Tag: fieldtofork

Alligators and Anniversaries

November 20th, 2023

I’m sure that if you google top things to do or places to go for your anniversary, alligator hunting is not at the top of the list, or even on the list at all. For Shaun and me, we could think of no better thing to do, however. We had had a gentleman who came to our house with the easement company to explain that they were going to have shredders and mowers on our property clearing the pipeline easement that runs in front of our house and down one side of the property. He was talking through how it was going to go and assuring us that they would pay attention to our horses and cattle and make sure that our gates were closed. As we were talking to him, he told us the story and showed us pictures of a 10ft alligator he and his wife had just harvested as standby hunters on a Texas Parks and Wildlife hunt. He was incredibly excited and had even typed up the story which he let us read.

That was it for us, we figured if these two 60ish year olds could go unprepared with no bait or anything and set their line out with rented kayaks that we could improve on their preparedness and do it too! He took us to the website and helped us find the drawn hunts page and the information about showing up to put in for the standby drawing if you weren’t drawn prior to the hunt. We read and re-read his story, watched every episode of Swamp People that was available at the time just in case any of that was actually like reality, and did a ton of research and read forums.

We ordered large hooks and paracord from eBay and practiced setting the line out. While my dad was visiting from Georgia, we returned home from a fishing expedition at the Trinity River to discover a message left on our answering machine. A guy from TPWD had tried to call us about a drawn hunt we had put in for. I returned his phone call and much to our delight, learned that we had been drawn for the alligator hunt on September 15 and 16^th, no need to go down on standby we were already in! He said our letter had been returned as undeliverable, but a quick search of our customer info showed the same address, so he was doing his last due diligence to inform us. We also discovered during our conversation that we had both gone to Stephen F Austin State University for forestry and wildlife management and bonded over different amazing assignments and professors as well as crazy assignments from professors. Lumberjacks are instant family in the same way Aggies are even if they’ve never met! He was familiar with the area we were going to be hunting and told us how the hunt would go and where to request to get to hunt based on where he had seen a lot of gators!

When I got off the phone Shaun and I were literally giddy almost to the point of jumping up and down with excitement. My dad, on the other hand, was not nearly as sure. As it turned out, most of the family wasn’t as fired up about us going alligator hunting as we were. Shaun’s dad, of course, was elated for us but he had been in the trenches hog hunting with us for years at this point and he never shies away from something just because it might be dangerous and would never encourage us to. Be prepared and ready, be afraid even, but do it even if you’re scared! My mom volunteered to watch the kids overnight and bring them down the morning of the hunt when the lines had been set out all night over the water so they could be there to see us come in with a gator if we got one.

About a week or so before the hunt, we bought some small whole chickens and left them in a bucket with a lid on it and some other juices and things that when left in the sun for that length of time would be pretty rank. It was, we had gotten to where you could smell it before you reached the bucket! We rented one of the winterized cabins and brought our air mattress and set up camp, launched our little river boat, and went out to do a little scouting. An older pair of gentlemen saw us as we headed out to scout, and we told them it was to be our first time and how we had prepared. They were veteran alligator hunters and shared some tips with us. When we came back in from scouting it seemed they were waiting on us and debating whether or not to go looking for us. They’d been worried about us and upon our arrival, insisted that we come back to their camp to eat dinner. There was no telling them no, and no reason to either. I’m not sure how we ate some sort of alligator soup that night, I didn’t ask questions about it other than what spices he used because it was delicious, he only explained what part of the alligator it had come from and how to cut it up and prepare the crock pot. They were only too happy to share a meal with us and exchange hunting stories and when I shared several hog hunting stories of my own, they visibly relaxed and determined audibly to us that we were going to be alright. We thanked them profusely for the dinner and fellowship and returned to our cabin for the morning’s orientation and release to hunt!

