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Viewing 1 - 8 out of 8 Blogs.
I decided to hit the old Guadalupe River today and started fishing around 3:30 pm. Extremely slow overall, picked up 5 small bass - 2 Largemouth and 3 Guadalupes. Working topwater weedless frog colored Jitterbug and a white/charty spinnerbait tight against the bank and lily pads.
So I opted to wait till sundown and moved into a shallow section, literally 1-3ft deep, moving water with a decent current dropping into a deep and slow section. The sun is gone, twighlight now and I’m holding the yak mid channel, on the deep section casting way shallow and cranking the spinnerbait covering all angles working long casts. After nothing after a dozen casts, BAM and it’s on!
Here she is.
When it's time to recharge from the day to day....we all find ways to get it done. Here's a little bit of my world when that time to "recharge" hits. Guadalupe River, Upper region, Texas Hill Country. Unspoiled river sections full of bass, perch and wild game. Smallmouth, largemouth, Guadalupe and Rock bass as well as huge perch. One Ultralight spooled with 4lb test and a 2nd rod spooled with 10lb (Curado 200). Topwater, spinners, plugs and plastics fished where ever the kayak finds me. All released to fight and fish another day. One of these days I need to kick off a fish fry LOL! 
A cotton mouth fishing for catfish :) 
Free range exotics...Axis deer running the Guadalupe River valley. Beautiful animals and this is the best eating venison in the world. Herd animals and they love to hit the field edges keeping a watchful eye on everything in their world. Native animals from India and the Bengal Tiger is their natural predator. They look up into trees by instinct so tree stand hunters...here's your Wild Turkey deer on hooves. :) 
And the fishing is great in sections of unfished waters only reachable by kayak. Working plastics along some of these small lakes (personal ranch dams on the river) score bass bounching rocks deep or shallow. Once the mayfly hatch kicks off, late evening, top waters score bass and perch "man enough"' to attack bass lures LOL! 
This lil guy went after my topwater 3 times before making the connection. I have to hand it to this lil guy, he showed enough spirit to warrant a pic! Back over the side to grow and fight another day. 
Have fun, keep it simple and simply just get out there and have safe fun! Rob
David (Da Drifter) and I have been talking about hitting a few rigs off Padre Island National Seashore sometime this summer....well that time finally caught up with us this past weekend.
I rolled down to Corpus Christi Texas on Friday, David has to work, so off to the Upper Laguna flats I go to pass the time. This area is the top end of the Laguna, near Naval Airstation Corpus Christi, a very fond fishing area for me through the years. Hot, no wind, glassy water.....not good for skinny water fishing but, you can't catch them if you don't give it a whirl. I did manage one "catch & release" redfish. Slow fishing, The Nueces River is running out of her banks right now, flushing the entire tidal zone with sweet fresh water. Typically the flats this time of year are loaded with redfish. Too much fresh water and they are scattered and tough to pattern. Things will get better as the summer starts to wind down and the river flow returns to normal. Based on my Friday fishing adventures in the Upper Laguna, David and I simply know we have to take the game offshore. So Saturday morning finds us running out Packery Channel, into the Gulf of Mexico, targeting a five oil rig set about six miles off the Padre Island National Seashore. On the troll out we score one Spanish Mackerel and I have one super sized RattleTrap cut off to something with teeth along a weed line. Oh well, that's fishing. 
Slow trolling ribbon fish is slow so it's decided to tie off to a "stick up" rig and float ribbon fish under carefully tied pink doggie balloons.  David's son Robbie has gotten used to some of our fishing tactics. Heck it works! 
As we float doggies for King Mackerel, we shift gears to casting tackle and start working Spade fish, Trigger fish and Lesser Amberjacks till our arms fall off. These guys can bend a 10lb test casting rod pretty darn good and I lost 4 fish that managed to muscle their way into the pilings for a break off. Trigger fish and her lipstick. 
Snapper (bottom) and Lesser Amberjack (top), near the stick up pilings. 
