Uvalde Area

I got to Go with a friend from College Station to the Uvalde Area. Since my camera was disfunctional we were able to cause the demise of 4 whitetails over the weekend. I was allowed to shoot only ladies but the bucks in that part of the world grow antlers of amazing proportion. I sent a lot of the meat to Snook to be made into Summer Sausage

Sausage Party 0-10

So we loaded up meat, a lot of meat…(and I mean A LOT OF MEAT, the bed of Alan’s truck was nearly smooth level with bags of pig, deer, and antelopes) and pointed the truck north to Muenster to join the grind.



We arrived at about 1 in the AM on Friday morning, grabbed a frosty drink, and set to work. We ran knives and the grinder till sunup then took a brief siesta. We got back amongst the meat by 9Am. We were dragging our tails till the drink began to set in then progress set into high gear. There were several 2nd winds that set in through the day, night and wee hours of the morning.



Woody had a horrible plan at around 2 that morning when everyone’s eyes were drooping: “Lets finish”. It soon became our battle cry as we rallied around that bastard and wrapped up a few hours later. We crawled into our fart sacks, well spent, and got 2-3 hours of hard sleep.

With all the heavy lifting accomplished the night before we set it in our minds to get proper stewed and sideways for Saturday. The weather cooperated with us and made for a beautiful day of washers and beers.



All we had to worry about meat wise was to make 100# of summer sausage and an additional 30ish# of liver & heart sausage (which turned out better than it initially looked like it might. Once that was complete, we all got steady in our chairs and began to sample whiskey and tell tails; from there it rose into a high and wide plateau of good times for several hours. Somehow it eventually went downhill, actually, there was no discernable “downhill” to it.

Somewhere around the time Caleb decided to put on his ‘cloak of invisibility’ and pass out while telling a story, there was an arm wrestling contest (in which the boy who boastfully stated he could whip us all, promptly lost to us all),an impromptu solo washers game was started in the house while we were trying to pass out which eventually ended when the boy threw a handful of washers into Alan’s head, this resulted in Alan punched someone in the face, some headlocks and a ruckus ensued and the boy tried to steal Aaron’s truck, he was corralled by a half naked Woody and given a stern talking to. Somewhere around that time this narrators eyelids got the best of him. We woke to learn the boy went to jail, a first for our annual event.



All told we made a bit over 1660lbs of sausage, enjoyed a few drinks. Good times, the 1 TON marker still stands beyond our reach and we may just let it remain as an unattainable goal (for now). Good times.

Bronte, TX F#*% Yea!

Bronte was a success again this year. We braved single digit temps and stayed warm with a few nips of whiskey. Over the course of 2 days we managed to knock down 21 deer.

year in review

2009 is gone, 2010 has only produced 2 pigs so far. However there are some events from the last week of 2009 that have not made the page to date. Thought I might take a moment to recap:

You remember the story of "Puss n Boots", there is a lesser known sequel


The night vision rifle had a few successful outtings


There were actually a few trips out with the Big Bad Wolf where the camera was left behind. None the less the outcome was the same, it huffed and puffed and blew their guts out


Alan got stuck


I got stuck getting Alan unstuck then got Alan unstuck once I got unstuck


Got another pig


and we learned that pigs like porn as much as they like corn.


Steve and I had a quick New Years Day outting that supplied no pork but Steve managed to save the day by taking the first bunny of 2010,and finally the first pigs of 2010.


Hope 2010 is a good year for the page!

All Keyed up

So me and preg-zilla decided we needed to step out and get away from the rat race before this baby comes out and makes grownups out of us. So we got tickets and jumped a flight to the Keys to catch up on some fishin’, him & her style.

We rented a little place on Marathon Key on a canal. We fished our little canal every day and caught quite a few species of grunts, snappers, and pin fish up to 15” and about 1.5lbs, prolly the biggest the world has ever known. Scooter also commented that her choice in ‘knocked-up swimming outfits’ made her look almost exactly like an unripe coconut. But she looks good with a full stringer.


In the evenings we had a 5 ft nurse shark that would cruise by and pick up the scraps from our cleaning table. One night I put the hook to her but she broke the line after about a 5 minute tussle.

