Texas Trapping and Stories Told Funny

Mike Bodenchuk is a leading wildlife biologist and president of the Texas Trappers and Fur Hunters Association. He joins the show to explain how trapping and conservation go hand in hand - contrary to the what animal activists spout. Dayton House is back this week to share some wisdom from a life lived outdoors. He also  shares a string of comedic errors after a 30 year career as a trapper. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Lone Star Trail, a new outdoor show aimed at bringing you hunting and fishing updates and compelling stories from around Texas and right here at home. Get ready to join us down the trail. Now, here's your host, Nathan Smith.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

Hello, friends, and welcome to the Lone Star Trail. Thanks for joining us again this week. On the show, we're talking with Mike Bodinchuk. He's our uh resident wildlife biologist. He's also president of the Texas Trappers and Fur Hunters Association. And uh we caught up with him at Childress recently at their rendezvous, their spring rendezvous, uh, where we can get an overview of some feral hog research and activity he presented recently at SCI Nashville, as well as a discussion about the importance of the trapping organization, uh, the trapping industry as a whole, and uh the fur market. And we talk about that a little bit as well. Dayton House is back this week on house rules, so you're gonna want to stay tuned for that. All this and more right after a quick break, so pour some more coffee and stay tuned. Whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acres to sell, you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. They use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway. Call Ranch Pro Real Estate at 325-642-3630. That's Ranch Pro Real Estate at RanchProReal Estate.com. The land is their life. You're listening to the Lone Star Trail. We're glad you're here. Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to the show. We're here on the Lone Star Trail with Mike Bodinchuk, who's the president of the Texas Trappers and Fur Hunters Association. We're here at the Spring Rendezvous in Childress, Texas, day two, Saturday. Uh Mike, thanks for taking some time to visit with us. Happy to do so. Well, uh, you're our uh resident expert, wildlife biologist, and uh super knowledgeable about all things uh predator control, haw control has spent a career as uh in a lot of different capacities that we've already talked about. Lots of folks who know you know all of that. Uh I want to talk a little bit about the association that we're uh we're we're talking about today. How how are things with the association overall?

SPEAKER_05 2:30

Well, the association is pretty healthy. The Texas Trappers and Fur Hunters Association is the voice of trappers in Texas. So uh about 600 members, which is uh largely the people who are actively trapping. Obviously, there's a lot of landowners who trap, uh who may not be able to make it all the way to Childress or all the way to our fall rendezvous. But uh we've got uh an active group that works on education, we've got an active group that works on regulations of parks and wildlife and and advocates for trapping and fur hunting.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

You mentioned the legislative legislative uh efforts and uh and some of the regulatory issues, uh, but there are still challenges. Uh would you kind of outline some of the more prominent challenges that you see kind of coming down the road is in terms of what what trappers could expect, or uh whether that be for strictly for predator control or for uh fur bearers?

SPEAKER_05 3:27

Sure. So trapping faces a lot of challenges on a bunch of different fronts. One of the main challenges we have is is animal rights activists, and they are vocal, they're well funded, and um they do not like any type of animal use, and trapping is high on their list. Trappers are not really abundant in society, and so they think that uh attacking trapping is low-hanging fruit, but in fact, we are dedicated people, and we make the job of wildlife management easier for the agency. So, so we want to make sure that we can tell that story. We're not gonna change the minds of animal rights activists, sure, but we are gonna change the minds of people who don't know that trapping still exists or has a role in society. Another front that that does uh um threaten trapping is is just the rush to list any endangered species at all. And and red wolves are an example. They're red wolves were declared extinct in the wild years ago so that they could foster reintroduction effort. The last of the red wolves were captured by trappers and put into captive breeding programs. Those progeny are now being put out on the landscape, and uh people want to rush to relist the red wolf, thinking that that what we have out there now are pureblood red wolves. Interestingly, red wolves are mostly threatened by hybridization with coyotes, and so coyote management in red wolf habitat is essential. But environmental groups, animal rights activists will use red wolves as an example to list the relist the red wolf and to try and stop trapping. So it's a it's a surrogate issue for what their main issue is. Um, in Texas, there is a lot of concern about mountain lines, and there have been new regulations passed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission regarding trap check intervals for mountain lion trapping that that make it harder for trappers that are covering a lot of ground in West Texas to get around. Um so they're having to rearrange their schedule, and trapping mountain lions is is pretty important when you talk about bighorn sheep restoration. When you talk about getting other game animals back on the landscape, and so private landowners in West Texas trying to restore bighorn sheep probably need to do some line management. These regulations cost those landowners extra money, extra time, and probably extra sheep. So there's a lot of different fronts that we're working on, a lot of different issues that that Texas trappers will be looking at over the future.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