After a few hours, the first King Mackerel makes a show in one screaming run. For a moment we both thought we had a good sized shark on. After gaffing this fish it's found it was foul hooked, top dorsal area, making the fight a little more of a handful. This fish made numerous long burning runs before the gaff. SCORE ONE for the cooler! Well done David! 
What seemed like another hour or so, the second King Mackerel is on. SCORE TWO for the cooler! 
We call it a wrap after the 2nd King Mac and cool off with one good swim before heading home. David is the Manmaid! LOL! 
Excellent eating and awesome GOOD TIMES! 
I know this is over the top....way too much green.....but.....what the heck, it's winter time and I'm on the river in the yak! Clear skies, mid-70s, beautiful weather, shorts, T-Shirt, big country and the river all to myself. This is church my friends!
The scene is the upper Guadalupe River west of Kerrville Texas The bass were simply on FAR! Sixteen of these guys in 5 hours. That's not too bad for winter fishing....well winter around here :) It was one of those no brainer days, a chartreuse spinnerbait, casting tight up against a sunny shoreline, working structure and BAM BAM BAM! I didn't even try anything else, no need to. OCD on overdrive - SON!
Didn't snap all of them, no need to...as you can see, it's all the same deal....boring but, it's a blast on the water. BLOGS just don't give it justice. 
Sickness, absolute sickness! Rob
New Mexico An ancient lava flow stretching for miles and miles along the desert floor. Northwest New Mexico. 
Red Rock. Formations are simply solid mountains of red rock. Northwest New Mexico. 
Just unbelievable! 
Barrel cactus in bloom 
Down in Southern New Mexico near my compadre, Tink's home, Deming NM. We got out and hit the trail in the hope of glassing a few Oryx (huge critters) when a desert storm hit. Too much lightning to get out and about so we simply took things in from the safety of the 4x4. 
Zip on over to Texas and the terrain makes a high desert change. Out on the high plains, just North East of El Paso, antelope roam. Here's a decent Texas "Speed A Lope." I didn't have the big gun lens so this was all I could do before adios at 45 mph :) 
Salt Flat at 4400 ft. Guadalupe Mountain range in the distance. 
Guadalupe Mountain at 8749 ft. The higest point in Texas. 
Scenes from the upper edges of the Guadalupe range. 
And the valley floor 
THANKS TINK! God's Country up there Amigo!
The Texas Hill Country was been blessed with plenty of rain during the summer of 2007. Typically this region receives 20-30 inches of rainfall per year, during the spring and late fall. As it is living in these parts, we don't complain one bit if it trends are off in a favorable way. Range conditions are excellent for livestock and wildlife with both getting fat and living life large. Hope y'all enjoy! Rob 
RAIN BABY RAIN! 
I decided to hit the Guadalupe River this afternoon, October 7, 2007. I noticed a solid mayfly hatch last night and figured with winter soon around the corner, the fish should be feeding aggressively. I've spent so many falls in the woods chasing whitetail and this year I made it a point to focus on fish as much as possible.
The Guadalupe was running clean and clear this afternoon. Leaves are starting to fall and the current is mixed with maple leaves and cypress needles.
This is really the only way to experience the Guadalupe River. You can cover alot of water and I haul 3 rods with a backpack on the stern full of tackle.
The typical scene. Texas rigged 6 inch plastic worms during the day. 
And a few plugs to cover mid-depth. 
The magic starts after the sun starts to set. 
My focus this evening is a stretch of river that has shallow edges with lilly pads bordering the main channel. This stretch of river typically has a few solid bass and I lost a pretty good fish here during June. 
Once the sun sets, I shift gears and go topwater. The typical scene, River bass and big perch keep things interesting.
Even dink perch hammer the old trusty Jitterbug. 
Then suddenly, things get real busy....way busy. I zing a cast up tight against the pads, let the Jitterbug settle a moment and start my retieve cranking in about 3ft of line when the water boils and my rod doubles over! Line is zinging off the reel and off I go downstream on a kayak slide. Once I got visual of this bass, I nearly flipped the kayak. I am so glad I had her hooked solidly, she worked me over up close for several minutes before I could lip her. 
