SPORTS
The Old Hunter, by Luke Clayton
The old man had just settled into the makeshift wooden ground blind from which he had hunted since the early sixties. Oh, he had ‘doctored’ up the blind many times with sheet metal and plywood but a blind has been in place since he first began hunting the spot many years ago. He’s only missed a couple of opening mornings hunting here, way back in the late sixties when Uncle Sam needed his assistance.
The blind was situated on the back forty, behind the farm house where the old man grew up. Years ago, he was able to purchase the farm from his sisters, after his Dad passed away.
The old man was hunting ‘old school’ the way he had as a boy, no fancy feeders with timers or scent dispensers, he had urinated in a buck scrape on the edge of the field he was hunting well before first light, most younger hunters would never understand the concept of urinating in a buck scrape but the old man learned years ago that the technique was one of the best ways of keeping a rutting buck in the area long enough for a shot. He had learned the trick from his Grandfather who was also a lifelong deer hunter.
The white oaks had produced a bumper crop of acorns this year and the persimmon trees in the field were loaded with
fruit. With a light frost on the ground and no wind, the stage was set for a great morning hunt. The conditions were perfect, the kind of opening days deer hunters dream of!
But things felt a bit different to the old man this opening day. He didn’t have that burning desire of years past to put his tag on a big buck. Oh, he planned to settle the sights of his old lever action thirty-thirty if a big one showed up at the scrape but this morning, he was content to just ‘be there’.
The night before he had stayed up a little late visiting with one of his grandsons who was also hunting on the far side of the property. The two had enjoyed an early morning breakfast of venison and wild pork sausage, biscuits and gravy. Now the old man was getting a little sleepy. The sun was just beginning to top the oaks on the far side of the field and he was getting sleepy, he nodded and dozed off. He was dreaming about a day way back to 1962 when he was a 12 year old kid setting in the exact same spot armed with the same rifle.
In his dream, he could see a young lad setting in the newly build blind, leaning forward with eagle eyes scanning every inch of the field and nearby wood line for a buck. The boy had never killed a deer but he felt hopeful this morning, after all he had hit the center of a metal 5 gallon bucket 5 times with his new rifle, he was ready. Then out of the early morning mist, right on the edge of the woodline came a deer and upon close inspection he could tell it was a buck, a spike buck! With shaking hands, partly from the chilly early morning air and partly adrenaline, he eased his rifle up to the window and settled the sights in the crease behind the buck’s front shoulder.
His dream then fast forwarded him to his early twenties; he was in the same blind with his Grandfather who he had carefully help walk from the truck to the blind. The grandfather’s eyesight was not sharp but with the help of a quality 6 power scope, he could shoot accurately the distance across the field, about 75 yards.
The old man’s dream kept bouncing him through the years, as dreams often do, with snippets of things that have remained hidden in the mind’s memory bank. Next he saw an older, more mature version of himself in his late thirties. The man in the blind was in his prime, clad in a checkered black and red Woolrich jacket, high leather boots and blue jeans. He had driven his brand new Honda Big Red three wheeler to a patch of brush and concealed it and walked to the blind. If he was lucky enough to shoot a buck, he would use the ATV to haul the meat out. The old man had a job that paid good money and he spent some of it on the latest hunting gear, which included the ATV as well as a brand new rifle and top of the line scope. He was hunting with a 300 Winchester magnum now, the old thirty-thirty was back at the house hanging above the fire place which was its home since he was a boy. He had ‘read up’ on the advantages of the new caliber and finally could afford a new rifle.
The old man’s dream was interrupted by the chattering of a fox squirrel in a hickory tree just behind the blind. He was not fully awake nor was he fully asleep when he heard the report of a rifle coming from the far side of his property. Since there were no other hunters in the area, he felt confident that the shot came from his grandson’s rifle, one of those new fangled calibers, something called a Creedmoor or some name like that. Grandson was a crack shot with the rifle topped with a scope that cost more than the old Man’s first pickup. It was a good bet the youngster had a buck on the ground.
