Spaulding Smails

Same exact setup for mine. Form stakes and a sledge with plenty of baling wire. We use the 600-lb Atascosa EZ feeders. No ladder to load, plus a lower center of gravity. Never had any issues. Plus, they're on a skid, so we actually slide them around a bit after the season to let the ground recover around the feeder. We go a step further with the blinds. Form stakes at the legs, then a mobile home anchor in the center with guy wires up to each corner. Tighten them with a turnbuckle.

Talk me out of going UUUUUGE on West Virginia -7 at home against Tech. That line seems like it should be at least 14.

That's a primo spot. I hunted on a buddy's spot one weekend near Whitsett and had some banner hunts. Like @deadshank said, lots of wildlife. Just give it time and patience!

I was thinking hookers and blow, but this also works.

My best friend in elementary school was an only child and his parents had four season tickets in the south end zone. Second row. Great seats. I got the nod to join probably 50% of the time from 1988 - 1994 or thereabouts. Lots of fun and watched some great teams. That same friend's dad had grown up with Bo Orlando's family in Pennsylvania. Bo and his family would come over to their house for parties, cookouts, etc. GREAT dude and was always friendly, throwing the ball in the yard with us and whatnot. In 94, my dad's company had a pretty sweet deal with the Oilers that included, among other things, tickets to an away game. He had a big client lined up to take on that trip that cancelled the Friday afternoon before the game. Not able to find a replacement client on short notice, he took me. Freaking awesome trip. Flew on the team charter plane. Rode on the team bus. Stayed at the team hotel. We saw Bo at the hotel. He recognized me and my dad, so we ended up going to dinner with all the defensive backs the night before the game. Good dudes, but you could tell they were checked out. This was mid way through the season, and I think they had only won one game to that point. After dinner, most of them went out on the town. The Oilers lost to a bad Raiders team at the Coliseum the next day. That 94 team was dog shit. And, they didn't care. Totally mailed it in all season. It was the beginning of the end of my favorite team. I still can't root for the Texans.

I never thought about freezing pesto, but that's a great idea for taking advantage of the basil.

Sucker! Without looking at the forecast, I set up a tee time to take a client out for golf Thursday @ 8:30 AM. May even need to wear a pullover!

Add a link of venison sausage and this is the exact meal we ate damn near every Sunday night when I was a kid. Looks great!

Chickens are looking great! Free range is awesome. The only downside for us was messing up the mulch around the flower beds. But, we loved hanging in the pool and watching the hens peck around in the evening. Also kept the bugs at bay for the most part. The only time we lost chickens were when we didn't close the coop early enough. Lost most of ours to a fox. Make sure you count em when you put em up. We had one of ours go broody over a nest down the back hillside of our property. We didn't realize it and weren't counting chickens, and found a big pile of feathers and a dozen eggs the next morning. She wasn't leaving that nest to roost and got whacked.

Great pics @Lazarus Bocanegra! Love that area. Congrats on the purchase. Roughly where are you in Live Oak County? I've hunted on-and-off in that county for 25+ years. Had a lease near Lagarto for over a decade and now have a good friend with a place on the Nueces between Three Rivers and George West and my uncle has a ranch right at the Duval County line off Hwy 59.

Totally agree. There's a few massive ones that are either going to get whacked or have already been designed around. Those trees at Blanton seemed pretty darn big, but by comparison, I'm sure they don't compare.

I saw the same thing with the trees. Given the heightened scrutiny of this project from an environmental standpoint, it would be a pretty boneheaded move to whack heritage trees right off the bat. To your point, I guarantee they have a tree survey from that area. And, I'm curious on the bigger trees near William Cannon as well. They moved some major trees on campus for the Blanton and the North DKR expansion, so it can be done. Regardless, they'll have a hefty tree replacement program for sure. Regarding the batch plant, it's definitely going to happen. It's logistically and economically the right move. It's going to suck for the neighbors in the immediate vicinity, but for the community as a whole, having a temporary batch plant on site (or within spitting distance) is a way better option than trucking. There's a ready mix plant near Circle Drive, but the next closest ones are at Ben White / I-35. And, for a project of this size, the concrete needs are vast, and pour times could literally be at damn near any time of day, so an on-site dedicated batch plant is a must.

Same. I knew the hearing was earlier this month, but I've found nothing. I'm going to reach out to my TxDOT buddy later this week to catch a beer after work, so I'm hoping to get the scoop then.

Thirded. You're going to love it. I went in 2012. Only the Thursday round, but it was a blast. 16 is a must. 17 is an awesome hole as well. See if you can get suite access. It'll turn the experience up to 11.

