3shot

You reek of aggy to me, but whatever sort of troll you are, you definitely aren't a Longhorn.

Pretty sure that's a Chain Pickerel. I've caught lots of those at Lake Caddo. They are so aggressive and so much fun. The only Northern Pike I've ever seen was caught right where Barton Springs Creek empties into Town Lake...it was caught by a dude sitting on a surfboard and throwing a spinner bait. Maybe in the 1983-85 time frame? It blew my mind. Turns out, we stocked all kinds of crazy fish in Texas in the 70s and 80s.

Not only is the jabberwocky dude a fucking idiot, he's also a thin-skinned little bitch. Lulz.

I've tried Spypoint and Cuddeback and Cuddeback is by far the superior product, at least with respect to the cell service at my lease. The Spypoints never transmitted pics for more than a couple weeks and the Cudde system produced picks for us for 6 months straight last season with very minimal issues. In my opinion, there is a tremendous advantage to Cudde's "Hub" system...it's quite possible there's something else now that competes with Cudde, as I haven't looked in a year or so. As for blinds, I hunt out of 4X8 blinds and they are OK for myself, the wife (once or twice per year) and 2 kids. But my kids are still young. I'm going to make our next 2 blinds larger, probably 6X8 or maybe even 6X10. Definitely insulate the shit out of those things if you are hunting with kids. I think we have 1.5 inches of insulation, maybe 2? And it makes a big difference with respect to the amount of sound your kids can make without scaring deer. Also, I can the blind nice and toasty quick with a Mr. Buddy heater, on the rare occasions we need that. Congrats on the lease!

La Hacienda de Los Barrios. It has a nice patio and playground by SA standards and it's right by you.

I assume you are familiar with Colorado Bend State Park (Colorado River above Buchanan), Reimers Ranch (Pedernales River above Travis) and the Slab (Llano River above LBJ)? Those are your best bets for wading for white bass. I personally wouldn't bother with wading on any of the lakes because the fish are not concentrated enough. I used to fish below Starcke dam and did catch fish, but I wouldn't advise wading there, or maybe it was just the flows were too high when I was fishing it. Usually the run is on hot and heavy in mid-March at each of the spots mentioned above, but I'm sure there males in catchable numbers there now, and sometimes the best fishing is early before news is out that it's "on." Note that water levels matter a lot and I have no idea what the current conditions are. Google is your friend, as is 4 to 6 pound test mono (at least a 2 or 3ft leader if fishing braid) and nothing heavier than a 1/16 oz spinner of whatever your preference is and I typically throw a 1/32 oz. marabou.

The Holly Beach area off of Mesquite Dr. used to be good. I haven't fished that in years, and I used to access it by boat, but I always saw cars parked over there and waders...not sure if it's public or not, but it's worth checking out. That area can hold lots of fish and very large trout. And there's always the jetties. Should at least be lots of sheepshead around still if you are just trying to get a pull.

I wouldn't piss on him if he was burnin'.

I am no expert on the subject by any means, but it never made sense to me that you could influence the genetics of a deer herd by harvesting bucks since that is only 1/2 of the genetic makeup of a deer, especially on a low fence place. Still, we basically do what everyone else does with respect to shooting bucks we think will not reach our "trophy" criteria. I personally look at it as managing the number of mouths that are competing for nutrition, rather than influencing genetics, but this is just my opinion and few seem to share it, including my fellow lease members. It does make for a nice discussion over the campfire every now and then though. There is a recent paper that was published on this topic that you should take a look at, if you haven't before. I cannot find an electronic copy of the paper at the moment, but the findings are summarized here: https://www.qdma.com/qdm-works-culling-doesnt/ Your ranch sounds awesome, by the way. Must feel great to see y'alls patience and hard work payoff over the years.