After these photos I released her back into the Guadalupe. Probably the all-time record bass for the Guadalupe and fish like this are not typical for these waters. Just goes to show, you never know where and when that special day will happen.
First South Texas Pope & Young This has to be one of the greatest BowHunting moments in my entire life. First and foremost I have to give thanks to the "Old Man Upstairs" (Thank You!) and my lease partners, Mitch Krivokucha (Mitch), Bruce Letbetter (Bruce), Shawn Kennedy (Shawn) & Richard Hehs (Richard). Without them, I don’t believe my first Pope & Young animal would have the same meaning. Left to Right (Bruce, Richard & Mitch) enjoying a few Monster Buck videos in camp. We had a power pole, that’s about it. A 2 room shack, cots, rattlesnakes and pack rats for company LOL! 
The Area59 Campfire burns brightly with this crew. We nicknamed our hunting lease Area59 simply because our property line sits right off Highway 59, just east of Laredo and just inside the Border Patrol check station. The brush in this region has a large percentage of illegal aliens working northward hence the name "Area 59"...aliens out there somewhere! :) The Badlands of South Texas. I slept with a loaded pistol every night here. The few nights alone out here really make you realize, the west is still alive and well with a modern twist. Each trip into town alone, I had to stop and pass through the Border Check. The typical questions of where are you going, where are you coming from and are you an American citizen. After formalities, each and everytime I was warned to not sleep in the brush alone. All I could do was simply smile....this is South Texas boys and there are times a man has to do what a man has to do to get on a decent buck :) 
On to the hunt…… This hunt takes place deep in the brush country region of South Texas. The Golden Triangle region is well known for record class whitetail bordering the Texas – Mexico border. This region is ranching country, a rough region well known for illegal activity related to the drug barons south of the Mexican border. Not an area to take lightly and the risk of confrontation in the brush runs very high year round. The country side consists predominately of working ranches, 10 – 40,000+ acres big and larger. Large expanses of private land, no development for thousands of miles. The few towns scattered throughout the region are small and extremely isolated. Medical care can literally take hours to get to. Rattlesnake bites, mountain lions, feral hogs, javelina and nasty spiders keep you on your guard here. Time literally stands still in this country. Thorny brush species dominate the South Texas Brush Country. Mesquite, acacia, prickly pear, lotebush, granjeno, white-brush, Texas ebony and wild olive form dense, almost impenetrable thickets. The South Texas Brush Country is well known for producing trophy-class white-tailed deer. It is undoubtedly the most biologically diverse habitat in Texas, as tropical, grassland and desert species all inhabit this thorny shrubland in ecological harmony. 
I started off this weekend as I have so many times before. Leaving work on Friday, after a full day, running home to quickly load up and head south, truck stereo blasting away! My drive from Austin to Freer Texas has become routine and averages three hours one way. One must stay on the lookout for deer, coyotes and wild hogs rolling down Highway 16 south of San Antonio. As I roll, I notice a few deer and hogs grazing on the side of the road with a full moon lighting the landscape with glaring authority. Hogs are grazing on small patches of green grass, sparse as it is; they stand right next to the highway and ignore my truck as I roll by at speed. Only one more weekend left after this hunt and my season is over. My mind is working in overdrive and expectations are on the upbeat. I call to check in with Bruce, I am rolling two hours behind, all of us headed South. I might be two hours behind....but WOO HOO I’m rolling to South Texas!!!!! 
I arrive at deer camp expecting to see trucks, lights and my hunting compadres, nobody here; I am the first to arrive. I unpack and get ready for the morning hunt (or so I thought). Bruce, Mitch and Richard roll in at 10:30 pm. They rendezvoused at the Liberty Café in Freer with James, Bill & Rick, from Freer Deer Camp and Taxidermy. The crew absolutely devastated the awesome TexMex food known in this world. We all comment on the brightness of the moon and the effect on our upcoming morning hunt. It’s a cold and clear night, the hope is tomorrow’s hunt will be active. Saturday morning rolls around quickly and the alarm sounds of at 0500. Mitch and I both get up and dress slowly. Richard and Bruce have decided this morning is a "sleep in kind of morning" and opt to stay back in camp. The air is cold and a light freeze has coated the ground with frost. Thermometer reads 28 degrees, the moon has roughly four more hours before setting. The landscape is bathed with moonlight and a cold North East wind is blowing, dropping the temps further. Not the best of winds for my deer stand but I opt to hunt it anyway. On the previous weekend, I stuffed a corn sack full of fresh cow manure and piled it up near my stand in anticipation of North winds this morning. I lovingly nicknamed the application of cow manure around my stand as "Coonie Cover Scent." It works very well masking my scent and our deer lease is a working cattle ranch. Here’s the deer blind. Brushed in heavily and blending in perfectly with the terrain. It’s dead center, staring straight at the point from my bowshot. 