If you're not familiar with what we're talking about, the I'll post a picture on our social media of uh a recent uh hybrid uh cross uh between a cat and a red wolf that was that was caught on the border uh a couple of weeks ago. I'll have a picture of that one posted uh a little bit later. And uh and then the second piece of that uh I just talked with a trapper down in Mason County, and he he talked about a place he's on right now. It's it's 20,000 acres, and he said, there's no way I'm getting across that in one day. It's gonna take three days at least to get across of it. So it's it's a serious uh issue. You talked about the uh the rules and regulations connected to the mountain lion, and that's a direct result of uh animal rights activists and what they've unfortunately been able to accomplish there because it doesn't stop there.

SPEAKER_05 7:07

No, the animal rights activists aren't interested in just stopping mountain lion trapping, they're gonna apply the same regulations to coyote damage management. You know, Texas is blessed with a lot of rural landscapes in the hill country in Texas. That country doesn't suit itself to cattle grazing, it's really sheep and goat country, and that's what's best for the land use. Of course, uh predators impact sheep and goats, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions impact them, and and they have to do predator management to stay in in uh in business. There were a number of studies done back in the 1970s when toxicants were banned on the amount of loss that would occur if you didn't do predator management. The average of those five studies showed that in the absence of coyote management, you could lose 18% of your lamb crop. Um there were two studies, there were two studies done on goats, and in one of those studies, the coyotes killed half the goats, and the rancher said he couldn't stand the rest of the study. He kicked the researchers off the property. In the other study, coyotes killed 100% of the goats. So predator management is important to those enterprises. What's fascinating to me is that as people go out of the sheep and goat business, those ranches are being sold to doctors and lawyers and business people that want it for the recreational value, want it for the deer. And they typically stop predator management and find out very quickly that predators are impacting their deer. Predators are impacting their turkeys and their quail. I did a uh a demonstration yesterday on nest predation by small measo mammals, we call them raccoons, skunks, foxes, and nest predation is very, very high in some areas. Throw feral hogs on top of that, and it's it's a nightmare if you're if you're trying to raise turkeys.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Absolutely. Devastating. Um speaking of feral hogs, since you brought it up, um, you're you're widely known really across the country for being a prominent figure and expert on um not really just feral hog control methods, but also really you dug into the science on numbers, on population, on uh exponential growth, on on significant control methods. You've had a long history working with uh Texas Wildlife Services and have been a uh director of that organization for a number of years uh before your you quasi retired. And so uh you had a chance uh to attend the SCI uh convention in Nashville back in February, right? That's correct. Uh where you presented uh some uh some information about feral hogs. We talked, I think last time we talked was in December. Give us an idea of how how did that presentation go? How was it received, and and uh what were maybe some of the questions or or feedback you got back from that?

SPEAKER_05 10:03

Sure, and and I want to put a plug in for the SCI convention. It is a great hunter show, um, and they do have seminars, educational seminars that range from from legal aspects to what I presented on the feral hogs and how hunters can help on feral hogs. Had about a one-hour seminar on on feral hogs at that meeting and or at that convention. And uh it was it was well received. The landowners that attend that have feral hog issues or hunters who are hunting feral hogs in in North America were in attendance. You know, not everybody's there for the same reason, but we had a pretty good showing of people, uh 40 people or better in the seminar. And and I talked about how hunting feral hogs is kind of created the problem. You know, in places hunting of feral hogs is preventing effective control of feral hogs. We're not gonna eradicate hogs in Texas, but but between 2006 and 2010, our feral hog population doubled in Texas. You know, we're looking at half of four years in five five years inclusive. Yeah. Six, seven, eight, nine, and ten.

