Fishin/Huntin Stories

Well, here's #2 son Josh with one of his catches. He and my dad went to Dad's favorite honey hole in the 101 degree heat to fish yesterday afternoon. They caught a good mess of big-mouth bass that I'm sure we'll enjoy in the very near future. As we speak, those lovely filets are sitting in a bowl of salted water in the fridge ( draws out the fishy taste) and will be frying in the outside cooker in no time!

I was raised on fish, venison, quail, dove, squirrel, rabbit, occasional moose, turkey, duck, froglegs - you name it, I've eaten it. My daddy was the biggest hunter/fisher you ever saw. Every Saturday, you could find him at any one of a number of lakes or river bottoms, or if it was hunting season, any number of backwoods places sittin in a tree or a deerstand or stalking some varmint or bird with his dogs. I know there are alot of you folks out there who are aghast at such things, but I'm sorry, that's the way it is in much of the South, especially Texas. I'm a country girl and such things don't bother me. In fact, I'm pretty proud of it - "...and a country boy can survive..." - Hank Williams Jr.

My boys are proudly carrying on this tradition, and even somewhat, my princess. She's certainly spent some of her time sitting in deer stands in her camo jumpsuit & boots and sitting patiently in the boat or on the pier with a fishing rod. We have deer heads and antlers and ducks hanging majestically on the walls of our sons' bedrooms. I'm sorry, I don't especially think they are good decor in the living room - I will draw the line there.

This is gross, but I just thought of something - when dad would bring a big cooler full of fish home and he was in the back yard fileting them, my little sister and I would get us a stick and poke the eyeballs of the fish (they were dead, don't worry). They don't have eyelids ya know, so it was great fun to poke those marble sized eyeballs and watch them roll around - they wouldn't pop tho no matter how much we tried - they'd just roll around. Our 20 lb Siamese cat, Bandit, would sit patiently by, waiting for dad to throw him a fish head or some guts.

I don't poke fish eyeballs anymore - kinda grew outa that...

I used to tease my daddy that I didn't know what beef was until I was allowed to date and my boyfriends would take me out for a steak! Of course, we had other things besides wild game, but it's part of my heritage. I love wild game. Daddy brings me a deer nearly every fall (if one of the boys don't shoot one), quartered, and I go to it on the granite island in my kitchen - cutting up the backstrap, the steaks & good cuts of meat. Then the rest is trimmed off to take to the meat market where they'll grind it up into ground meat and some mixed with pork & seasonings added to make sausage. A very lean sausage I might add. Venison is so lean - must be good for ya.

I used to love to go hunting with daddy before I married. Quail hunting was my favorite. I love to watch the bird dogs run around, sniffing, and then when they find birds, they freeze into whatever position the birds are first smelt. Dad would creep up quietly and the dogs would wait until dad gave the order to flush. Then there'd be a frantic whooshing of wings in several different directions and bang! bang! Then the dogs would fetch the birds and come drop them in front of dad. They get so excited- this is what they absolutely live for. Demon, my dad's best dog, would run through cactus, stickers, briars, but would NEVER stop. He's come home with his feet all cut up to where he couldn't walk and with skint places and cuts all over him. Daddy would baby him and soak his feet in epsom salts and play nursemaid to him and then they'd go back out and do it again the next time. Old Demon loved to hunt and he loved my dad. Daddy even made him some little leather booties to wear. That dog would come back from a 2-3 day hunt having lost several pounds and be all boney!

When we'd hunt dove, Dad would shoot them and me & my little sis would be the bird dogs, careful to watch where they fell. (can't use dogs on dove - at least around here) It was fun to see who could find theirs first. I'm surprised we didn't find a snake or two in all that brush!

A funny story about my brother - one time Dad took my brother, Dan, who was 12 at the time, deer hunting. In the dark they got up and went out to their places to hunt. It was sleeting off and on, bitter cold (but that's good deer hunting weather) and Dad told my brother to sit on an old tree stump where he had good cover and could see the clearing where the deer passed through. Well, he stayed there until dad came back to get him a few hours later. He hadn't moved the entire time - and lo, and behold, he was stuck to the stump! His coveralls had completely frozen in the sleet to the stump! Wish I could have seen that! Daddy had to pull him off!

Well, guess that's all for today. SorryI haven't posted in awhile. I've been busy spending time with my Nashville boy. It was great having him home for a week. I miss him so much! Take care - happy hunting! Vickie