SPORTS
No powder but plenty of air
By Luke Clayton
It’s been a great week and I’ve been blessed to spend time with fine friends that share my love of the outdoors. For those of us that love to hunt, this is most definitely ‘our’ time of year. The weather is cooling although not quite as quickly as most of us would like, seems like summer has lingered longer than I can remember this fall.
I devoted this week to hunting whitetail here in northeast Texas where I live and oryx in southeastern Oklahoma at the Choctaw Hunting Lodge, more about both those hunts in a bit. Some folks ask why I like to hunt with air rifles, and I usually reply it’s the same reason I like hunting with muzzleloaders, bows and centerfire rifles, it’s something new that I enjoyed learning about and putting to use in the field. Each weapon comes with its own set of challenges, limitations and advantages.
Airforce Airguns came out with the first production big bore air rifle about a decade ago. I was fortunate to test one of the first production models of The Texan, a .45 caliber solidly built rifle that has gained recognition as one of the best hunting rifles powered by compressed air on the market. The company now has a new powerhouse air rifle, the Tex Rex which is 51 caliber that pressures up to 4,500 PSI.
It takes a lot of pressure to push a big 388 grain slug down the barrel and after a bunch of pre hunt shooting, I found it to be a very effective hunting rifle for any game I might be hunting and this including the Oryx, which is a big, heavy bones very tasty antelope.
After spending time at the range with my new rifle topped with an ATN X Sight digital scope, I felt totally comfortable shooting game out to 75 yards. The rifle has taken a lot of deer out to 100 yards and a bit beyond but 75 yards is my self-imposed limitation with an air rifle. Old habits are hard to break. After hunting with the rifle and seeing how effective it is I’m planning to sight it in at 100 yards.
WHITETAIL FIRST I have some great friends, Edgar Cotton and his son David in Kaufman County where I live that own some prime whitetail deer hunting land. Our mutual friend Larry Weishuhn helps them manage the property and it’s currently under a managed lands program where the numbers of doe and bucks that need to be harvested is set each year. My goal was to possibly take one of the mature management bucks with the Tex Rex or possibly a heavy doe for the freezer.
David dropped me off at an elevated blind overlooking a food plot where I had hunted the past couple years. Here I used my CVA 50 caliber Optima last year to take a heavy horned old management buck. On this recent hunt, I was armed with the 51 caliber pressured with air, loaded with a 388-grain hollow point slug.
There was little deer activity until the last thirty minute of legal shooting light then a young eight point eased out onto the field to nibble on the green shoots, obviously wanting a little ‘salad’ to go with the acorns I am sure he had been feeding on. He came out of a heavy stand of oaks that had a bumper crop this year.
The young buck soon moved on and shortly 6 doe eased out of the same stand of oaks. They were on the far side of the field nibbling on the green shoots and it appeared they weren’t going to get far from the cover of the woods.
I settled the crosshairs on a fat doe just as the herd began to feed back toward the cover, the distance was 72 yards. At the report of the air rifle, which by the way not quite like most people think. A blast of air pressured to 4,500 does produce a notable report. I heard the thump of the bullet and felt confident with the shot. I watched the doe disappear into the heaviest cover and as most hunters do, I began to doubt my shot.
I found no obvious sign of a hit but scoured the nearby woods for the deer. I simply could not find it in the heavy cover. This called for more boots on the ground and our friend William Nixon walked upon the deer in some very dense brush surrounded by broom sedge. The deer went about 65 yards, I’ve tracked many deer shot with centerfires that far and farther.
ON TO ORYX I’ve always been fascinated by Scimitar-horned Oryx and recently had the chance to hunt them. I wasn’t successful in my short hunt at the Choctaw Lodge in southeast Oklahoma owned by the Choctaw Nation and managed by Dusty Vickrey and his wife Nacolh but I plan to return soon and give it another try. These big antelope were once endangered but now their numbers are high thanks to good management here in the US They have even been reintroduced to their native land in north Africa.
My hunt was for a non-trophy oryx, one with either a broken horn or possibly one with a horn that had been damaged. There were several such animals in the herd. I was hunting a feeder situated in some relatively open woods on the side of a hill. Oryx were not patterned to hit the feeder early morning and later afternoon like deer, they are subject to show up anytime throughout the day.
My friend Larry Weishuhn and I settled in before daylight and set until mid-morning watching whitetail deer and turkey but never a sigh of those big, beautiful antelope with long spiral horns. Dusty arrived and asked if we wanted to do a bit of still hunting and hopefully slip up within shooting range. We were all in but soon found there are easier things to do than get close to a wary herd of oryx.
We did locate a herd of about ten animals. One lone oryx might not be so hard to hunt but ten noses and twenty eyeballs from these warm animals made it difficult to get an ethical shot. We were hunting specific animals and they always managed to be either in the middle of the herd or be in front of another animal. I had commitments at home and had to leave after the mid-day hunt, vowing to return at the next opportunity for another attempt to fulfill a long-time dream.
FINE DINING Nacolh is an excellent cook, one of the best I know, and she has what I kidding call her ‘signature dish’. She makes a hamburger steak from ground meat with gravy that is delectable. This time she used ground oryx to prepare the dish and words are insufficient to describe just how tasty it was.
Oryx meat is absolutely better than the finest beef I’ve eaten and even better than bison which I used to consider one of the most flavorful of all. Now I am really focused on taking an oryx, can’t wait until I again make my way to that beautiful mountain country of southeast Oklahoma. By the way, Dusty makes a mighty fine pot of stewed turnips, but that is an entirely different story.