SPEAKER_04 11:19

Got it, five years.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

They increased at an average of 21% per year. So that's more than doubling over that five-year period of time. We went from about one and a half million pigs to about three, three point two million pigs in the state of Texas. 2011 was that horrific drought and it kind of capped their numbers. Uh, right now we don't have any places really that pigs are expanding to because they're everywhere. Right. Right. But um hunting people moving pigs for hunting is a problem. People shooting pigs is not really a problem. Anybody who kills a pig is a friend of mine. Right. But we don't want we don't want uh a lot of movement of pigs into other states. We don't want pigs with diseases to be moved, and there's some significant disease risks associated with pigs. There's another aspect to this, you know. I I've got a slide in that presentation that shows a sounder of pigs, and it's a a female with some half-grown pigs, and and I ask people, which one do you shoot? And everybody points at the big one, right? We always want to shoot the big one. The reproductive age of sows, they start before their first birthday, but they kind of blink out of reproducing at five years of age. It's very, very intensive physiologically. Um the pigs that that hunters should be shooting are those six-month-old sows, and that actually helps the population grow slower, significantly slower. If you started with 200 sows and you just shot old sows that are going to disappear, that population might be 1,400 sows in four years. But it's about 400, 450 sows in four years. If you're taking out the same number of juvenile sows before they have their first litter with their whole reproductive life ahead of them, then they're better to eat if you're eating the things that's gonna be. If you're gonna do it, I mean who wants to be old one, yeah. But everybody needs to get that kind of target image in their mind. I'm gonna try and shoot a six-month-old sow instead of a instead of a four-year-old sow that's probably only good for sausage. So that's the kind of stuff we talked about in that seminar. I and I I think that's a very good venue. We'll be back at this at the at the convention next year. Whether I get a seminar accepted, there is still to be determined. I did one uh the previous year on predator management, and it was very well received. So I that's a good place to meet a lot of hunters.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

Absolutely, yeah. Uh speaking of meeting other folks, you know, uh, I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of folks here in just a day and a half so far. Uh, talk a little bit about the rendezvous. Uh, these rendezvous for this association have been going on for a number of years. Um what are you guys seeing in terms of attendance and just interest? Uh, kind of give me the full spectrum there. Feedback on the rendezvous.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Uh the Texas Trappers and Fur Hunters Association holds two rendezvous a year. The the one in the fall is in October, and the dates haven't been set yet, but but I'll make sure we get those to you. Um, and it's always held it kind of in the center of the state. Our our bylaws used to say it needed to be the geographic center of Texas. And um, there's a lot of construction going on, all these AI data centers and all the rest. We're having to shuffle around to find towns that don't have the hotels filled. The spring rendezvous, we try and move around the state to get more people into it. And the rendezvous are gathering points for trappers to talk to other trappers to meet a lot of vendors. I don't know. We've probably got 15 vendors at this one that bring traps and trapping equipment. You can actually save on the shipping on some of this heavy stuff. You can smell the lures before you buy the lures if you can smell them before you get out of the vehicle in the parking lot. Yeah, there's a little bit of skunk smell in some of them. Um, we you can you can talk to people who have used this equipment. There are demonstrations each day uh for beginning trappers. There's an online, two-day online event where they go out in the afternoon with experienced trappers and they show not only how to set a trap but where to set traps. What features on the landscape make trapping more successful? So that online course is very popular with starting trappers. Um, the education part includes some continuing egg credits for those people that have pesticide licenses because what we're talking about is integrated pest management. Absolutely. How you how you help protect your livestock, how you help protect your wildlife. Um, and then there's a fundraising auction. You can buy stuff at auction that not only serves the purpose of getting you lure or traps or equipment, but also helps the organization raise the funds that it takes to protect trapping. So it's a it's a pretty good weekend. It's a Friday-Saturday event and and uh starts usually midday Friday and runs through Saturday afternoon when we have our general membership meeting.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

Great. Mike Bodenschok, uh president of the association. Mike, uh, thanks for your time today and expertise as always. We're gonna we're gonna catch up with you soon again, and uh we'll be back at the fall rendezvous. Uh we uh Lone Star Trail uh group is here, and uh we've uh we were on the the online trapping yesterday uh afternoon, set some traps, uh went back this morning and and and checked those traps. Unfortunately didn't catch anything, but uh you know it's uh it's all it was a great great experience and and uh we learned a lot. So uh Mike, thanks so much for your time and and uh you're always a great addition to the show, and we appreciate you.