After we were called in to show our licenses and be assigned hunt compartments or areas to hunt which we got to choose, we actually got the area that my fellow alumni suggested, all the hunters sat through orientation and demonstrations so we would all know what to do and how to do it to keep us safe as well as legal. Shaun and I grabbed our bamboo poles and headed out! We set two lines in two separate areas as we each had a tag and came back in to wait. Since we were close to the ramp and staging area we saw a hunter come in with a gator that afternoon and went to investigate. We ended up making friends with him and told him where we had put our lines, he was familiar with the area and thought we had good spots. The next morning, he met us at the boat ramp and told us and the biologist that he passed one of our lines on the way in and that it was down. At the biologist’s suggestion he volunteered to follow us to our line and observe and only help if we were in a bind. I’m not sure if this was out of an abundance of caution for first timers or because I’m a girl or that I was wearing my life jacket and flip flops or what, but I was grateful for someone watching out for us.

As we reached the line, we could see the grass on the bank was pretty torn up and the water around was muddy. When Shaun grabbed the line and slowly began pulling it in fist over fist into the boat, he felt something huge and heavy on the other end. Slowly he pulled the alligator until his head broke the surface of the water as I readied the .410 shotgun standing beside him. In hindsight, my flip flop clad foot being propped on the side of the boat that the alligator was being pulled up on was probably not the safest choice but fortunately I didn’t lose any toes and as his head broke the surface and he began thrashing and fighting to get away, I put it down and we redoubled our efforts. Shaun pulled him back up again as I readied the gun and when his head slightly breached the water the second time, I took aim directly behind his skull and squeezed. Instantly the alligator stilled and water splashed up around us from the shot. Our hunter friends in the boat observing us whooped and hollered, clapped, and congratulated us telling us it certainly did not look like our first gator! Shaun and I tapped his mouth out of an abundance of caution and pulled him into the boat as well as retrieved our pole.

When we got back to the biologist check station at the boat ramp, we were grinning from ear to ear and all three of our kiddos were standing their being tightly held onto by my mother looking on with huge eyes and maybe a little admiration for their parents. We drug him out and the biologist took his measurements and tagged him, he was an 8 foot 9in bull, and we sent him over to the skinners who were there in case anyone needed their services but let us watch and help too!

Our second line had been empty, so we had reset it on the way in with the first alligator. It was time to head back out and check it. Since we had only set it up a couple hours ago, when we tried to go find the area looking for the white line hanging, we couldn’t find it. After trolling around for a few minutes, we thought, what if the line has fallen or we have a second alligator and began looking for the pole instead. We quickly located it and slowly drifted in. Shaun grabbed the line to see if it had just fallen or if we had something on it. To our surprise, as he began pulling in the line and it got tight, a very fresh and active alligator tugged back against him as he tried to get it closer to the boat. This guy was a fighter and drug our boat around a bit as Shaun fought him in. Like the last gator, I began loading and readying the shotgun, when Shaun got the alligator close to the boat and his head breached the surface of the water, it was on me to shoot. In my excitement and fidgeting, I accidentally separated the receiver of the gun from the buttstock. It’s a very old gun and I knew if you torqued it a certain way that would happen. It wasn’t unsafe, just inconvenient. I began apologizing profusely and remember Shaun, who was fighting a very live and very fresh 9 foot 8 inch bull alligator, responded in the calmest and kindest voice, “its ok babe, he’s not going anywhere, just get ready and I’ll pull him up again.” His calmness in the middle of that battle was so comforting and reassuring to me! I quickly slipped the gun back together and got into position to shoot as he again pulled the alligator up. Just like the first one early that morning, the alligator instantly stilled, water rained down around us, and we grinned and high fived….and maybe kissed because, hey, it was our actual anniversary, and then pulled him in to head to the check station where our kiddos were again waiting.

Since this hunt, we have tweaked a few things, but each of our kiddos has been able to harvest at least one alligator from either being drawn for this hunt or going down on standby. Our daughter harvested a 10-foot 10-inch one in a whirlwind of a standby drawing some years later. We have made so many memories hunting alligators together as well as so many friends. Shaun and I were even drawn to hunt another location near the Texas coast some years later which ended up on our actual anniversary date again and we basically had a remake of the first trip and made another lifelong friend! To say that alligator hunting holds a special place in our hearts would be an understatement!
Feathers and Fences

November 6th, 2023

My first dove hunt was also my kiddos’ first dove hunt and like most of my hunts, Shaun and his dad were the ones to teach us and take us. This story is also not in chronological order because we already had gotten dogs to retrieve and trained them at this point. The getting of the dogs was a result of sliding down a beaver run well over waders on a duck hunt, but that’s a story for another time! Just as an FYI waders do a great job of keeping water out as long as you don’t get water higher on your body than the waders go up.