I'm in the same boat. But, the majority of my recent hunts in Central Texas have been Mourning Dove. I do carry a few boxes of #6 in my shell box if we're getting into high-flying WWs. I've gotten to be a bit of a gear snob, so I have a loaded Yeti bucket with a lid for dove hunting, plus a go-bag for quail and a larger go-bag for ducks / geese. Pure #6 for quail and #3 / #4 steel shot for ducks plus steel BBs in the same bag for geese. I like not having to mix-and-match every time.

Great thread. I'm enjoying and learning a lot on some of the responses. We're in a position to do this financially right now, but have decided to wait a few years on some family-related items. It's interesting to see the mixed bag of responses regarding short-term rentals and their pros and cons. Part of me wants to just go ahead and bite the bullet now to get something that would serve primarily as a rental that we could use a half dozen times a year, but I know how picky we are about the setup, and I have a feeling we're going to be better off building something new or doing a major remodel. I'm curious if anyone has tried to build or undergo a large project from hours away and how it fared. I'm cognizant of the issues of reliable support in vacation towns, so my expectations are pretty low around contractors in those areas (especially given that's what I do for a living and I hear the horror stories of others here locally). If anyone has any stories (good or bad) on that front, please fire away.

@Enchubben did they at least give you some warning? A heads up? An opportunity to stop those transactions? When I launched my website after about two years in business (residential construction), our web designer defaulted to using PayPal for our "Make a Payment" button. It worked pretty well at first. Got our funds relatively quickly. Easy interface for our clients. After about two years, we started picking up some larger jobs. One day, I get a call from PayPal saying that, due to my volume and the "risky business" I was in, they'd be holding my funds for SIX MONTHS. So, they were going to hold $80K for half a year on a project that was going to take a little more than a month to complete. Of course, it was buried in the T&Cs that I never read that they could do this, but as a service provider, a little proactive communication would have been nice. They wouldn't budge. Not an inch. Not on the next transaction. Not down to three months. Nada. I had my customer void the transaction and pay via check. And, I promptly removed the PayPal option from the website. I'm all for protecting your own best interests and minimizing your risk as a service provider, but dammit, tell your customers ahead of time. I think OnlyFans is going to tank with their decision, but at least they were proactive in communicating with their content providers and customers. Can you imagine the shit storm if that went down without any heads up?

And sweaty Ugg boots that were worn without socks.

I just joined in June. Have yet to play an MGA event though including the Legends Tourney that was this morning. Shoot me a DM if you have any specific questions.

We had a buddy on a lease with us in South Texas from 98 - 07 that we affectionately referred to as "Blister". We named him that because he'd always show up after the hard work was done. I'll be doing the same next weekend. Still have a few trees to get down after the New Years Day ice storm. One big Red Oak in particular is resting right across the dry creek bed behind a feeder that I need to get out of there to open up some sight lines. Not looking forward to cutting up that big bastard, but it'll sure make for some great firewood.

Neighborhood buck clan in Dripping Springs.

Agree on all fronts, @Reagan1k. I just moved into a rent house, and the deer in our neighborhood are legit. It's amazing what you start to see when deer get some age going. And, 2,000 acres makes a world of difference in reducing the pressure! As much as I love our spot and the terrain and being with my folks, we're just too small to produce deer of any size. We've had the place for three years, and we've seen some decent deer (max 3.5 years) on game cameras, but they either turn into ghosts (or presumably sausage) in the first few weeks. Our place is <200 acres and surrounded by other tracts ranging from 150-600 acres. The first two years, we saw fairly limited hunting pressure, but last year, that pressure seemed constant. We've harvested one whitetail buck and one axis buck in three years. The whitetail was a 3.5 year old 4 point that was a great cull and first buck for my son. I'm becoming resigned to the fact that, no matter how hard we manage and protein feed, we're not going to ever see anything of a decent size.

Redfish on the half shell while my buddy's cabin on the intracoastal at the edge of Baffin bay. Fried alligator gar at Rocha's El Catan in Laredo. Fried Opelousas catfish with hushpuppies, crinkle cut fries, homemade tartar sauce and cole slaw at my in-laws' lake house on Toledo Bend. Spicy boudin at Robert's in Orange.

@Reagan1k what county are you in?

When my folks moved from Houston, they downsized significantly. I was fortunate enough to inherit my dad's Klipsch Cornwall speakers. He's a huge audiophile and an amateur musician, but he didn't have room for them when my folks downsized after my sister graduated from HS. They were late 70s models. Sounded amazing. I had them in my first two homes, and to this day, they're still the most impressive sounding speakers for music that I've ever owned. When we moved in 2013, I ended up refinishing them and giving them back to my dad. He still has them in his music room. I need to get some pics the next time I'm there.