We usually get between 12 and 16 and they are split relatively evenly between bucks and does, but again, it's going to depend on your area and deer density per acre. If you haven't already, look into the Harvest Option MLD program. The one that requires deer surveys and more information and input is the Conversation Option. It sounds like the Harvest Option may be exactly what you need because there's no input required from TPWD and I bet the number of tags they give you will be a lot less than what it would otherwise be. All of this stuff is on TPWD's website and if you have questions, you can call them; once you get to the right person, I have found them to be very helpful. 4 deer killed over 8 years on 1,500 acres? 16 bucks observed on opening day, all but 1 under 13 inches wide? You need to thin that herd! Get some kids out there pronto and have some fun :).

@UTEX90 I hunt in an antler restricted (and doe restricted) county. We are MLD and we are under 1,000 acres; also, it's a lease. It has been fantastic for us from a harvest management perspective because it allows us to shoot mature bucks that are less than 13 inches as you describe, plus we don't have to go through the separate process of getting doe tags. If I were hunting your ranch I can already tell you that the MLD program would be a no brainer. However, if you are hunting 3,000 acres and not harvesting much, you should start thinking about what your goals for the property are and then decide whether MLD permits will help you achieve that. Not sure what county you are in or the particulars of your ranch, but let's say you have 100 deer per 1,000 acres and your buck-doe ratio is actually 1:1. You can probably expect to end up with 21 doe permits and 21 buck permits per year (on average). Now, you don't HAVE to harvest that amount, but you should be pretty close to your tag allotment each year...I don't have actual experience with TPWD being punitive for a ranch not using all of their MLD permits, but it's something everyone thinks about for sure (including us), so maybe it does happen? From what it sounds like y'all harvest today, the MLD process could be a real shift in mentality for your family. But the paper work isn't bad at all (in my experience) and the survey stuff are things we would be doing every year on our own anyway. To your other points, as mentioned above, you can't materially influence genetics by harvesting bucks. "Trophy" bucks produce "trash" buck offspring and vise versa. But the MLD program will dang sure allow you to fill your freezer with mature bucks who are not ever going to meet your ranch's criteria of a "trophy." With respect to the deer with antlers on only 1 side, if I were convinced this was genetic and they hadn't broken them off, I would shoot those every day. I would also shoot the 1.5 year old with an injury because the coyotes would likely get him on the place we hunt. I would shoot these deer because if I have to harvest 21 bucks, these are easy one's to add to the harvest list. Shameless plug for your friends and potentially the Surly kingdom: If you decide to go MLD and need help harvesting, you won't have a problem putting together a group to hunt, whether it be by lease or invitation.

The Pig Pen is great with kids; has a good playground. You can either order food from the bbq trailer on site (limited menu) or order to-go from the Smoke Shack and eat it at the Pig Pen (they are next door to each and owned by the same couple). The Cove has a good playground and pretty good food. Tycoon Flats is another option, though I might choose something else if you are eating Chris Madrid's on the same trip. The playground is geared for younger children there. As mentioned above, Los Barrios is great if you are in that area.

"If you want any one thing too badly, it's likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself."

I am very sorry your son was assaulted like that, and now has to have surgery. That sucks so bad. I get ragey when another kid calls one of my kids a name...can't imagine a rock to the face. Just my opinion, but if a 10 year old hit my child in the face with a rock, unprovoked, and this particular kid had a reputation for violence, I would feel compelled to go to the police. I think you have to do that for your community, if not to achieve some amount of "justice" for your son. And yes, I know very well that the legal system rarely provides any actual justice, but it's the only system we have and unfortunately, vigilantism is frowned upon, especially these days. I know the assailant is "only" 10, but that's old enough to know that he could cause serious injury to someone by throwing a rock at someone's face...and if he doesn't understand this, he needs other kinds of help, and the parents apparently aren't getting it for him voluntarily. What a shitty situation for all of you. With respect to a civil suit, I would think about the criminal and the civil matters separately. In other words, I personally would not leverage my attempts to collect money from the family with my threats to go to the police. Not judging you if that's the route you take. However, if you are contemplating filing a civil lawsuit, you should talk to a plaintiff's attorney first about whether to get the police involved and if so, at what stage. And you should do that in the next couple days, if possible. As you've no doubt gathered by the responses above, whether a plaintiff's attorney will be interested in your case depends on the perceived financial status of the parents...if they own a home, that's good, if they rent, not so good.

