Thanksgiving Wekend Duck Hunt...

27 degrees Saturday morning for the traditional Thanksgiving weekend duck hunt. This hunt took place on Lake Belton, near Temple where Morgan now lives. Juan sits at the edge of the water with a bit of thin ice ringing the shoreline as fog rises from water warmer than the air. No one tried to warm up by taking a dip.







There some birds flying but none liked us. I think maybe these two bad hombres scared them away.
















Juan breaks the wind in the front of the boat on a scout around cruise after the morning hunt. Lots of good high scenic canyon walls around this lake. Where we hunted was called Owl Creek, pretty much a muddy little shallow tributary that could have
been on any east Texas lake.







Juan pulls the camo netting from the boat. I think putting the camo net on the boat is my favorite part of the hunt.

Temple Thanksgiving...

Got most of the gang together for a Thanksgiving dinner this past Saturday at Morgan's house in Temple. You see present Cathy, Carl, Ali, Morgan, Mary, Rose and Juan. Other prominent blog characters such as Katie and Peter, Miguel and Coraline were either living in another state, late or asleep.




I fried a turkey.

















Everyone else had a hand in the dishes you see here. Clockwise from Ali looks like Rose's dressing, Morgan's wine grilled chicken thighs, turkey, dumplings sent by Grandma Bessie, sweet taters by Mary, Roses bacon rotel green beans, mashed taters and home made cranberry sauce.

Dessert was sofapia cheesecake, pumpkin pie and pecan pie.

A good time was had by all.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Coraline says, "Do you know what time the turkey will be done?"

No, but if you hum a few bars I bet I can plunk out a bass line.

East Texas Big Sky Country...

This is a Sunday morning shot from my front yard or really just across the road looking at the western sky as my pet buffalo herd speads across the landscape. Closest it gets around here to big sky country. My neighbor, Lanis, a Navy vet claims that after seeing sunsets at sea all over the world some of the most spectacular are right here.


In the old days I'd draw a skin from a previously harvested animal across my back and sneak close for the kill. Now it's easier to use the zoom lens, crop on the computer and guess what, this old boy likes me a lot better.






If you look close far in the left center distance there is an elk, light brown against the fading fall green grass, maybe a little confused as to who his friends are. After these photos, I headed to town a couple of hours, came home nothing in sight. This field was empty when I returned. Two more hours pass, I look out all are back.


A glance over the shoulder and he unceremoniously shows me the butt. He says, "Glad that man is in the fence."

Happy Anniversary...

Rose and Juan celebrate their 7th wedding anniversary today. Here is a photo of them in the hospital with Coraline, take on the day of her birth in August.

Congratulations...

Congratulations are in order, Katie and Peter are now officially engaged. Date is set for December 2011 in Chicago. As usual stay tuned here, details to follow.

Time for the Walker...

Here's Coraline walking at Grandma's house in one of those rolling walkers. These things are longstanding tradition around here.
Check out Morgan as a baby. He's on board the old pontoon boat, sitting in one of those things asleep while his parents concentrate on fishing or what ever it is that parents concentrate on while they use whatever method possible to keep the kid from falling in the water.

November Sky and Other Lake Sights...

Great looking sky, don't know if I captured the early winter beauty or not but I love to fish those cool cloudy threatening to rain winter days. I used to call days like this "white bass days" because they seemed to bite so well in this kind of weather. May be it was because that was the fish species I had dedicated my pursuit to at the time. Now it's "catfish days." Heck I guess everything is biting, filling up fat for winter.
Ok, I know you wonder where I catch all this fish but did you have to send the black helicopters to buzz me? Who knows what blog the pictures they took will end up on. Who is flying those things these days, I am confused who I am supposed to be scared of right now.



Cathy names our fishing spots. You know names like "the place", "the elevens" colorful monikers reflecting a distinguishing mark. This one is called the "Wizard." See the ears, the nose? With the lake rising after recent rains won't be long before this old boy returns to his hiding place submerged about 6' under water at normal pool. We will visit him again, next drought when the lake drops and he takes a look around.

Camp Catfish November 2010...

Just back from a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night
camping trip at Hank's Creek. We only cheated a little by coming home Sunday afternoon, taking a bath and playing music for church before heading back out. Slept pretty dry in a tent except for last night when anything, clothes, cell phone and so on that was on the down hill side of the tent floor got a little wet.