One of our favorite things to do is share our love of hunting with others and build relationships that usually lead to lifelong friendships, meaningful conversations, and tons of memories. Dad had had a friend of his tell him how much his grandson wanted to go dove hunting and he would be happy for us all to go together on a piece of property he owned. Naturally, we were happy and excited to oblige.

First, we all met together in the field and talked strategy and safety. Dad and Shaun helped us to understand what to expect and how adrenaline and excitement might make us have a tendency to react in an unsafe manner. I talked through gun safety and we demonstrated proper movements and then Dad and Shaun gave us our marching orders!

Tristan and I were stationed away from the pasture the others were walking through and we positioned ourselves where we had seen dove flying in, of course at dad’s suggestion. I remember T’s first dove about as well as I do his first duck although he didn’t get quite as excited. He was shooting my old 20ga pump Mossberg which I think may be called a Maverick and we had our German Wirehaired Pointer, Maverick, with us. We saw the dove headed our direction and T positioned himself to safely shoot, I still remember the huge grin he had on his face when that bird started falling, T’s eyes wide open. We sent Mavie to retrieve it and he rushed over and found it, picked it up, promptly carried it few feet towards us, and spit it out like it tasted bad! Repeated commands to fetch it up were unsuccessful as he would walk over and sit down by the bird and look at us as if to say, “its literally right here, YOU can pick it up.” Mavie was duck crazy, I guess something about the dove feathers he just didn’t like.

We stayed there that evening hearing gunfire across the pasture as the others in our group were getting shots at birds, but the most memorable sound was that of laughter and conversation as they walked through the goat weeds and either jumped birds or flushed birds Ripp found. Ripp, our other GWP, didn’t have a care in the world about what he retrieved. You could tell him to fetch up hairbrushes and bottles and he was just as happy doing that as he was bringing you back a mallard! On the way over to mine and T’s spot he had actually retrieved my first dove and then went with Shaun and the others.

Dove hunting in Texas is hot and since we didn’t want to overheat the dogs, we were giving Mavie a break from finding our birds, while still encouraging him to retrieve them. It was his first dove hunt too, and I took off to retrieve a bird T had shot. We had talked about letting anything that flew in the same direction go while I was out, and that T’s only shot was behind us. About the time I reached the downed bird, I had to search for it. I heard T scream and Mavie yelp. I yelled to him to find out what had happened, and he screamed what sounded like, “I shot Maverick.” Instant horror began building in my gut but there had been no shot, so I was also confused. Running back to him and Mavie I could see T running to me and that they both physically seemed unscathed although Tristan was crying, and Mavie was huddled under his chair. When I finally got him settled enough to repeat himself, I learned that because he was determined to hunt behind him and not put me in danger, he was moving he and Mavie around so they could see behind them.

While petting Mavie, T also touched the electric cross fence on accident! He had screamed, “I SHOCKED Maverick!” I should be a better parent, I should be a better dog owner, my first instinct should not have been to bust out laughing, but I guess I’m neither of those things because, knowing they were both fine, I laughed really loudly and really hard, Tristan didn’t find it all that funny.

A little later T had downed a bird over on the other side of that electric cross fence and shimmied under to retrieve it rather than chancing Mavie again, and besides we could see it and it wasn’t far, which made Mavie and his hate for dove feathers unnecessary in this instance. As T handed me the dove over the fence, excited as he was for his great shot and swift recovery, he began leaning forward and touched that fence AGAIN all while I was trying to gain his attention and stop him! Today this story is hilarious, Tristan is incredibly leery of electric fences, and we tease him mercilessly every time we are around one but even he can look back at his younger self and have a laugh!

This hunt led to years more with Dad’s friend’s grandson and our family, a lifelong friendship between the kids, and more memories than we can count, as well as some really good food! The laughter and tears, the relationships built with the dogs and each other are as priceless as the memories we collectively share.
And then there was Archery

October 23rd, 2023

My First bow season

My first season bow hunting for deer was absolutely magical, but if it had ended the way it started, there wouldn’t have been a season at all. Shaun had been into bow hunting for a while, and I watched the guys shoot but I stuck to my guns! This was way before I became a firearms instructor…seems like that was sort of in my DNA now. I went bowfishing with him but just held the light mostly or occasionally fell asleep in an awkward and embarrassing position in the boat, also I occasionally drool a tiny amount.

