cab948

We are live in Victoria county. Didn’t get a chance to put out cameras this year. It’s fun having no clue what is gonna show up next. Lots of activity with the bucks getting ready to start chasing the does. Best we have seen so far is a heavy 11 and a nice 10. I’ll be just meat hunting this year and scouting for my dad. Not really mad at them this year outside of wanting few does for sausage meat. My 5 year old had a blast picking up birds this year dove hunting and loves watching the deer so it’s shaping up to be a great season.

Getting ready to start a new build later on in our forever home. Looking into a lot of the brands mentioned here, Blue Star, Wolf, Miele for the kitchen appliances. Still trying to be halfway budget conscious but if I am overspending somewhere in the house, it will be in the kitchen since cooking something I really enjoy. We are about to start the hard budgeting process here in a month or two but if I needed to cut the budget a bit somewhere in the kitchen, would the fridge be the first place you would look in the kitchen? After ready Surly, Reddit, etc. it just seems to be a general feeling that fridges now-a-days will have issues, even some of the higher end ones. My thought process is run of mill standard fridge for a few years until it shits the bed or I am tired of it while saving up for a Sub Zero or the like. This could free up a quick 10k in the budget if needed. I am crazy in this thought process? I've also ran across a few other mid to high end brands that I have not really heard of. Has anyone had any experience with Fisher & Paykel or SKS (Signature Kitchen Suite). The latter seems to have a 5 day warranty repair that if anything happens under warranty, they try to fix it in under 5 days.

Just glassing. If anything sticks around for longer than 5 minutes I’m happy.

Foggy morning here south of Victoria towards Tivoli. Have about a dozen deer out that I can see but waiting for a little more daylight to actually see what I have. Didn’t get a chance to set out cameras this year so we are going into the season blind. I think I kinda like it. Whole family made it down so we are a bit crowded in the house but it’s nice. Also nice to have some extra hands around to help with projects we have been putting off. My son has been ate up with feeding the deer when we go out and been itching to sit back in the stand after I took him a few times last year. Did suprisingly well for a 3 year old last year so excited to get him on the stand this evening.

Hell, he bitches constantly about me taking his parking space at the office now that he retired and I took over his role. What more is stealing his buck? It was agreed upon that the bucks are open game so no ill will there. His goal is to shoot a 160 off our place which will happen sooner or later so he was tickled pink to know this one was just short. I'll resort back to cull hunting and guiding friends again for a few years until my son is old enough to sit with me and then I'll be focusing on him. We are on the very north side of Refugio County.

This years opening weekend was a little bitter sweet as this was the first time going down since our "ranch foreman" had passed. A little rough around the edges would be quite the understatement when describing him but he was a great guy. We always said he was born 100 years too late as he enjoyed the primitive life. Buddy (his nickname) was working at my dad's shop about 25 years ago when we got our place and as a bachelor with not much else going on, he started coming down with my dad and I to help out. The man absolute hated firewood and cut it every chance he could. After that the first few trips, he was basically a part of the family coming down every trip with us. Even started to live down at the ranch after retiring doing a little bit of the work through the week. His stories would amaze my friends and I from high school through college and to this day. Crude, degenerative, and a lot of just downright illegal stories were shared with us over the campfires. He passed away doing what he loved, working at the ranch bagging corn to fill the feeders. He will be remembered over all the campfires moving forward. Back to the hunting. We had seen a buck on camera for a few months that we knew was a shooter but just being able to see him was the major question. He was pretty elusive on the cameras, always moving around and showing up at different times. Dad picked his stand to hunt Saturday morning and I went to the other where we had been seeing him the most. It was just an amazing hunt that morning seeing a ton of animals. Had a few hot does in heat so the bucks were primed up. Neither of us saw our buck but just an amazing hunt for everyone out in the stands that morning. My friend who came down ended up take a large boar hog with quite the set of cutters on him. Saturday evening my dad was feeling down and headed back home so I hunted the same stand as Saturday morning and put a few buddies in the stand my dad hunted as we have been seeing hogs there every evening. Started off as another great hunt with lots of deer out and about until around 5 pm when I saw a buck enter down the sendero about 250 yards down. I had a feeling but a quick check with the binoculars and knew this was the buck. He darted into the brush and spend the next 30 minutes darting across senderos and back into the brush slowly making his way towards the stand. Since 2012 I've only shot culls and does so my adrenalin was racing and his slow approach was not helping ease it. Finally he stepped out about 70 yards away facing me head on. After about a minute of presenting no shot, he started to run forward to rush off a few smaller buck and gave me with a shot at about 40 yards. Ran off about 20 yards before falling over. 19 3/8" wide with a kicker on his G2 and little 1 1/2" nub right at the base of his horn also. Taped out at 158 7/8" making him official largest buck to date. Buddy was looking over me that day.