In this photo Cathy drinks coffee in camp catfish before setting out in quest for the channel catfish.
This is Saturday's stringer. Total catch was 49 head over three days fishing. Best catch with best fish was Sunday morning. Decent fish Monday but had to move around several times to get them.













As usual where there is frying fish there is a good chance Mary will show up and if Mary shows up Miguel does too. Note the product placement by our fine sponsors, O'Doul's non-alkie near beer, Pepsi Max and Louisiana Hot Sauce.

Chicago Street Musician...

I snapped this photo of a Chicago street drummer who brought to mind the old Texas based street drummer Bongo Joe. Joe (1923-1999) turned down a lot of real gigs to play for folks on the street. He was often invited to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Mode of operation there was said to be who ever picked Joe up at the airport stopped by the junk yard on the way to the fest where a discerning Joe picked out oil drums and other found items to make up his percussion set.
Better picture of the hat. And yeah, I paid the guy to play. I know how you have to hustle when selling your music. Any one interested in a mid 1990s cassette recorded with the church children's choir. I have about 75 of them in a back closet. The youngest kids singing on the tape are about 24 years old now to give you an idea how fast the product is moving. Price is negotiable. Money goes to the church building fund. The church got built, but like the cassettes it's not paid for yet either.

Music in Chicago...

Chicago has a long blues history and on our recent visit we checked out a few of the local scenes.

Here's Hollywood Scott at Chicago B.L.U.E.S. He's backed by a band known simply as the Chicago All stars. It was a good funky show, a bit loose as I think Hollywood was a fill in for some one who canceled. He kept saying things like, "now I'll play another song I don't know," or "on break I'll see what songs I have written on my sheet of paper." Kind of how my gigs go sometimes.

The whole band, other guitarist was named Luke. Kind of reminded me of a Chicago version of Beto.

Across the street from this club was another venue called Kingston Mines, one cover on Sunday night got you in both places, I thought Kingston Mines was a little touristy in a "Sweet Home Chicago"way which they were playing when we arrived. I think I could have set in and held my own. I don't think I could have hung with Hollywood.

Likewise a visit to Buddy Guy's club seemed a little tourist, but did see a nice trio, guitar, tuba and piano. Food looked like it might be good there. At the Double Door we saw Jason Isabell (former Drive By Trucker) and the 400 Unit with a very nice opening act called Langhorn Slim. Good venue for the American/indie stuff.

Deer Season Opening Day Shots...

...With the camera that is. These photos taken about 40 yards from my hot tub deck of deer feeding on fresh fallen acorns just inside my neighbors high game fence. This old girl did not like me getting too close. She stomped her foot, snorted and blew trying to scare me away. Little does she know that for the next Apocalypse I am signed up for the too dumb to run group.









These two stood a little further away, barely giving me a look. They knew I was no threat to their business.

Th

Pop's Big Fish...

I think I left off the photo of Pop's best fish from Monday's fishing trip report.

With the low water note the structure of the area we are fishing. The near bank slopes right into the old river channel. Ahead you see a point with a small creek feeding in. Behind the boat is another creek feeding into the submerged river channel. All this adds up to an area loaded with fish.

Remember the old saying, 90% of the fish are in 10% of the lake? It's true.

Our Team Loses...

After a strong first half by the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks at the homecoming game this past weekend the team had it in "D" for drive. In the second half things suddenly switched to "R" for reverse and our team lost.

None of this stopped the Lufkin Daily News from publishing this photo of a purple person (team Colors) described in the caption as "Mary, nursing major" as she hassled everyone in sight.

What ever happens, we are big on team spirit around here.

Happy Birthday Pop...

We Celebrated Pop's birthday today with a quick Big Sam fishing trip. We caught one for each year old he is 30, fishing from 8:30-11:30 this morning. They bit quick and early.
I think Pop and and Geneva both had personal best as far as size and numbers go. Yours truly did not do so great putting only two keepers in the boat. I was able to put my guests on some fish and my wife caught more than me. Those things will make more memories than what I did.

Check the low water in the background, the tree line is normal pool level. The spots we fished are usually too deep with no stumps to tie to. Rain predicted tonight, say good by to these fishing holes till lake levels are minus 10ft again.

Cathy and her Dad.











Bill and Geneva pose with the tub shot. A really good bunch of fish, made 8lbs of fillet meat.