The Green Sunfish Pond

The stock tank on my uncle’s place in Lampasas got down to just a mud hole in the last drought we had in Texas. All of the fish we had stocked were caught out by raccoons and Great Blue Herons along with what other wildlife that ate fish for dinner. When the rains finally came the shallow muddy hole was filled with green muck and not much else. No one made an effort to re-stock the tank with fish after it was holding water again and it has served as water for the cattle and wildlife. The other day while sitting with my wife hoping for dove to fly in to water, I noticed these small fish darting around the moss in the pond. I don’t know if some very small fry survived in the little mud hole or if they were stocked naturally somehow. Not knowing what they were I went to the truck and brought out an ultra light spinning rig with a small beetle spin lure to see if I could catch any of the fish and identify them. In about 20 minutes I had a ball catching somewhere around 30 little green sunfish or green sunfish hybrids. The largest was around 3.5 inches. Some of the little monsters were smaller than the lure they were attacking. If they grew to any weight, nothing would be safe in the water.

The green sunfish is a small Texas Sunfish with a large mouth like a bass instead of the small mouth of most sunfish and bluegills. They are a brilliantly colored little green sunfish with neon blue markings running all over them and are as pretty as any tropical aquarium fish in my opinion. They are not much good for anything but catfish bait as they soon overpopulate and take over what ever pond they are found in unless there are a lot of larger prey fish to thin them out. In this case there are no prey fish and the green sunfish or only 1.5-3.5 inches long at best. They are so pretty I am considering setting up an aquarium on my desk so I can enjoy watching them all the time. Mean while my uncle and I will have plenty of catfish bait if we ever get to go fishing. Wild Ed

The Cedar Strip Boat Project Goes On and On!

When I started building a cedar strip three panel boat I never dreamed how much time and work it would become. I have done it shade tree style without a shop or place to build it. Every piece is put up in my garage at night and every time it rains. I started fiber glassing the boat yesterday and it started to rain. I had to grab the boat and put it in the garage. I was going to glass the outside today and now a storm is moving in so I will put it up and try another day. I will keep you posted as it gets closer to being finished. Wild Ed

Texas Style Homemade Breakfast Sausage

Every year as hunting season rolls around I get email asking me how to make sausage. Someone killed a feral pig at their lease the other day and wanted to know if I had a breakfast sausage and a link sausage recipe they could try. I will only cover the breakfast sausage in this article and leave smoked link BBQ sausage for later in the season.

The main issue in sausage making to me is the meat. Feral hogs and deer are too lean to make sausage that will bind and that will fry up crisp so you have to add fat in the form of fatty domestic pork meats. You can use hog jowls, fatback or just grind in some pork butts. Add enough fat or fatty meat that the sausage will fry up without having to add oil to the frying pan. My favorite blend is 60% venison and 40% pork butt. This makes a lean sausage that will still fry crisp.

There are all types of recipes and methods of making sausage and I have my favorites. After 40 years of making sausage from venison and wild hogs I have come to the conclusion that there is no better recipe than the following. I know this is not from scratch but it is very good and always consistent to the taste.

This product makes it easy and allows most of us to turn out an excellent sausage whether you prefer patty breakfast sausage or link style breakfast sausage. The product is Legg's Old Plantation Sausage Seasoning blends. I do not have any connection to this company nor do I get a penny from them. The one thing about having your own Blog is that you can say what you think about products and only recommend those that work. The Legg's brand has turned out well for my family time after time. I have not come up with my own seasoning mix that will beat their breakfast blend. Just follow the directions and you too can turn out a homemade sausage that you will be proud to put on your table. Good eating, Wild Ed

Here is the link to Legg's Seasonings, I find it at one of my local meat markets.

http://www.aclegg.com/

Pick a Quality Rifle and a Common Caliber

The following pearls of wisdom come from years of hunting, guiding others and being in hunting camps all over the country. When it comes to rifles, step up to the plate and buy quality. I am not talking about some exotic brand and caliber that cost a fortune just so everyone can "Ooh" and "Ahh" over it when you take it out of the case. I mean buy a top of the line rifle from a tried and proven company that you can carry to hell and back and it will shoot every time you pull the trigger. Don’t go out and buy the first ever released new special model for your depend-on-every-shot rifle. On the other hand don’t go out and buy some cheap rifle put out by a company that makes bargain firearms for your primary hunting rifle. I am talking about buying rifles like Remington, Savage, Winchester and Weatherby that are solid proven designs. I only mention Weatherby for those that have them in normal calibers and not the special Weatherby designed cartridges. I know lots of you have this or that rifle made by so and so that is great, so do I, but when the rifle has to perform every time without a hiccup I carry a rifle I can depend on to fire when needed. If it is a rifle based on one of the solid designs and major companies, that has been worked by some custom gunsmith, so much the better, if you believe in the smiths work. I have seen several shots-of-a-lifetime fumbled because some fancy rifle failed to feed properly or jammed. I have seen outstanding trophies missed because of flinching, caused by fear of magnum cartridge recoil. Both of these things are so easy to prevent and it is sad they occur at all, but it happens to people every season.