SPEAKER_05 17:05

I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

Stay tuned, right here. Lone Star Trail will return after these messages. Whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acreage to sell, you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. They use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway, call Ranch Pro Real Estate at 325-642-3630. That's Ranch Pro Real Estate at RanchProRealEstate.com. The land is their life. Dayton is a retired government trapper, a firearms expert, an outdoors enthusiast, and a true Texan. At 76 years old, he's still going strong and enjoys sharing his passion of the outdoors with others.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

I have three dogs that uh love to roam. And dogs and boys, teenage boys, are a lot alike. One by themselves is no problem. Two boys together, they don't get into much trouble. But whenever you get three boys or three dogs together, they're always gonna cause trouble. Three dogs got over in the brother-in-law's shit. We had to go over there and shoot all three of the dogs. Perhaps 2,000 that would survive and do well for you. AGM, DNT, there are several of them that are really good and clear, and uh there's so many now on the market, and the price has dropped.

SPEAKER_04 22:16

It has, yeah. I was just looking at them today. Yeah. Those DNTs. Have you looked through a DNT?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

I have not.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

I haven't either. I'm interested to see how uh how they would do.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Several of the videos that I've watched, they're real clear.

SPEAKER_04 22:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

And I think you'd be happy with that.

unknown 22:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

I've always gone with Pulsar or Infray, IRA. Some of these are a lot clearer than anything else that I've seen. And so by the best you can afford, uh, they make uh let's see, 256, 384, 640, and now they've come out with some 1280 that uh they cost you eight to fifteen thousand dollars. And I I have not looked through one of those. Uh I'd love to someday to to own one if if my wife would write Santa Claus a letter and we might could get one of those. In the late 60s, uh shot more dove than uh a man ought to, but I'll tell this now because I think that limitation is expired, but uh uh it wasn't anything for to see, especially the late season in the winter. Father-in-law was feeding lambs, and if you had a snow on the ground well south of those feeders, that'd be a width of the sheep for 100 yards long or however long the feeders were, and dove would just be in there by the thousands. And I shot three shots through that line down there, and I picked up uh 127 dove. Wow. That's a lot of dove. And needless to say, I don't like dove to eat, but uh uh that's too many to shoot at one time, but you just can't imagine three feet wide and a hundred yards long. There were dove in there by the thousands. And so uh I may be responsible for the reduction of some of the the dove.

SPEAKER_04 24:42

That take a lot of jalapenos to cook on that.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Or bacon.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

That's like six hogs worth of bacon, probably, to to wrap those suckers up. Of course, I like dove. I like them chicken fried.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

I like to wrap them in bacon and then eat the bacon and go the bird way. I mentioned earlier that I'm uh over the hill, never made it to the top, but uh three different times now I've fallen while I'm hunting, and the worst that I've got hurt was I tripped over a welded wire and skent my shin and uh bruised an elbow when I fell, but uh I kept the gun in hand and the light in the other hand and never lost my senses and got up and walked off. But I've not had any accidents and not fallen to where that I had to I've fallen and I can't get up. I didn't have to call anybody to get help. So uh I'm getting older now and I have to be more careful, but uh uh when you're out there at night and using thermal uh you can fall real easy. But uh I've been lucky so far. Uh I don't recommend hunting with dogs on hogs because my experience has been real poor with it. Every time I've tried to train dogs and they got me in more trouble than I deserved. But uh the the dogs always come back to you and the hogs are following the dog. Sometimes I had to shoot a hog at six feet away. The dogs were behind me, and uh the the hog I'm sure was wanting to fight the dogs rather than me, but uh uh when they come behind you and uh the hogs there, well, one of us is gonna have to run. And it wasn't me that time. Uh friend, it's uh Stephenville, Ronnie Rhodes, had hogs, dogs, and two old dogs bait up a group of 67 hogs, and I walked almost on top of them within I'd say 10 or 15 yards with a shotgun. It had a magazine that had hold 10, extended magazine and it'd hold 10, and I started shooting into those hogs, emptied all 10 rounds, and the hogs were just running both sides of me, some of them within two to three feet of me, and none of them ever hit me. And there I was trying to chamber a few more rounds and uh loaded up five more and kept shooting. But uh I think I killed 18 hogs there by myself in that group of 67. But that gets dangerous.