Good luck and please report back! I can’t hunt for the next 2 weekends but will be looking for outfitters with birds somewhere within 90 miles of SA for the remainder of the season.

I have been hunting Paloma Pachonga for about the same amount of time as you jofus, but never on the opener or 2nd day. Usually I hunt there somewhere between the 3rd and 7th day of the season, and I've hunted it towards the end of September a couple of times as well. I've never got a limit there, although I've come close, and I had one day where I didn't fire a shot. I'm not claiming I'm the worlds best shot, but I don't suck. Out of 14 or so hunts, I think I've only had one double digit day and I have never, ever seen doves out there like what is in your picture...nothing even remotely close. However, I saw them like that on every single hunt I ever had at Nooners. Conversely, I hunted Nooners multiple times per year starting in 2006 (prior to Paloma Pachonga existing) up until he sold in 2016/2017 I guess? Always somewhere in the same date range as my Paloma hunts, and out to October. The difference in the hunting was staggering. As you know, the properties abutted one another, and on all of my hunts, the Paloma guys hardly fired any shots while we would have waves of birds by the thousands, similar to your picture above. I think the difference must be how it is managed for hunting. I am sure that Paloma Pachanga is lights out for the first day or two, as they have the same black oil sunflowers that Nooners had and their fields backed up to one another...but when you run as many hunters as they do and hunt mornings/afternoons, well, the birds must get smart. To my knowledge, Sammy never let people hunt in the mornings on his place, and he only ran one group at a time, again, to my knowledge. That's the only explanation that I have. Whatever is going on, it is more than just the weather, more than just birds being birds...it's their management practices. It just has to be. That being said, the facilities at Paloma Pachonga are outstanding, and I appreciate all of the hunts I get to go on out there, even though it may not sound like it from my bitching. I'm just saying, the hunting at Nooners was totally amazing, and the hunting at Paloma is pretty meh in comparison to that, in my experience. I'll still go to Paloma every time I'm invited and will be very grateful to my hosts for including me. Last note about this: the day that I zeroed at Paloma Pachonga (and heard/watched Nooners' hunter crushing them), I hunted the next day at Nooners and we saw thousands of birds and had very quick limits, with no shooting at Paloma. No changes in weather, no different conditions at all. I actually drove down to the fence line because I was curious about what was so different. The birds avoided the Paloma property like the plague; they didn't even fly over their fields high. I was convinced for a long time Sammy must have been baiting, but there's just no way he could get away with that (saw game wardens out there on the regular)...maybe it was just the proximity to Mumme's? Whatever it was, I miss Sammy's hunts and his stewardship of his property. Jofus, great seeing the kids out with you. I take mine every chance I get as well. I'm eternally grateful to my father for introducing me to hunting and fishing.

Unfortunately most dove outfitters depend on the first few weekends for 80% of their revenue and don't call off hunts. Deadshank, do you mind sharing the names of the "good" outfitters you use? I used to hunt with Steve Rambie and I felt like he always was straight with me...really liked him, but I stopped because it was a further drive than I wanted to make. Maybe I should head back that way. I think I've hunted with most of the outfitters in the uvalde/sabinal/hondo area and most of annoyed me or down right pissed me off at one point or another, with the exception of Steve Rambie and Steve Wilson. I've also had great hunts with all of them at one point or another as well... I also agree 100% with Both Tacos that most outfitters won't call off a hunt at the beginning of the season, and I understand why. They have a big lease payment (or payments) to pay, plus other expenses, but I would much rather an outfitter have a policy that there are no refunds, but you can come back and hunt another time, rather than waste my time in a dead field or dead part of a field. At least give me the option of travelling knowing the hunting might not be great or rescheduling if I think I can get back out there another time; that would go a long way for me. And for the record, what the "new" owners of Nooners (the Paloma Pachonga guys, or "new" Paloma Pachonga after Rad Weaver's group sold it) have done to that property from a hunting perspective is a damn shame. It's not even close to what it used to be; I'm irrationally angry about it.