The old man cut his hunt short, he just had to know what his grandson had killed, besides the boy might need some advice when field dressing the animal. When the old man finally arrived at his grandson’s blind, he saw him with skinning knife in hand field dressing a fine 10 point buck. The boy was smiling ear to ear and although the old man noticed a few errors the boy was doing with the field dressing process, he remained quiet, giving only praise and congratulations to the young hunter.
Back at camp the two skinned and quartered the buck which weighed a whopping 160 pounds field dressed, by far the heaviest deer taken on the property. The old man could not have been happier had he taken the buck himself. He did ask the boy to place half of one backstrap in a freezer bag. This would be for a celebratory dinner after the evening hunt. The Old man had a special way of cooking thickly cut backstrap in a cast iron skillet with butter and fresh garlic that he had perfected through the years.
After another late night visiting with his grandson and enjoying a very fine venison dinner, the Old Man’s alarm clock jingled at the appointed 5 am. He turned it off and asked the boy in the next room if he wanted to hunt for a doe that morning. The boy replied with a resounding yes and he and his grandfather settled into the old blind just before the break of day. As the old man watched his grandson’s keen eyes scan the area for deer, he though back many, many years when he was about the boy’s age, sitting in the exact spot watching for his first buck. A good memory is said to be one of the biggest blessings of old age and this morning, the old man’s was reliving his past hunts as though he was actually there again, in that same old blind.
Email outdoors writer Luke Clayton through his website www.catfishradio.org.
For the second straight year, Prairie Valley School seventh grader Kai Kutie won the Hotter ‘N Hell 100 youth division bike race in Wichita Falls Aug. 29.
Kutie is involved in all sorts of activities at the school. Look for a feature story on the repeat win in the Sept. 10 Bowie News.
By Luke Clayton
I remember well the first time I fished with guide Tony Parker. It was a cold winter’s day back in the early nineties at Lake Tawakoni. Tony was just getting established as a fishing guide and back then he did a good bit of largemouth bass fishing. On the phone the evening before our trip, we discussed the game plan for fishing the next morning. As I remember our conversation when something like this: “Luke we will fish a blue bird day tomorrow and conditions are definitely not ideal. We’ll fish water about 6 feet deep with Texas rigged worms and I think we’ll do pretty well. These bass have been on a steady shallow water pattern and I think it will hold”. I joined Tony around nine the next morning, after the sun warmed things up a bit. It was still cold with a chilling north breeze. We fished the breakwater that protected a marina and caught a respectable number of chunky pre spawn bass.
Since that first time to fish together years ago, I’ve continued to fish with Tony and follow his career. I have a feeling he could still hold his own as a bass catcher but his bread-and-butter species are hybrid stripers and white bass. He began guiding for these open water schooling species at Tawakoni but then when Lake Jim Chapman (called Lake Cooper by many) opened, Tony was one of the first-probably the first- fishing guide to move his operation to these fertile waters fed by the Sulphur River. Tony was very instrumental in putting Cooper on the map as a destination for anglers to come and enjoy some fast pace catching for hybrids and white bass.
For many years, Tony invited just about every outdoors writer in the state to come fish with him and enjoy some red-hot catching of white bass and later hybrid stripers. For reasons unknown to Tony or anyone else for that matter, the best bite for hybrids and white bass on Cooper has always been mid-day. Right now, mid-day fishing often equates to getting parched by a relentless sun and fishing in 100 degree plus temperatures. Until the weather cools a bit, Tony will be running very early morning trips on Tawakoni where the bite has been very dependable.
FAST FORWARD TO LAST WEEK- My good friend Jeff Rice and I pulled into the parking lot constructed by the Sabine River Authority situated near the south end of the dam just as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon. Tony was sitting in his new guide boat, rigging rods with 1.5 ounce white and chartreuse lead slabs. For many years the old Holiday Marina occupied this spot and my mind backtracked, thinking of all the great
fishing trips that I’ve enjoyed that began at the old marina. The marina site is now covered with several acres of concrete parking, a nice bathroom facility and one of the best boat launching ramps I’ve seen anywhere.
