I've been a little off-topic on my last few posts. Let's get back to the foundation of "Rob's Hunting Journal".
I've always been a fan of fine shotguns, although I've never had the funds to purchase a really nice one. I've admired them in magazines, on the internet, and in person inside the Cabela's Gun Library. I'm not talking about the ones you see behind the counter at the Wal-Mart sporting goods or even behind the "regular" gun counter at Cabela's. I'm talking about the ones they have locked up in glass cases that you have to make an appointment to purchase.
I'm especially fond of the over/under shotguns used for upland game hunting. They are a thing of beauty, especially when they are embellished with some custom engraving on the receiver and the stock and forend are made of exotic wood. I found one on the internet this evening that looks exactly like what I would want my custom shotgun to look like.
This is a custom Krieghoff K-80 Sporter with game scenes engraved on both sides. The right side features an English Pointer bird dog with a flushing covey of bob-white quail. The left side depicts another English Pointer with a pair of pheasants flushing. It features a high grade wood with a beautiful, dark grain. Price tag: $22,000.
In one week, Steph and I will celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. We were married on March 16, 2002. I can't say I've been the best husband over the past seven years, but I can say I've been a blessed husband over those seven years. Steph, thank you for being a wonderful wife and loving mother. I love you!
Here are a few pictures from along the way: Engagement & Wedding Before the Girls Getting our picture made with "The Boys from Oklahoma" - Cross Canadian Ragweed (I think Steph threw away my blue shirt with the roses embroidered on it because I can't find it anywhere. Shirts like that never go out of style!) Katy's Arrival Young Parents At a Ranger's Game A Couple Years Ago Keelie's Birth The Joys of Our Lives Thanks for the memories and I hope there are many more yet to come!
I know this is my hunting journal, but I'm gonna veer off-topic for a change. After all, we are kinda in the hunting off-season anyway.
I noticed there was a special on PBS this evening called "Faded Glory: The Von Erich Story". I've never been a huge wrestling fan but have always been intrigued by its popularity and by the athleticism of some of the wrestlers. When I think of wrestling, I immediately think of the Von Erich's. They are probably the most athletic of all professional wrestlers. And, they grew up here in the local area so I was even more interested to learn about their lives. I had seen portions of this show before so I thought I would tune in and see if I could catch the rest of it. I tuned in late so I didn't get to watch the whole thing but I did find it interesting.
First of all, I learned that the funeral for David Von Erich was held at our church, First Baptist Denton, which I did not know before.
I also learned that Fritz Von Erich (the Daddy) held the Conference record for throwing the discus at SMU. Kerry Von Erich was also a world-class discus thrower and competed for the University of Houston. He was scheduled to compete in the Olympics, but that was the year that Jimmy Carter boycotted the Olympics due to political reasons and the USA didn't compete. Kevin Von Erich spoke about this in the TV show and I really liked his comment. He said, "I don't know if Jimmy Carter has ever worn a jock in his life, but he really messed up some people's lives when he boycotted the Olympics."
Another interesting fact that I already knew (but that a lot of people don't realize) was that Kerry Von Erich had a motorcycle accident northwest of Lake Dallas and injured his foot so bad that he had to have about half of it amputated. He spent the last several years of his career wrestling on a prosthetic foot and nobody knew about it. Just goes to show how athletic he actually was.
I have a coworker who has worked at our office at Lewisville Lake since the early '80's and he has told me several stories about the Von Erich boys and how they used to hang out around the lake. One day he showed me the house they grew up in and the location where they found Mike Von Erich's car when he committed suicide near the lake.
Oh, and there last name was actually Adkisson.
Like I said, I've never been a big wrestling fan, but I thought this was interesting. I do remember going to watch one of the Von Erich's wrestle in person when I was about 5 years old at the Van Alstyne High School football stadium. I don't remember which of the brothers it was - all I remember is one of the "bad guys" spitting into the audience when people were trying to get autographs.
Here is a youtube video recap of the show I watched.
I can tie this to hunting after all. I will leave you with this picture. This is from the bunkhouse at the deer lease this past season. This was Friday Night Smack Down featuring "The Irish Assassin", "Mad Dog Magee", and an unidentified masked man thought to be "The Mysterious, Crazy Ernest T. Bass."