I have been to many of the bars listed in this thread, including the St. Walburg Inn in Saskatchewan, oddly enough. I didn't find that place to be sketchy in the least, but I guess I could see how it might get that way on the right night. That is true for many of the places listed. If you only went one night, and you caught it on the "right" (or wrong) night, it might seem pretty terrible. For example, I see some love for Shipps on Lower Greenville, but that place is in my top 5 of bars that creeped me out. This would have been late 90s/early 2000s...lots of sad alcoholics in there and I also had bar patrons ask me for money or to buy them drinks. I probably went 3 times over 8 years and each time I was grossed out by the people in there. One place I haven't seen mentioned yet that I would like to add to the list is Dream Street (think that was the name, or something close to that), a super sketchy titter east of 35 somewhere over by the Travis County Exposition Center. I thought that place was considerably worse in every way than The Crazy Lady or The Landing Strip. It was open during the mid-90s, not sure when it closed down, but it was terrible. Multiple strippers with track marks, etc. Also, I think the closest I ever came to getting murdered was at Shorty's. I was there on a night someone had just gotten out of prison and they were having a welcome home party for him. Someone threatened to stab me for not letting the guest of honor cut in line at the bathroom, and then it got worse from there, as it was widely circulated that I had "disrespected" the felon. This was on a very busy summer night in 2003 or 2004. I get that it's not really a sketchy bar, but on that particular night 15 or 16 years ago, it sure as shit seemed sketchy to me. Great thread, by the way.

Seriously, brine your bird. I've had plenty of great chickens that weren't brined, and I don't brine mine all that often these days due to time constraints, but if you are really searching for a perfect method, you should at least try brining your bird a couple times.

From the article: According to authorities, about 15 teenagers with paintball guns went to a home on Force Street. Police believe the teens went to the home "to fight" a 17-year-old who lives there. Do you really think a mob of 15 "kids" showing up at your home at night to "to fight" your 17 year old son can somehow NOT be considered a threat to do serious injury? I mean, none of us have the facts, but it seems weird to me that you seem to come down on the side that the father overreacted given the reported circumstances. To each there own, but given the reported circumstances, I wouldn't think it was an overreaction even if he shot all 15 of them.

This. Although to be more specific, I would be on the first ferry of the morning heading to the Port A North Jetty. It's going to be pretty windy this weekend, but since the wind should be out of the south east all week, the water should be fine on the gulf side of the North Jetty. The trout will be there. Caveat: I heard that Fisherman's Wharf was sold recently so you should check the schedule and make sure the jetty boat is still running.

I have gigged a lot of flounder over the last 30 years. Not over a 1,000, but certainly over 500. I've caught less than 100 keeper flounder on rod and reel, but I don't specifically target them either. To me, gigging is more of a cultural thing than anything else. I like to drink beer and walk around with a coleman lantern (old school) or pvc pipe with a bulb at the end (current setup). You see a lot more out there than just flounder. In my opinion, it is a fantastic way to spend a couple hours on a summer or fall night on the Texas coast and my actual gigging success is secondary to just being out there and experiencing the bay in a different way than most people do. I've also caught a whole bunch of reds and trout during these "flounder gigging trips" when I've stumbled across a bunch of bait and feeding fish...always keep some rods rigged back at the boat while out gigging. Is gigging "cheating?" I don't think so, but then again, I shoot deer under a feeder, ducks and turkeys that come to my calls/decoys, etc. I don't think gigging flounder is hard, but I don't think the taking or catching of any fish or animals by any other method is particularly difficult either. I love to fly fish in rivers and streams from Alaska to Texas, and in our bays and behind shrimp boats in the Gulf. I also love to crappie fish with a minnow under a cork. And sometimes in the spring, I even drift various Texas bays with a cork and live shrimp. DCA, I feel sorry for you that you apparently have some interest in the outdoors, but have never been flounder gigging or watched a cork go under, but feel the need to denigrate that kind of outdoors experience that many others enjoy. It kind of seems like you suck. Go.

Perini Ranch Steakhouse. You are welcome in advance.

This is terrible, this opinion of yours. You must be a fucking idiot.

You sure that's not a gray fox?