Tony was sitting in his new guide boat, rigging rods with 1.5 ounce white and chartreuse lead slabs. We reminisced a bit about the old marina, but our conversation soon turned to the task at hand, catching some hard fighting and good eating hybrid stripers and jumbo size white bass!
A little pre-fishing instructions was in order. “I’ve been fishing some big schools this week that are on a dependable early morning bite, says Tony. The fish are moving out of deep water onto a big flat that averages about 13 feet deep. Some mornings they are chasing shad to the surface and we can spot the school by the topwater splashes but watching the side imaging sonar is the ticket to staying in the action”. Trolling with a big deep diving plug with small trailer spoons is a good way to catch a quick limit but we’re going to actually fish for them. It’s a lot more fun and I know you old veteran slab chunkers are up to the challenge!” Jeff and I definitely were!
Trolling can be a sure-fire method of putting fish in the boat but casting artificial baits and ‘tricking’ the fish into biting is much more fun. The technique we were using was definitely nothing new to any of us. Make a long cast, hold the rod tip high, contact bottom and crank fast five or six cranks and then let the slab fall to bottom and repeat the process. A big school of fish plotted on the right side of the boat and we quickly boated a couple of chunky hybrid stripers using the tried and proven cast, reel and drop technique. And then Tony pointed to the north and at the same time, cranked the big motor up. “There is a big school breaking the surface a couple hundred yards out to the north, lets motor that direction and then approach with the trolling motor so we won’t spook them.”
At first, I couldn’t spot the surface action and then I caught the rising sun lighting up some of the splashes. This appeared to be a big school and some of the splashes looked as though someone had dropped a bowling ball from an airplane into the water-some big fish were herding shad to the surface and there was no place for the baitfish to go but up in their frantic effort to escape.
The bite was red hot for about fifteen minutes and then the school sounded and move on in pursuit of the baitfish. So went the next couple hours when, we would mark big schools of hybrids and white bass on sonar, enjoy a few minutes of fast catching and then move on to the next concentration of fish. The
Tony plans to continue these early morning trips to Tawakoni for a bit longer, until the heat wave subsides and mid-day fishing is once again comfortable on Lake Cooper. He’s looking
forward to fall and the great fishing it will provide but until then, he’ll continue to chase schooling fish at good old Tawakoni during the cool part of the day. Jeff and I were on our way home with a big cooler of good eating fillets by mid-morning. Who says it’s too hot to fish this time of year!
Guide Tony Parker can be reached at 903-348-1619 week on out outdoor show, “A Sportsmans Life” hosted on Carbon TV www.carbontv.com and YouTube. Catch Luke’s weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” just about wherever podcasts are hosted. Email Luke through his website www.catfishradio.org
County cross country teams had strong showings at the Nocona Invitational Aug. 26.
Saint Jo’s girl’s team won the event, led by Tatum Morman’s 3rd place finish with a time of 13:10. Savannah Hill was 11th in 14:02 with Kaylin Cook 14th in 14:11 and Andrea Sanchez 15th in 14:17. Abby Carter was 22nd with a time of 15:10. Also competing for the Lady Panthers were Kenzie DeWeese with a time of 16:41.
Bellevue’s Mattie Broussard won the race, covering the two miles in 12:09, nearly a minute faster than the 2nd place finisher. Also competing for Bellevue was Riley Kopp, with a time of 15:21, Tessa Gage who ran a 21:11 and Ella Broussard who finished in 22:26.
Nocona runners included Jalena Rodriguez who finished in 16:07, Raemi Sprott in 16:19, Kinlee Hughes in 17:34, Rylee Skinner in 18:00. Prairie Valley was represented by Stephenie Stout who finished strong by passing two runners in the final stretch for a time of 19:16. Gold-Burg was represented by Addison Sheppard with a time of 19:26.
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
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