I have a Remington model 700 ADL in .243 that my father bought for me at Gibson’s Discount Center in Abilene, Texas when I was nine years old. That rifle has been carried all over Texas, New Mexico and Colorado and you would not believe the game it has accounted for through those years. I carried it often as a guide rifle when backing other hunters and it has put down game wounded by much more exotic and magnum calibers. I have traded it off for a shot to many a hunter that could not hit their game with a magnum rifle but made the shot with that little .243. That rifle has never failed to work and I shoot it still today. It has never been in the shop, nothing has ever broken and I will pass it on to one of my daughters to use and treasure. I can walk into any country store, box store or any place ammo is sold, and purchase ammo for that rifle. Try to buy ammo for some of the exotic calibers in No-where, Texas. If you never had someone show up in camp without their ammo you have not hunted enough. If they have a common caliber someone can usually loan them some ammo or a trip to the nearest town solves the problem. Some of the Weatherby cartridges are great rounds but I never recommend them as they can be impossible to find and the expense of a box of ammo unreal.

I have a model 70 Winchester that my grandfather shot all his life and passed to my father who passed it to me. I am proud that it continues on with no problems. My father shot a Remington model 700 in .264 Winchester Magnum most of his life and I still shoot it today, but ammo is now getting hard to find and expensive to boot. I know some people need to have the latest, greatest magnum to validate their man card, but I can assure you it is much more important to be able to precisely place a bullet than to be able to stand recoil. I am going elk hunting later this year and I will be carrying a Remington 700 tactical in .308. It has very little recoil and sufficient power to do the job with proper bullet placement. Shoot whatever you do well with and feel comfortable shooting. Be honest with yourself about recoil. If your mind tells you this is going to hurt when you sit down at the bench to sight your rifle in each season; you need to get something that recoils less. If recoil prevents you from properly sighting in a rifle or shooting a good group, you need to get something that recoils less. You can validate you man card with game you hang on the meat pole. None of my hunting buddies laugh at my little rifle any more. Have a great season, Wild Ed

Texas Hunters Should Also be Bird Watchers

I used to think that bird watchers were really strange people. The ones I had run across at wildlife management areas and refuges ran around in weird clothes with optics and cameras that had names I had never even heard of much less could afford. Many wore goofy hats and fancy outdoor clothes. I have even seen these strange people back in the shallow marshes and flats looking for water birds. They were often seen with their nose stuck in a book or playing tapes of haunting bird calls while peering through large spotting scopes on expensive tripods. I guess there are strange people in every sport and who knows I could even be one of the strangest and just not know it. As I get older I spend more of my time in the field watching wildlife than I do shooting wildlife. I no longer have the desire to just fill my tags and unless I need an animal for the freezer or it is a truly mature specimen or something unique I tend to pass the shot. Some of my clothes are different and I even have a couple of goofy hats, I guess it comes with the territory or maybe just the getting older. I just found a deal on two tripods on Craigslist the other day. Now I can put my spotting scope on one and my camera on the other.

My brother has become an accomplished bird watcher and can identify most of what I can not or can’t find in my bird books. Since I am a falconer I can identify most of the raptors he has problems with so we have kind of crossed lines and talk bird watching quite a bit these days. I often find myself sitting in a deer blind and using my binoculars to watch birds. Yesterday my wife and I sat at the tank to let her shoot a few dove and we spent much of the time watching for different species of birds. We saw Red-tailed hawks, a Merlin, Vultures, a Rain Crow, Mocking birds, a kettle of Broad-winged hawks, a Black Headed Grosbeak, a Great Horned Owl along with the five dove my wife downed that flew over the tank. There was some kind of tiny wren that came to drink at the edge of the stock pond right in front of us but I have not been able to find it in my book to identify it. We saw a whole bunch of different kinds of little sparrows that I call Chi Chi birds so people don't know I that I really don't have a clue what they are.

We have started putting up nest boxes at our small family place so that we will have some species raising young right there for us to observe. Kestrels, Screech owls and bluebirds have new homes waiting for them to occupy this next year courtesy of the Thomas family. It seems that many times other birds and animals don’t realize that the nest boxes were not built for them. A squirrel has taken over one of the Screech Owl houses and a Flycatcher nested in one of the Blue Bird boxes. Anyway we feel that putting up the man-made nest boxes will provide homes for multiple species and increase the wildlife we are able to watch at the place. I am even hoping to build some nest platforms for Red-tailed hawks and Great Horned Owls this next year. Get out and enjoy the wildlife around your area.

We sure have, Wild Ed

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Here is my favorite Guide to Birds.

I have a blog buddy that sometimes imbeds songs on his blog and the last one really has a message. Go on over and read a little but be sure and play the video

I do it anyway

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2010/09/i-do-it-anyway.html