Anyway, Shaun wanted to get me a bow for our anniversary which is Sept 16, but he decided to get it early because he wanted me to have at least a month to practice and build those muscles before the season opened in October.

We had heard RAVE reviews about a bow shop in Nacogdoches and I had just transferred over to SFA to finish up my undergrad so I was excited to go. When we walked inside there were a bunch of dudes in there standing around talking, and we made our way up to one of them to help us. They were talking hunting, food plots, and hunting gear and my husband told the tech he was hoping to buy me a bow after finally gaining his attention.

This got the whole group’s attention, while there are plenty of female bow hunters, in 2008 we still weren’t nearly as plentiful as the guys. But I wasn’t a bow hunter yet. To my absolute horror (because I’m insanely nervous/anxious and awkward when doing new things) one of the guys that was in this group and turned was none other than Dr. “Deer” Kroll, who at the time was somewhat of a celebrity in the Forestry Dept which I had just transferred to. I was already nervous and the archery tech started asking me questions that I didn’t know the answers to at that time and I was becoming WAY intimidated.

It was made worse by the fact that the tech, who was trying to measure my draw length by getting me to stand a certain way and hold my arms out but without ever communicating to me why or demonstrating, finally became frustrated and dropped the tape asked, “haven’t you ever held a bow before!” It was rather loud and he was rather exasperated. Every guy in the group laughed except my husband who was trying to explain and demonstrate for me so I could be measured. My shoulders sagged, my chin dropped, and I clenched my teeth to fight back tears and told him I had been around them but mainly just tagged along and I apologized for my lack of understanding. He was gruff and short with me, probably wanting to get back to the celebrity and the conversation, he ended up not having anything in my draw length anyway and we got out of there pretty fast. The hubs knew I wasn’t feeling it, I felt a little humiliated and kind of wanted to punch that guy in his adams apple.
Fast forward a few days to a little archery shop in Palestine, long closed now, my husband called and asked if they had anything in my draw length and the guy said he had both new and used bows that I was welcome to come try. When I arrived, the guy greeted us so warmly, we told him we had called about a bow in my draw length and then I just told him I had sort of had a humiliating experience with another bow shop because there was a miscommunication of me literally not knowing anything. He remeasured me to make sure my draw length was correct and literally baby stepped me through every little thing. The how and why of all the important parts of the bow, the necessary equipment, and found us a used Bowtech Miranda bow that he set up right then and there for me and let me get comfortable shooting it.

I practiced every single day, most days twice a day, until we got my draw weight maxed out and I was accurate.
Shaun and I hunted A LOT during bow season and either didn’t see anything or didn’t see anything legal or in my bow range. The last week of bow season he was working nights and the kids were all at my mom’s which was near the deer lease. I finished my Monday lab early and made it to her house in time to beg her to let me go hunting. The absolute craziest thing happened when I drove up to the gate. I was sitting there in the truck putting on my release and a doe came walking up and jumped the fence right beside the truck. She walked on the other side of some tall bushes and briars and began to browse like the truck wasn’t RIGHT THERE.
I decided to see if I could slip out of it and stalk up close enough to her to get a shot. I eased the door open slightly and slipped out of the driver seat. I hunkered down leaving my fingers in the door as I eased it closed but not shut, I eased the back door open and carefully slipped my bow out and hid behind the back tire with her between the shrub/brush pile, then the truck, and me. I was trying to get control of my breathing, my shaking, and my heart rate! I could hear her moving down the lane at a leisurely pace stopping to nibble random things. I crept out from behind the truck watching her and moved from concealment to concealment thankful for the dense carpet of pine needles to quiet my steps. I managed to advance, always keeping trees or bushes between us so she couldn’t see me as I stalked closer to her, but I was running out of foliage. I eased barely around the last tree just enough to range her because I still wasn’t, and honestly still am not great at guessing distances, and started to shake even harder when I realized she was only 25 yards! I eased back, slowly lowered the range finder down, and drew back as I slowly eased out behind the tree. She walked a couple of steps forward browsing on some foliage and was perfectly broad side.
About the same time I squeezed the release, she spotted me, but at that distance she didn’t respond fast enough as I had already let the arrow fly. She ran off and I watched until I could no longer see her and waited several minutes, not because I was cool and collected and knew I’d made a good shot and needed to give her time. I waited because my legs were shaking, and my heart was racing, I couldn’t breathe and my ears were pounding. I slowly crept to where I shot her, looking around for blood and my arrow and I found both. According to my arrow I had made a great shot. I tried to wait longer and slowly tracked the blood and ended up jumping her because I didn’t wait long enough.