I choose to walk from camp all the way to my blind. Mitch comments "you’re walking all the way in this morning?" My routine is simple, generate body heat in absolute stealthy silence. The last thing I want to do is alert the bucks on my way into the blind. I cover the walk slow and steady. My worry of rattlesnakes is nil, it’s too cold this morning and the relaxed walk is a welcomed change. At 0645 visibility is very obscure, that moment when dark fights a new day, rendering all images a ghostly appearance. As I scan my scene slowly I note a brown silhouette in the right shooting lane. I memorized my shooting lanes like the back of my hand, each tree, cactus, bush and strange outline cataloged and forced into memory. This morning, something is off and it’s not moving. I strain through my binoculars and slowly make out the outline of a whitetails rump. I finally see the head, he’s staring out to the Northwest toward the neighboring ranch. Off in the distance several miles, the sound of a hunter riding an ATV is heard on the bordering ranch.This deer holds position for a full three minutes and then walks slowly away toward the stock tank near my blind. He is alert, knowing that sound is danger and moves away cautiously. As he moves, I strain to read his headgear. I note one main beam with three tines up. I know it’s a buck, and a good buck but he’s gone? 
Finally the sun is up enough to see well enough to see and legal shooting light. I stare hard toward the last general direction this buck moved with my mind racing a hundred miles an hour. Where did he go? As I scan the three shooting windows of my pop-up blind I notice movement in the brush straight ahead. It’s a deer and it’s moving toward my left and it vanishes into the brush. Five minutes pass when suddenly a buck appears in my center window moving slowly from my right to left. He is partially hidden by the dense brush feeding slowly into my shooting lane. He’s a good mature buck, thick, short legs, broad neck and 10 points. I draw my bow noting the brush on the right side of my shooting lane my mind unconsciously working the arrows flight through my cover, all ok. The shot looks 21 - 22 yards so I settle my 20 pin on the left front leg, lower it to the knuckle, anticipating a slight string jump, hovering at the heart...sight picture just burns into my unconscious mind and then time stands still.....THWACK!!!!! The buck jumps up and hauls hard off to my left clearing immediately into the brush. I listen to him run through the brush and suddenly hear the the unmistakable sound of a pile up. Suddenly my nerves kick in, hands start to shake and I take a few deep breaths staring intently toward his area of departure. This shot was surreal….No thought, I was just along for the ride mentally and my body was doing what it has been conditioned to do (eyes, hands and bow form) YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!. The reality of what just transpired kicks me between the shoulders and I scramble out of the blind leaving my bow behind and head toward my arrow. I find it covered with dark blood. It doesn’t look like a lung shot ….I smell the arrow to check scent, a clean shot. 
I head back to my blind and simply give things time. Finally I start my blood trail finding nothing, not a drop and I note one of the small game trails the buck used to blaze away toward the Southwest. Man my mind was racing as I walked that little deer trail, working down through the brush at 20 yards and not finding much note up ahead. 
I yell out THANK YOU LORD!!!!! I move around to the left to see where I hit him and find a perfect heart shot. 
And then I view this magnificent animals head gear still covered in frost on a cold South Texas morning 
I drop my bow and follow-up arrow and head off to deer camp at a dead run to wake up Bruce and Richard. 
Happy Hunting Y’all!!! Rob
Tags: P&Y; BOWHUNT; ARCHERY; SOUTH TEXAS; WHITETAIL BUCK
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