Lauren Scores a 50

Lauren had her 4th private lesson last night at Austin Archery Country, her instructor had made some adjustments to speed the bow up a bit last week during the lesson, but she complained all the way home that it was too "hard."  Well, last night Roland decided to score her for a baseline and she did amazingly well.  To score, they shoot 5 arrows in 6 different rounds (30 arrows total)  best possible score is a 300.  On her first scoring she had a 265/300, on her second round she scored a 280/300 with 8 Xs!  She will keep practicing, become more consistent and will begin competing in the Basic category shortly; in 2013 she will be 12 then she can compete Intermediate.  Here she is scoring 50 on one of her rounds.



Lake Travis 4/22/2012

Finally got to get out on the boat after 6 months; the low water from the draught kept my marina from launching the boat.  Consequently, I missed the Fall and Winter fishing seasons.  The water temps have come up from the high 50s of the winter to the low 70s; this means fish are beginning their spawn and some of them are hungry.

Anders and I both got out there early Sunday morning and fished until 2:30.  We caught 5 fish in total, but the surprise of the day was to catch 2 nice sized stripers on the umbrella rig at the same time.  I may have had 3 on originally because one jig and leader were completely missing from the rig.  Hopefully the bite will continue long enough to catch a few more.



Hot Springs 2012

Lake Ouachita 2012

For the 3^rd year in a row we made our pilgrimage to Hot Springs, Arkansas for our Easter fishing vacation.  This particular trip, we were elated that our permanent striper guide, Capt. Terry Brodnax, had invited us out for a gratis fishing excursion the day before our scheduled charter.  We met him at the dock in Crystal Falls, same place we fished out of the year before; you know you need to turn into the Lake when you see this sign.

I’m not sure whether the “biten” means ‘bitten’ or ‘biting’ dogs?  I know what automatic shotguns do!

The weather on our first trip was fabulous!  “Clear, Blue, and 22” as we pilots say; fishing wasn’t half bad either.  Capt. Terry had brought along his daughter Alley to assist in boat driving, navigation, and all of the other things Captains need to learn – she did a fantastic job!  We caught 3 really good sized stripers and called it a day around 4PM.

The next morning we met Capt. Terry and Alley back at the pier at 0600.  Traffic was bad with trucks, boats and trailers since they had a tournament going on and everyone was trying to put in at the same time.  Our Captain was already in the water and waiting on us, what a pro!  It was in the 50s, and fog hung low on the water – visibility about 50 yards, the smell of exhaust fumes from the boats reminded me of the JP-8 burning on the flight line – I digress.  It didn’t take long to get the lines wet, and after a few passes we were “Fish On!” 

Go here to see a short clip in Full HD:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ywx-QK7sQ

We trolled past another guide boat in the vicinity that was using planers and shad and about 8 dudes on her, never saw them pull in one fish….but they saw us pull in about 6 or 7!  We have really loved the time spent in Arkansas and we always talk about the next year’s trip all the way home.  Terry, thanks so much for making our vacations memorable!

Spring Turkey - After Action Report

Our good friend Mike wanted to give an update on their turkey hunting adventure to Gurra Ranch some time ago, however, my computer suffered a hard drive crash and that put me behind with photos, emails, and postings.  Below are excerpts from Mike’s report...

“John, his son Kyle, my daughter Jessica and I had a fantastic time at Ranch Gurra (RG) as anticipated - and as John and I would expect as always because this is just such a totally awesome place.  Shot some Pdogs on the way down and after getting to RG Tuesday evening and setting camp in the dark (because we just can't seem to have it any other way) we had some chow, a drink or two and after the kids went to bed we stayed up until the skies opened up around 1130hrs.” 

“Morning one at RG we all got some much needed sleep and were awakened by at least three gobblers not far from camp.  Since we hadn't set the blinds yet, we made coffee and broke out the calls.  John would call using his box call and they would answer.  I would blurt out a call with mouth reed and they would answer.  We were pretty damn smitten with ourselves.  The turkey situation was looking good and we figured the locals thought some new girls were in town and were pretty smitten as well.”

“John set his blind near the location that Ron shot his gobbler and I set up on the 100 yd range.  In the late afternoon, Jess and I headed out to the skybox feeder to the same location that Alpar drilled his hog at the week before.  The evening went by as most evenings camp feeder hunting do - lots of conversation and good company, camp barbeque, a few nearby grunts and snorts and of course, the Brother's Labrot and Graham and Mr. Tito stopped by.

 

“NEVER GET OUT OF THE BLIND”

“Morning two brought the gobblers out in force again as we all sat in our blinds calling and competing for their attention.   John had one intercepted until he got spooked and went screaming by the boys and their decoys headed southwest towards the canyon.  At that time I was calling and receiving from two gobblers - one was the gobbler John was trying to blast, and one that was up towards windy point.  The one that went running by John (unknown to me at the time) went silent for awhile but the other one to our West was still returning calls, just not getting any closer.  After about 20 minutes, I sent out a call and a gobbler (the one John had a bead on) was right behind us, I think by Ron's feeder and he was loud.  I would call, and he would get closer.  Then it seemed like he just stopped - but he kept answering.  This went on for 30 minutes or so and I began to reason with myself that he wouldn't climb up the steep hill from Ron's feeder to the flat where I was to see my decoys.  A fateful decision was made to get out of the blind, and sneak over to Ron's tree stand so I could stalk him.  Bad move.  He was closer than I thought.  We got out of the blind, walked five paces to the South and I saw him - and he saw me.  The last thing I saw was his ass headed east - fast. Aw hell, he was a BIG bird too.  My heart sank, my head dropped, I uttered a few choice words that a truck driver would be proud of and went back to the blind hoping to get the windy point bird to start up again.”

WHOOOOF, HUUUFFF

".....we counted four hogs feeding voraciously around the camp feeder.  They could have cared less that they were being targeted.....or that we were there.....they were way too busy vacuuming up all the corn and stinky stuff we baited for them.  I called out the order of battle - John and I would each pick a hog at opposite ends of the feeder corral and Kyle would pick a hog within his dad's laser collimator broadcast - but between John and me.  The call would be:  "Standby - three - two - one - shoot on zero".  As soon as all of us had our targets and I confirmed that the boys were ready, the safeties came off and I started the call:  "Standby…..three…....two........one"  .....BOOM.  A perfectly executed three-round report.  No pigs on the ground.  That was not good.  We waited the 15 and all of us walked up to the feeder corral.  No pigs.  Nothing but silence and the remains of what they didn't eat.  You could cut the dejection with a knife.    Morning three was business as usual, Jess and I - on a hunch - decided to go back to camp by way of the camp feeder to re-inspect the feeder corral more closely for what food was left over in case we needed to re-bait,  blood or any other signs of carnage.  Of course, Jess spotted the blood first.  Sure enough - she saw blood – a lot of blood in fact right at the spot where my pig was last seen before the shot.  We decided not to track the pig on our own so we went back to camp and told the boys what we found.  John got his AR to back us up and we went to go find the pig.   We tracked the steady stream of blood about 15-20 yards to the northwest and sure enough there she was.  She had expired under a tree, hit in the shoulder (gristle plate) and had bled out quickly, probably on the run.  The entrance wound looked like she had been hit by a 50cal.  That 168 grain AMAX hand load sure did its job in grand fashion.  



Mike, thanks for the great report.  Adventures like this always make the drive from Colorado a bit more enjoyable going back!  Nice piece, nice pig!