This past week found your outdoor scribe doing some rather mundane things such as yard work, vegetable gardening and repairs around the old cabin. Oh, I also wrapped up a couple of magazine articles. I always enjoy sharing my adventures with all of you in this column but to be perfectly honest, not nearly as much as my ‘field work’ hunting and fishing which is an iatrical part of any good outdoor column. If you’re like me, you much prefer reading about an adventure that you can also partake.
I am far more comfortable telling you about an outdoor experience I had firsthand knowledge of rather than the reporting part of my job as an outdoor communicator. So, this week, I’d do a bit of ‘reporting’ and share some planned adventures I have scheduled for the next couple weeks. By the time you’re reading this, I will have already been in the woods in quest of a fat ‘eater’ hog and probably have some freshly caught blue catfish fillets in the freezer, details will follow in the next couple of weeks.
I’ll kick things off early in the week heading down to my friend Jeff Rice’s Buck and Bass Ranch located on the upper end of Lake Fork. Jeff produces our weekly TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” which airs on Carbon TV and YouTube. Our plan is to film a segment of our show on stalking wild hogs. It will be a challenge to capture the shot with all the thick grown spring vegetation. It could happen fast and require a fast shot. We will be breaking in my CVA Cascade scout rifle in 308 caliber. This short barrel little rifle is light and easy to handle in thick cover, ideal for this type of hunting. Our plan is to hit the woods during the last couple hours of daylight and ease along the trails, watching and especially listening for hogs. Wild porkers are vocal critters and it’s common to hear them before seeing them. We will play the wind and attempt to get downwind and then close the distance for a shot but you can never guess how a hog hunt will unfold. Wild pork or not, Jeff and I always have a great time together and I plan to bring a side of wild pork ribs already slow smoked and covered in brown sugar and BBQ sauce with a side of camp baked beans!
After a tasty dinner we plan to get a good night’s sleep and head out the next morning for a planned fishing trip with guide David Hanson at Lake Tawakoni. Both channel and blue catfish are on a very good bite right but it’s hard to pass up those snow white blue catfish fillets when the bite is good. David is, to my knowledge, the most veteran catfish guide on the lake and became friends close to a quarter-century ago when we first began fishing
together. The plan is to use freshy cut shad in shallow water and target eater size blues weighing between 2 and about 10 pounds but as every catfish angler knows, it’s always possible to connect with a big trophy size blue when fishing Tawakoni.
Next week, I plan to join my long-time friend J.C. McCollough on the Red River below the Texoma dam. I’ve been fishing and hunting with J.C. for many years and look forward to getting with him again. I would describe this to catching big catfish in a barrel but in this case the deep holes in the river are comprised of several acres. The water level in the river below Texoma are dictated by the water release at the dam by the Corp of Engineers. When there is a current in the river, fish move upstream to feed on baitfish coming through the dam. When the water recedes, they fish move into the deeper holes where baitfish also seek refuge from the falling water. Catching will be fast paced with the chance to connect with some big fish as well as limits of “eater” size fish. We’ll be rigging with big live gizzard shad fished weightless on a free line, using medium spinning gear. The bigger fish will often nail the frisky live shad and the fresh cut bait is a sure way to connect with lots of smaller fish. There is something very exciting about fishing big live baits on a slack line. One minute your bait will be darting around and you will occasionally feel it taking up slack and the next when a big blue catfish grabs the bait, the rod will bow and the fight will be on. There is usually no ‘setting the hook’, by the time you feel the fish, it will already be hooked and making a strong run to the nearest submerged brush. Your job will be to keep the drag set just enough to keep pressure on the fish but not so much as to cause the line to break.
J.C. uses his airboat to access these deeper holes because of the very shallow water. While it’s not impossible to portage a kayak or small boat in the river, it often requires a few miles travel to get to these deep holes, this is best accomplished by experienced kayakers with plenty of endurance. There was a time when I was game for this type fishing but I much prefer to do my river fishing these days from a boat designed to negotiate the shallow waters.
Squirrel season is underway in many of the east Texas counties and there’s some pretty good fox squirrel hunting here close to home in Kaufman county and I’ve been thinking about how tasty a big skillet of smothered squirrel with rice, gravy and biscuits would be. Bream are on the beds now and my friend Edgar Cotton invited me to come do some ‘perch jerking’ with him and his son David-it’s in the plans! Well, hopefully next week I will have a ‘sure nuff’ adventure of two to relate you you-I’m ready to get some relief from all this work around the homeplace! LC
You can contact Tawakoni/Fork catfish guide David Hanson at 902-268-7391. Contact J.C. McCollough at 580-372-0320.
Listen to Luke’s podcast, “Catfish Radio” just about everywhere podcast are found.
Facing state-ranked Tom Bean in the area round May 8, Nocona gave it its best shot but ultimately saw their season ended by the Tomcats in a 6-1 loss.
Nocona ended its year at 10-8-1 while Tom Bean moves on into the regional semifinal round at 22-1.
The Indians threatened in each of the first two innings. Landon Fatheree and Brody Langford each drew one out walks to the delight of a large Nocona fan base. It wasn’t to be as the next two hitters were retired.
Tom Bean took advantage by getting a run in the bottom of the first. The Indians prevente4d further damage with a double play to end the inning.
For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.
Bowie sophomore Brayden Willett and junior Tyler Richey will be competing May 14 at the State Track Meet.
Willett will be competing in the 1,600-meter run at 8:15 p.m. He finished 3rd in the Region 1-3A Meet May 2 in Abilene with a school record time of 4:21.93. He said he feels good heading into the state meet for the first time.
Willett runs both the 1,600 and 3,200-meter run for the Rabbits. He nearly made it in the 3,200-meter run as well but finished 4th. He said while he enjoys both races, the 1,600 is his favorite.
“It’s more my speed,” Willett said. “I thought to myself after the race that I finally made it.”
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