Looking for a little help in possibly finding an instructor. I'm located in the middle of nowhere but basically 100 miles to Houston, San Antonio, and Austin. Victoria is a bit closer. I've never had instruction before. Just kind of tweaked my swing while playing to adjust for whatever was going on at that particular moment. Stopped playing for a couple years and have started back up again. Driver and short game/putting came back to me easily but I cannot hit an iron to save my life. Everything is fading/ slicing on me and no matter what, I just do not feel confident lining up or aiming. Looking for someone to check out my swing a few times a year and give me some tips/drills to work on between sessions. I'm happy to practice but just feel like I am floundering out there when I try now. Not looking to be a scratch player but would like to hit some greens again and not be scrambling every hole. Does anyone have someone they recommend preferably between the La Grange- Victoria / Bastrop-Katy area. Will go further if needed or is this just something any old course pro can help with?

Some new summer gear for the Whataburger fans... Whataburger Magellan Collab at Academy

My father picked me up from kindergarten to go on a "business trip" with him the day before dove season to do precisely this. It was my first experience at hunting camp. Would stand by an adult while they shot and then ran to grab the birds. Ran over the next closest adult and rinse/repeat. I was given a list of rules when going out there/coming home and #1 was don't tell mom how good we ate out there. Had to make it sound like we were roughing it. One rule he forgot hand down to me was don't bring hunting camp language back with you. Things got real dicey when the day we got back I asked my mother to "pass the fucking mustard".

Kinda reminds me of this column from a few years ago. Sums up the Popeyes experience pretty well. https://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/2017/1/4/14166686/popeyes-is-perfect-and-you-are-the-problem

I was 5 and my father had a little piece of land he was leasing to hunt just outside of town. Small property with enough room for one stand only. We would head out there when I got off school and sit. I would do my homework and etc while he hunted for deer. He had a youth break open 410 with a bead sight and a pack of slugs for me in case a hog ever came out. This was before they were prevalent in our area. I had never even seen one before. One evening I had finished up my work and saw a huge black animal come out about 50 yards away. Immediately tapped my dad and told him a bear came out. He corrected me and told me that was a hog and I was going to get a shot at him. He got me all positioned correctly and set up with my gun. He pulled out his rifle and said he would back me up for more firepower (basically assuming I would miss). Told me to fire whenever I was ready. Bam Bam. Hog drops. I was super excited and ran over to the hog. My dad got my grandfather to drive out and help load it using a rope and the truck headache rack as a pulley. Ended up being a little over 200lbs. We get him home and hung up to start skinning him and my dad keeps asking if I think i hit him. I am adamant that I did. We could see one exit hole right behind the front shoulder and as we get skin down to that area we see a bullet hole right through a rib. Everyone figures that is my fathers wound. Keep skinning down and skip one rib and another bullet hole. I started jumping up and down yelling "I told you I told you". Everyone was shocked. We had that deer stand for another 20 something years. Moved it all over the state but could always see the alphabet I scribbled on to one of the side walls beneath the window while sitting on the floor doing homework. This year my son will be 3 1/2 months for opening weekend this year. Told my wife I'll be bringing him out to camp the night before the season. No plans on hunting that opening morning and will probably get Mom to pick him up Saturday during that day, but I have never missed "Buck Eve" with my dad at deer camp since I was 5 and want to start the same tradition with him.

I really put up a hell of a fight when the wife told me she was hosting book club and needed me to fend for myself for dinner. Some beers, working on a picnic table, and The Masters replay out in the shop all evening. It was a good day.

Had a great opening weekend down at the ranch in Victoria. Opening morning got to take a unique buck I was chasing. Came out at around 9:30 am to about 75 yards away. Took a few moments to admire him. Attempted to get organized in the stand and he high tailed it after a couple of does. Finally stopped and presented a shot at about 150 yards. Ran about 20 yards and dropped in the brush. The tine ended up measuring out 12 3/8" Got my buddy on a large mature 8 Saturday afternoon that ended up being his biggest buck to date. That next morning my dad tagged a 14 pt buck. Wasn't a great buck score wise, but he was just an old buck with a bunch of points. Still waiting on him to send over a few pictures from his phone of that one. No hogs to shoot which was unusual but all in all an awesome weekend with great company.

Keep the meat a cold as you can before grinding. Helps to keep the meat from gumming up in the grinder and around the blade. We have used pork trimmings from the butcher to fatten up the meat. It cost next to nothing and is an alternative to the bacon. If using fresh peppers, test them out before you start adding them in. We have had a batch of peppers that tasted as hot as bell peppers and also some that were like habaneros. It good to know how hot of peppers you are working with when starting out seasoning the meat. If you want to add some cheese, use the hi temp/melt cheese. Good luck. It's hard work but always worth the labor.

Alaska and Hawaii are the only two for me. Family vacations growing up consisted of 2 weeks minimum in the car just driving the country. No real scheduled or itinerary. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, RI, and Connecticut were the only states we visited and cheated by flying into New York and renting a car before starting our trip. Learned to read a map pretty good over those trips but from hearing stories now, I got pretty annoying during the stretches of open country announcing how many miles to the next town every 5 miles.