Last weekend I had a Burnham Brothers/Mossy Oak booth at the Texas Trophy Hunters Show in Houston, I picked up a Sportsman Eyewear video camera in Mossy Oak. The camera is built into a pair of glasses with the lens and microphones located between your eyes. Once in the record mode, the camera records whatever you are looking at. The memory card will hold approximately three hours of video and audio recording and the built-in battery will power the camera for three to four hours.
I took the little camera into the field this morning and shot video of my hounds working. The dogs treed four coons, two in the dark and two after daylight. I started recording 15-20 minutes before sunrise and continued until the sun had been up for about 30 minutes. I carried the glasses/camera to my laptop to review the footage. I was most suprised at the video and audio quality of the camera.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
Last Friday, friend Windy Miller from South Texas drove up to hunt with me. He brought his pup, Hondo who is a littermate to Rip and Ten. We started coon hunting about 10:00 PM and hunted until a little after 1:00 AM Saturday morning then got up at 4:25 AM and hunted til 9:00 AM.
We made seven trees and looked at 6 coons. The seventh tree was hollow and I feel that the coon was there. Hondo was a little intimidated as he had not been hunted but he stayed with the other dogs and gave mouth on track. He was not too fond of my .22 pistol but as the hunt wore on, he accepted it better. I wish I had room in my kennel to hunt him a week or two as this dog is going to take off.
I road hunt my dogs as I can cover more ground and keep track of what they are doing. At the end of the hunt, my odometer showed that I had driven approximately 22 miles while hunting. I was really proud of my dogs, especially Rip and Lizzie as they hunted until I loaded them for the last time Saturday morning.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
Last weekend, Miss Deb, Steve, Dustin and Jeana Whitacre and I exhibited at the Texas Trophy Hunter Extravaganza show in San Antonio. We were there with Burnham Brothers and Mossy Oak camo and for the first time on 20 years, I heard excuses on why they could not make a purchase. Until now, it seems that the Texas economy was somewhat immune to the economic problems facing most of the nation.
I was in the banking business in the ’80s when the Texas economy was in bad shape. At that time, we were the last state to feel the downturn and the last state to recover from it. The saying “Last in…last out” comes to mind. I hope and pray that this recession or depression does not last as long as the one I experienced in the ’80s as I saw our real estate prices plunge almost 50%. I must admit that I don’t have a lot of confidence in this administration to turn things around and I feel that much of the stimulus money that we have spent has made matters worse in the long term.
With the downturn of the economy, I guess that means that I will have to hunt harder…that’s not a bad thing.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
For the last few weeks, my nephew has been wanting me to load my dogs and hunt with him on the home ranch south of San Antonio. I have not made the trip and don’t have it on my schedule as long as a band of ornery javelinas are on the warpath. The last two times he has hunted, he has had dogs cut in the hindquarters by javelinas. The scary thing is neither dog was bothering the javelinas, rather cold trailing coons.
This is not the first time I have seen javelinas become overly aggressive and it is generally in areas where hog dogs have harassed them. The hog dogs will bay them and then get out of the way while an unsuspecting hound is an easy target. My nephew was lucky for it is pretty rare for a dog to survive such an attack as the javelinas are masters at cutting the hamstring, slowing the escape. Having both dogs survive makes me think that there may not be many in the band.
At any rate, I won’t be cutting my hounds loose on the Roberson ranch until someone gets control of those mad porkers.
See you outdoors,
Gary
Last Thursday I drove to Polar, Texas and picked up my hunting buddy J. Martin Bassinger and drove to Dumas, Texas approximately 40 miles north of Amarillo. We were looking at a large ranch to see what hunting opportunities it might produce.
Though I have hunted several ranches in the Texas Panhandle, I have never seen a ranch with such a wide variety of game. We saw pronghorn antelope, mule deer, whitetails, Rio Grande turkey, waterfowl, blue or scaled quail, bobwhites and coyotes. The ranch was traversed by two spring fed creeks and a nice lake with approximately 5 surface acres, 10 when full. Though this ranch appeared to be open, there was adequate cover with the best stand of wild plum thickets I have ever seen. The only large trees were huge cottonwoods that lined the drainage areas.
Some folks think that the windy plains don’t offer many hunting opportunities but this ranch sure proves that wrong.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
I gave a female puppy to my good friend, J. Martin Bassinger at Snyder, Texas. J. Martin is a youthful 78 year old bobcat hunter. He wanted a dog that had a little more nose than some of his running walker type hounds as it can forget how to rain in his country. Both of us felt that the little female would fill the bill with a little work.
For one reason or another, Ten was timid and difficult for J. Martin to handle. I feel that this caused by a combination of the dog’s personality and other stimuli in her environment at a very critical time as she is growing. At any rate, I told J. Martin if she did not suite him for any reason, I wanted her back.
He brought her to me last week and I have begun to mess with her everyday. I put her in a kennel with her brother, Rip who is very outgoing and has never met a stranger. I started hunting her this week and have seen a marked improvement in her personality. She is really gentling down and is making a hand in the woods. She is giving mouth on track and is an extremely hard tree dog. While having a dog returned is usually a bad sign, I am very pleased with this acquisition. She is going to compliment my pack and make a heck of a hound. Of course J. Martin said that she was going to make a really good dog, she just did not work for him.
