamilton Pool that Ron had been invited to hunt by the landowner.  By 5:45 AM we were settled in a double deer blind.

About four minutes before legal shooting time a deer suddenly snorted at us to our left.  This was surprising because there was no wind, we weren’t making any noise, and we were wearing full camo including mesh facemasks.  We found two does in our binoculars, one bigger than the other.  One or both continued to snort at us intermittently, about 25 yards away in the woods.   It soon became legal shooting time and I had a clear shot at the bigger doe.

But I had a dilemma.  She was on my side of the blind but our primary mission was to get Ron a deer.  For Ron to shoot he would have to lean over me, probably making a lot of noise.  As I mulled over what to do the deer walked off. Read More→

I have twin boys that turned 10 back in November 2002.  We have a annual duck hunt that I go on every year.  I decided to take my boys that year.  So I dropped a bundle at Academy getting them outfitted with two pair of waders, camo insulated hunting jackets (they had out grown their old ones), insulated gloves, and caps. Read More→

It was a great weekend at the lease for me this past weekend (10/8/05 – 10/9/05).  The cold weather really had the deer moving.  I have been feeding corn year round since getting on the lease last season.  I am amazed at the number of deer on our lease.

Saturday morning I had several nice young eight point bucks and fourteen doe visit my feeder.  None of the bucks were over three years old.  As usual, I had a large number of turkeys both Saturday morning and during the evening.  I took a lot of digital pictures of the small eight point bucks while waiting for the big one to show up.  Read More→