I haven't had much to post on my blog since hunting season ended. Here are a couple more pictures from our last duck hunt that Lee took. This was a picture of a Mallard pair that I took with Steph's new camera at the park in Sherman when we went to visit my parents a few weeks ago. Makes me wish I had a telephoto lens. Click on it to open it up full size. Two weekends ago I attended a free taxidermy seminar that was being given at the Layland Museum in Cleburne, Texas. It was an all day event hosted by Jonathan Stanley of Harlequin Taxidermy. He went through the step-by-step process of mounting a bird, from skinning to finishing. He mounted this Cinnamon Teal as the example. These pictures I took don't do it justice - it looked really good. Check out some of his work at http://www.harlequintaxidermy.com/. I learned a lot and have ordered some supplies to try to give this a shot myself. Last Saturday, my Dad, Katy and I drove out to the lease to fill the free-choice protein feeder. It was completely empty. I refilled it and hopefully will have some game camera pictures to post in the next few months. I checked my trail camera and it had a few pictures on it but nothing too interesting to look at. Katy had a blast and she got to see four tiny piglets while we were there. We were walking down the trail to my Dad's stand, Katy was on Paw-Paw's shoulders and I decided to veer off the trail to explore a little bit (with the hopes of finding a recently dropped antler) and I noticed something moving about 10 feet in front of me. At first I thought it was a rabbit, but then I noticed it was a piglet. Then I noticed three more and they were all scurrying in the direction of my Dad and Katy. The piglets couldn't have weighed more than 7 or 8 pounds each. There were a couple brown ones and a couple black and white spotted ones. They ended up running by my Dad and Katy at about 15 yards away so Katy got a good look at them. As soon as I saw that first one I figured the sow would be nearby but I never saw her. My Dad and I were wishing we would have been carrying a shotgun so we could have gotten one to cook whole. Yeah, that's right, I said it, I wanted to eat one of 'em. They looked mighty tasty! If you don't like it, get off my blog page you big dope!
This past weekend was spent bird hunting at the lease with Lee and Shane. We primarily focused on ducks, but also managed to get a quail hunt in on Saturday.
The first morning we got an early start and had our decoys set up in our favorite spot well before legal shooting hours, which happened to be at 7:07 Saturday morning. The waterbody we were hunting is surrounded almost entirely by cattails and is a hotspot for ducks and teal to roost on, so most of the ducks take off and leave before legal shooting light or come back late in the evening after sunset. Just as we expected, several large groups of ducks - probably 80 to 100 in all - took off about 10 minutes before legal shooting hours. We did have several other groups of ducks come in throughout the morning and bagged a total of seven. This was Shane's first duck hunt ever, so we set him up in a prime spot to try to make sure he got plenty of shots. It didn't take him long to get his first duck. He dropped the first one that came in - a very pretty drake Wigeon. Even after my dog retrieved the bird it was still in really good shape, so Shane decided he is going to have it mounted. Scooter did an excellent job retrieving the ducks.
After duck hunting, we checked the status of our protein feeder in the deer sanctuary and got the game camera so we could view the most recent activity at the feeder. The deer have finally begun to hit the protein and the best buck that was seen this season is one of the most frequent visitors. I can't wait to see how his antlers develop this spring and summer.
Just before lunch we decided to walk through the pasture with my birddog to see if we could find a covey of quail. We stumbled across one covey and then chased the singles after the birds scattered from the initial covey rise. I was able to knock down one bird and Sioux retrieved it for me. Saturday evening we went back to our duck hunting spot and got three more birds. Lee got the trophy bird of the weekend, a beautiful drake Pintail. It was Lee's first Pintail, so he too is going to have this bird mounted. After the evening hunt we set up on the side of a ridge where we would have a good vantage point to try to call in some predators. After four series of calling with a jack rabbit in distress mouth call, I was able to lure in a grey fox. Sunday morning's hunt ended up being really slow. We only had one bird come in, a green-winged teal that Shane was able to bring down. So we ended up with a total of eleven for the weekend.
Another highlight of the weekend was the double-meat double-cheese burger at Herd Hamburger (est. 1916) in Jacksboro. If you ever pass through Jacksboro I highly recommend stopping by and trying one.
“A peculiar virtue in wildlife ethics is that the hunter ordinarily has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than by a mob of onlookers.” - Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac
SYC Iowa
Check out this ministry that shares the love of Jesus Christ to physically challenged youth.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Romans 3:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:13
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:9-10
About Me
I am 31 years old and have been happily married to Steph for 8 years. We have 2 beautiful daughters, Katy who is 6 and Keelie who is 3.
I love being outdoors and taking in God's creation. I love hunting and anything involved with it. I am especially interested in habitat and wildlife management, and have recently started building my own game cameras. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Wildlife Management and spent the first several years of my career working as a Park Ranger.
I am blessed to have a Daddy who taught me how to hunt and fish as a kid. Hunting with my dad has always been something special that we have shared over the years and I hope the memories continue to grow.
I was also taught alot about the outdoors from my late Grandaddy, Wayne Watson, who was an avid quail hunter that loved bird dogs. I attribute most of what I know about shotgunning to my uncle, Robert Watson, who is the best wingshooter I know.
Most importantly, I believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, that he was buried and rose again on the third day, and that a personal relationship with Him is the only way to have eternal life in Heaven.
I love the game of baseball - it is the greatest sport of all time, but the likes of Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez have tainted the sport. I think the spitball should be made legal again.
I am a firm believer that Garth Brooks single-handedly ruined country music. I'd like to horse-whip him.
I am passionate about Blue Bell Ice Cream. I simply refuse to eat any other brand. Try it and you'll know why.
I love to drink coffee, but you won't find me in a Starbucks. I think it is the epitome of America's over-indulgence.