See you outdoors, Gary
Steve, Dustin (aka-Shed) and I drove to Dryden, Texas Friday afternoon to try to call up a bobcat for CARNIVORE. We made one call that evening that produced 6 deer but no predators. Saturday morning, the first stand yielded a gray fox that could not resist the sound of Cottontail Duet. I had been playing the distress cries of a grown cottontail which I am sure had lured him into the area. As soon as I switched the Compucaller III to the “duet”, the fox dashed from a thicket with a mockingbird pecking at his back. Shed missed his first shot as the trigger pull on his Savage Model 10 is a little lighter than he is accustomed to. The fox did not spook and his second shot was true.
The third stand produced another fox that pranced up to the caller with his tail arched. He was trying to make himself appear to be about twice his size. After nosing up to the caller, he trotted back toward cover. Shed “gave him a barrel” but the bullet appeared to to hit under the little critter.
Believe it or not, it was difficult sleeping in our old cabin for the recent rains have produced quite the mosquito population. We ended up having to shut the doors which made it awfully hot; too hot for this old man. We decided to drive back to civilization and air conditioning.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
Dustin “Shed” Whitacre drove in for the long weekend to shoot a little footage for CARNIVORE. We started out Friday morning by taking the hounds north of Menard and coon hunting at sunrise. Shortly after dumping the hounds, they stuck and treed within a hundred yards of the pickup. Old Lizzie finally struck a cold track an hour after sun up and started trailing east. Tear was trailing with her while Daisy and Rip seemed to be swinging out in front, trying to pick it up. Rip and Daisy winded the coon out front as he had already found a tree for the day.
We hunted the dogs again Sunday morning and Rip and Tear treed a coon half a mile out before Lizzie and Daisy got to them. I am extremely proud of these pups as they are only 10 months old. We struck another good track and Lizzie and Rip crossed two fences and a county road only to put him in a hole in the ground.
We treed one more coon about 8:15 a.m. when we roaded the dogs by a deer feeder. They winded the coon as he had climbed a tree near the supper table. It was a good morning, good fellowship and another segment for CARNIVORE is in the can.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
Trying to get the hounds on a fresh bobcat track had proven to be more of a task than what we expected. I decided to increase our odds by calling one up. I told Brian Hawkins and my son, Steve to go in one direction and I would go another. Two callers would double our odds which I felt were pretty slim in the 93 degree heat.
We were shooting an episode for CARNIVORE TV and needed a bobcat in a tree so that young Colter Kaspar could have an opportunity to take it with his bow. We had traveled many miles of ranch roads that morning without crossing bobcat scent that was strong enough for the hounds to trail.
My GPS set on the hunt/fish mode indicated that the critters should be feeding from approximately 4:45 p.m. til 6:45 p.m. as “Best Times”. I told J. Martin Bassinger that I would leave a radio with him and should I get a cat to respond, give him a call. It was so hot that I waited until about a quarter of six before leaving the house. I decided to leave the Compucaller III for Steve and Brian while I would do a little squealling on the Mini Blaster.
Of late, I had been calling exclusively with the Compucaller III and must admit that it felt good to go back to my “pet” hand call of all time. On the second series, I peered around the deer blind that I was using for a shade and saw a big tom bobcat loping in to the call as if he was a coyote. Immediately, I got on the radio to J. Martin as I was trying to inform him of my success without alarming the cat. The wind was in my face and helped to cover my radio transmission. After hearing J. Martin verify my call and say “I am headed your way,” I turned the radio off.
I called to the cat, covering the bell of the call in an attempt of lowering the volume and turning up the pitch. I had been successful as I could see the sunlight shining off what had to be the back of the cat, it was the only thing horizontal in a vertical world. When the shine disappeared, the cat’s head appeared on the ground near the root of a purple sage.
I continued to squeak to the cat, hoping to keep him around as long as I could. The longer he was there, the fresher the scent would be when the cavalry arrived. The cat seemed to relax a little and boldly walked into the open, cutting the distance between us. When approximately 40 feet, he walked under the deep shade of a thick bush on dthe edge of the sendero and lay down, facing me.
From time to time, the tom would look up at me standing only partially concealed by the blind. He seemed not to be alarmed or concerned about catching supper. When Dennis Kaspar and Ty Greene arrived, I was pointing to the cat. Dennis saw the cat stand and trot away.
While we did not catch this tom, the dogs did a great job for over two hours. I must admit that blowing blasts on the Mini Blaster felt pretty good and I know it sounded good, at least to me and Old Tom.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson
Miss Deb and I flew to Charlotte, North Carolina to attend the NRA Convention last Thursday. I would be helping in the SAVAGE ARMS booth. Promoting SAVAGE rifles is an easy task for me as they are without a doubt the most accurate rifle “out of the box”. I would even go a step further, SAVAGE rifles are the most accurate, period.
While most of my hunting involves predator hunting with the Model 10 Predator Hunter which I helped to design, I am also a huge fan of the centerfire big game rifles as well. My latest purchase was the Model 14 American Classic in .270 WSM. My first hunting season with this rifle was a huge success as I killed a whitetail buck at over 350 yards, one shot and he fell in his tracks.
The newest feature that is being offered on the centerfire rifles that has the competition scratching their heads is the ACCUSTOCK, a three dimensional bedding system that should improve accuracy. Improving the accuracy on my Model 10 will be a tall order as I have achieved a .3″ group with three different factory ammos.
While visiting with my friends at BROWNING, I had the opportunity to meet Marcus Luttrell, author of LONE SURVIVOR and a true American hero.
Ron Coburn, Chairman, CEO of SAVAGE ARMS treated myself, Deb, Keith Warren and his daughter, Mattie to an evening at the NRA Freedom Celebration. I was privileged to hear speeches by Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck and Oliver North. Charlie Daniels was the entertainment to end up the evening. It was a great time.
See you outdoors,
Gary Roberson