We got a charter to take the two of us out after a variety of fish in the most beautiful water you ever saw. We fished cuts and flats, huge bowls over 20ft deep, and channels that ran like rivers. We soaked pinfish for tarpon but got none. We saw them roll and saw someone on another boat jump a nice 5 or 6 footer but none for us. We caught a bunch of cero mackerel, tallow tail & mangrove snapper, specs, and jacks. It wasn’t fish on every cast, but when we drifted over the grassy holes it was.

Preggo flats-jacked this nice little jack and also caught a good spec and snapper dinner for us.




There was also another trip out that involved a bargain basement charter, a leaky work boat, a captain with a pretty substantial case of Tourette’s syndrome, some serious foot stomping and yelling of the phrase ‘BONK’, pregnant woman getting violently seasick, several 10-11 inch yellow tail snapper, and two other old Dicks. Sorry no pictures of the wife throwing up on the chum bag. But that is a story better told than typed. Brian, come to TX and I’ll tell you all about it.

As a bonus picture, I submit this:

9 down and 32 out of the pool

We had another good run at it last night. Put 9 good pigs in the cooler and took another 23 out of the gene pool. We had 3 sows full of kittens.


Pulled up to one of the big traps to find a full house of 6; all running around 150lbs. Loaded them up and ran out to Farmer Joe’s #1 and collected another nice 80lb piggy who had somehow managed to lock himself up in an unset trap. Caleb learned how to use a single action pistol and dispatched him. It was a fun drag to get that dude back to the truck across a few hundred yards of sloppy field. Loaded up and off the Joe’s #2 to have a beer on the tractor and toast the sundown. This somehow seems to draw the piggies in.

Soon the shapes started forming on the edge of the pasture at the base of the tree line and they became pigs. Close to two dozen, we put to the stalk and closed the distance to about 150yds. Caleb informed me he was relying on me to ‘take a right and a left’ and we would be in the double digits. He had the count and we were loosing light fast. Colors were still visible but only for a few more seconds. The shots broke and so did the sounder; I regained the crosshairs and put down another…done my part to put us to 10…unfortunately Caleb didn’t. No problem there, 9 pigs are enough to clean on a Monday night.

VA spike

Went hunting with my brother on our family property in the mountains of central VA. We decided it was time to get serious about killing animals out there. I shot this spike from a tree stand and our neighbor helped us with the skinning and butchering.

When are you rednecks going to come visit. You can hunt squirrels, deer, turkeys and black bears.

Had a bit of 'Chris Luck' too

Got a buggun last night, out at Farmer Joes #1. Caleb and I took off to go take a lookie see what the pigs were up to and found this dude. Caleb spotted him working his way through the field towards a tree line we were walking. I gave Caleb the go and he took the offhand shot as the pig came into the clearing at about 170-180yds out and I followed up (but I didn’t need to). The clearing was about 10ft wide and made for some quick shooting. Piggy crossed the tree line and went about 10-12 yds and piled up. . Two good lung shots. This dude was in good condition and a heavy boy, estimated weight of 270-280#. This adds to the nice 100lber we got last week so we are gearing up for the grind.

Easy Limit: 11-15-2009

I had a bit of Chris luck today. On the water at 8:00am and had a full limit by 8:10am.

Dungeness crab season opened last weekend but that also coincided with 20' swell so this weekend was the real opener. I was paddling out of the harbor with my crab traps on deck when I came across a large boat that was sorting its catch. Turns out that the crew of three had four limits and they would rather give away crab than release them. I tossed my gunny sack to them and they filled it up with big Dungies.

Good to See Jeff with His Toes in the Sand

Saturday Oct 24th, Matagorda Beach


Jeff called me from Washington and said he wanted to go Fishing in Matagorda. I couldn't possibly pass up the opportunity to fish with him, Santos and Matt. I loaded up the automobile and grabbed Evan out of bed about 5:30am and headed for the sand.
Photographic evidence that I do still know how to find the gulf of mexico.


The first fish pulled onto the sand was this extra slimy Gafftop (one of two caught), Evan thought he looked hungry so before sending him back into the surf he shared some of his potato chips.



The water was a bit 'brisk' so we used the big rods, wading out to the first bar rather than wading out to the second bar.


Evan hooked up this double, landing one of the four sand trout we caught along with the first Atlantic Bluefish I have ever laid my hands on.



Evan and I left shortly after eating our sausages, cheese and tortillas but the rest of the guys hung out over night and hooked a couple of undersized redfish