These people, in no particular order, have each had a significant role influencing me when it comes to hunting, fishing, and the outdoors in general. To each of them, I am truly thankful.
Scott Jordan - Daddy started taking me hunting and fishing with him at about the age of 5 or 6. One of my earliest hunting memories is of opening day of dove season in about 1985. I was only 6 years old, not big enough to actually hunt, but I remember vividly that day being one for the ages. It was steadily raining all day, and we were hunting west of Gunter, Texas in a maize field that was full of round bales, and I got to retrieve the birds. My Dad and my Uncle Robert will still tell you to this day that there were more birds that day than they have ever seen.
Wayne Watson - Grandaddy's eyesight had started to fail by the time I was old enough to hunt, so we never actually got to hunt together. He is the one who taught me how to use open sights on a rifle. I remember him teaching me how to make the front sight sit right on top of the back sight, and to hold my breath while I squeezed the trigger. He always said that by squeezing the trigger instead of jerking, I wouldn't know exactly when the gun would fire, so I would be more accurate. Grandaddy passed away on January 1, 1997.
Robert Watson - I've always wanted to be able to shoot as good as Uncle Robert. He is the best wingshooter I know, and he shoots competitively in a skeet/trap league. Anytime someone compliments me on my shotgunning, I think, man, if they could only see my uncle shoot, they wouldn't think I was any good. He has given me lots of pointers and I always enjoy when I get to go to the skeet range with him. We have bird hunted together quite a bit over the years. When I was about 10 or 11, my Uncle took me and my Dad to his deer lease with him in central Texas. An incident happened on that trip that opened my eyes to the importance of firearm safety, and I will never forget it.
Dr. Tim Patton- This was one of my college professors and advisor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. I learned more about wildlife and fisheries from his lectures and field trips than anywhere else. He encouraged me to apply for the summer Park Ranger position at Lake Texoma, which eventually led to my career with the Corps of Engineers. Some of my favorite college memories are of field trips with Dr. Patton to trap fish in some of the streams of southeastern Oklahoma.
Kenyon Wood - Mr. Wood was my Ag teacher in high school. During my Junior year he taught a wildlife management class, which is where I completed the Texas Hunter's Education Course and the Boater's Education Course. He took us on field trips to shoot skeet and archery equipment, to fish, and to the TPWD Wildlife Expo in Austin. Mr. Wood passed away during the summer between my Junior and Senior year of a heart defect. I couldn't bring myself to take Ag my Senior year without him there.
Steve Hollensed - Mr. Hollensed was my science teacher in high school. He also assisted Mr. Wood with the wildlife management class. Mr. Hollensed was an avid bass fisherman. He taught us how to make our own lures and to tie different kinds of fishing knots. He took us on a field trip to Lake Ray Roberts to watch the TPWD biologists electroshock fish to take sample data. That was probably the first time I realized I wanted to have a job involving the outdoors and wildlife. The last time I saw Mr. Hollensed I told him that I was a Park Ranger at Lavon Lake and I could tell that he was proud of what I had done and that he had impacted the life of one of his students.
Denny Somers - Denny is a longtime family friend who lives in northwest Iowa. My Dad and I have pheasant hunted with Denny every year since I was 16 years old. Denny and his wife Kathy are very generous people and are an integral part of a ministry that spreads the love of Jesus Christ to physically challenged youth by providing them a means to overcome their disability through hunting. Denny's place is a haven for wildlife and I enjoy the trip every year. He is also an avid deer hunter and harvested a deer in 2001 with his bow that scored in the high 170's.
Carl Davis - Carl was a member of our church growing up and he always gave my Dad and I an open invitation to hunt on his land. When I was 12 or 13 years old, he always made me feel like I was the best shot in the field by complimenting me in front of the rest of the group. It made a lasting impression on me, and I hope to be able to pass that on to another youngster some day. He also bought one of my showpigs my Freshman year, and then turned around and gave it right back to me. Carl was a hardworking painter and he passed away at a very young age when I was a Senior in high school.
Mark and Terry Drury - I've never actually met these guys, but they are brothers who have a hunting show called "Wildlife Obsession" on the Outdoor Channel. Their show, which happens to be my favorite, is more than just about shooting a deer. They are primarily bowhunters that explain the ins and outs of deer hunting and talk about different aspects of the sport that most people don't consider, like why they choose specific stand locations, how to effectively use food plots, and other informative tips. I've learned quite a bit about bowhunting from watching these guys. They also host another show called "Dream Season" where teams of amateur hunters compete by videoing their hunts in an effort to become part of the Drury Outdoors team.
Ben Jezek - Ben was a friend of mine growing up who had his own boat in high school. Neither one of us played football our Senior year and spent many hours on Lake Ray Roberts while our friends were at football practice. Ben taught me how to use a Carolina rig to fish for bass. On one trip with Ben to Ray Roberts, I caught a bass that weighed about 8 pounds. I got it mounted and still have it on my wall today. Ben knew Lake Ray Roberts like the back of his hand, especially where the humps and brushpiles were, and he could put you on fish just about every trip.