I backed out and went back later and was unable to track her.
I was heartbroken and felt so dumb. I knew better. This was not my first deer. It was just my first with a bow. It was incredibly cool that evening thankfully, and there was a hard frost that night. After telling the hubs and wanting to cry, we got up the next morning and drove out there and I took him to where I shot her, where I tracked her to, and where I jumped her. My husband has blood hound DNA I think, and he managed to find her blood “trail” (maybe a drop here or there) immediately and her in a mere few minutes! It was plenty cold enough to save the meat and after we celebrated, and I cried happy tears, and Shaun swore she had to be deaf and blind, we loaded her up to take her back and process her. I knew she couldn’t have been blind because she A- jumped the fence and B-finally spotted me! I was excited and feeling confident with a cooler full of venison!

After happy tears for finding her in time to save the meat!

Fast forward to Saturday which was actually opening day of gun season. Even though the moon was full we still went out before daylight and got in our stands. I call this the butt-crack of dawn, later when I was introduced to duck hunting I began to experience the pre-butt-crack of dawn. We both decided to stick with our bows and as I started off in the direction of my stand, Shaun told me that since the moon was full, it was more likely for the deer to move later in the morning since they likely moved in the middle of the night. So he wanted me to sit as long as I possibly could. I took that as a challenge to stay longer than he could, and it paid off.

I was sitting in my “lucky ladder stand” that morning and listening to what sounded like deer chasing each other near my stand. Suddenly, a decent sized buck popped out long enough to get my attention and then right back in the thicket. I was excited and a little bummed because I wondered if I wasn’t watching the stupid squirrel dance up and down to my left would I have seen him sooner. I was also figuring that was probably my one and only chance at a legal buck in my range.
I’m sure it’s not physically possible but it felt like I held my breath for about 20 or 30 more minutes so I could hear better, and a different buck popped out and started quickly walking across my area. I had to use the concealment of the trees to rotate my body around on my ladder stand and into a shooting position so he wouldn’t bust me. I’d rotated all the way around from right to left with my bow up and I was running out of space. He was about to go behind me where I wouldn’t have a shot. I hooked my feet into the sides of the ladder and twisted around as far as I was comfortable with and drew back hoping he would stop, he seemed intent on passing through like he was trailing something, so I did what all of those hunting show dudes do. I gave him a MEEEHHHH.
He stopped with a stomp and jerked his head up looking right at me just like the doe, but again, I was ready, he was slightly quartered but I knew I’d hit him based on the wild way he leapt up. As he was trotting off, I actually saw the arrow come out and fall and could tell it had blood. Instead of having a repeat of Monday, I sat, and I sat and I sat, I was shaking and doing the heart pounding breathless thing anyway. About 30 minutes had gone by and Shaun came walking up and asked me what the heck I was doing because it was well after 11 by this time.

I told him I was waiting on the buck I’d just shot. He looked at me incredulously as I began to recount the story to him. We waited another 30 minutes and the ole bloodhound went to work. We were both trailing and at one point sort of lost blood and decided to circle in opposite directions from last blood. Shaun yelled to me when he found him, still in disbelief, not because he was a monster deer, he wasn’t, but because I had had an incredible week hunting! Bow hunting for me has been both exhilarating and down right frustrating when what I can see is outside my bow range and way in my rifle range, especially when the freezer is empty. I still love the challenge and especially the food! I’m still grateful to the hubs for introducing me to archery hunting too and for buying me that first bow!

My first bowbuck and food for the fam!

Tag: fieldtofork

Alligators and Anniversaries

Feathers and Fences

And then there was Archery