Clarksville for second weekend in a row...

Still doe tagging up at Clarksville.  Shot two and hit them both a little 9:00 from where I thought the shot broke.  Nice does, already at processor.  Gotta check that zero or switch rifles.  Having great trips up.  Wonderful weather to be out and about.  Not muddy underfoot and no wind.  Cold in the mornings and perfect in the afternoon.  Most of the time, the weather in Texas is perfect.  The Good Doctor Sneed was along so the company was heavily armed and pleasant.

Making photographs.

8X10 standing by.

It throws a thick shadow.  

Had to sled-dog this doe about 150 yards up the firebreak.  Picked her out of a group of five that walked around the back of a tower I was in.  I carry an old piece of one-inch tubular rock climbing webbing that has sled-dogged a lot of deer.  I put a loop around the deers neck, make a loop to go over my shoulder, tie in a carabiner as an extra handle and started mushing.  Lotta work.  Slightly uphill dragging an undressed 115 lb deer.  Had to pause for a short break twice but it's like chopping wood: You can see the results of your effort at once.  Got her in the cooler so that I could load her in the back of the 4-runner without smearing blood all over.  

The Good Doctor Cooper-ized a nice boar.  Before I caught myself I observed that pig jaws are ONE PIECE and make nice trophies....and before you knew it we were wrestling this hog for his lower mandible.  Yug.  He was fairly attached to it, though it went back to College Station in a ziplock.  The evening that the Doctor had sent this fellow to hog heaven, we examined the carcass and then opened it up so the scavengers could get to it quickly.  It was buzzard heaven.

Washing out the gut bucket.  Amazing how busy you can stay, especially if you are running two operating systems....say, art and hunting, at the same time.

  Climbed a spectacular old oak at the site of a house ruin.  No house left- just some wire and a set of concrete steps.  The oak was so big and old that the outside limbs were down to the ground level.  When we were kids this would have been a prize tree.  I just climbed up to see the shadow and have a look around.  It was like being inside sculpture.

When I was a kid, a tree like this would actually be known by a name:  The hilltop tree, the corner tree, the yellow house tree, the Big Fort tree, Coke tree.  The Coke tree was so hard to climb that the legend had it that IF you could actually climb it, your parents would magically have bought you a bottled coke by the time you got home.  This was WAY before soft drinks became more popular than water.  We worked pretty hard to make that climb every chance we got and the legend never died.  

Going boldly where only possums, raccoons, bats, owls, poison ivy and sparrows have gone before, plus the long-dead kids that lived in the house that isn't there any more.  They wouldn't have missed this.  I get a Dr. Pepper.  No Coke.

Hardly a cell tower in Red River County.  ATT users don't get many bars.  I forwarded a little bit of info to Sneed's home base:

The Doctor, readying his Cooper .270 for some zesty hog shooting after I dropped him off in the pre-dawn light.

Hope to get one more trip up hunting, and maybe another visit in the Spring when the white trees start going off.