SPEAKER_04 27:43

Oh, yeah. Whenever you're right there on the ground with them. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah. Ground level, and you can't outrun them. Uh I've got bit by landowners' dogs two or three times. Never did have to require stitches, but uh I've been lucky on that. Uh my nephew's dog bit me three times, and I never got a gun to kill him, but uh I looked for it one day. I imagine.

SPEAKER_04 28:12

What what was the deal there? He just didn't like you?

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Uh I don't know why the dog didn't like me as a blue healer, and he started biting my heels at first, and then he worked his way up and he'd bite the cafe leg, and he just got real aggressive over the years, and for some reason didn't like me. The closest near death that I've had was back in the uh late 90s. I was beaver hunting in Stephenville with a one-man boat. The boat would fit in the bike, you pickup, weigh about 80 pounds, and we used those little one-man boats to hunt beavers. You could, they'd float in about six or eight inches of water, so you could go in the upper end of the uh creeks and find the beavers and just sit there in the boat all night or as long as you wanted to. And one night there in Stephenville, I was on a government flood control lake, and the wind got up, and the airport recorded 54 mile-an-hour wind that night, and I was trying to cross that lake and get back to the pickup, and the wind tilted the boat up, and it nearly capsized, and it went underwater, and when it went underwater, it filled up then and didn't ever turn over. But the gun, the battery, and all my clothes and everything got wet. And so that's the closest I ever had an accident. The state required us to have training on how to get out of accidents or prevention more than anything else, but they always told us this was before cell phone now, and they wouldn't want you to do it, but uh this was what we were told to do. If you're ever in trouble, start a fire. And somebody's gonna see the smoke, and if nobody comes, well uh set your spare tire on fire. And if nobody comes, set the pickup on fire. Because sooner or later they're gonna see the smoke. But they say you better be in uh in trouble and need help whenever you set that vehicle on fire.

SPEAKER_04 30:25

It never got quite that bad for you, huh?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Well, one day I came into the motel and I noticed smoke under the pickup, and I went back and got a Dr. Pepper and went out there and looked, and it was burning, and I shook the Dr. Pepper up and uh put the fire out with the Dr. Pepper. And that's the closest I ever come to uh burning one down. Oh man. Uh I got only one speeding ticket the 30 years that I worked, and it's a little old town over I don't remember now, it may have been Tatum. And the cop there looked like Elvis, dressed like Elvis, and thought he owned the town too. No way. Really? Uh he was the only one that ever gave me a speeding ticket. I got a lot of warnings, but uh I was driving 12 miles over the speed limit, and uh I actually got a ticket.

SPEAKER_04 31:28

Did he take the bullet out of his pocket and put it in his gun or I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Uh Barney may be in his riding with him.

SPEAKER_04 31:38

Wow. Do you think he got uh so many warnings because it was a state vehicle?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Yes, they were nice to us.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

And oftentimes we'd be driving, or I would be driving too fast, and you might be driving 18 or 20 miles over, and some of the guys wouldn't even write you a warning. They'd just give you the verbal warning. But most of the time they'd write you up is excessive speeding, didn't re didn't write down how many miles over the limit you were going. That is out of courtesy. Yeah. And so next time I saw those guys, I'd buy them a cup of coffee, and it is professional courtesy, not bribery.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

My dad used to say when a man turns 60, they ought to either knock him in the head or take reverse out of his vehicle. And I agree with that. The last five accidents that I've had in pickups, it's all been in reverse. I've either backed into a tree or fenced, backed into a loading chute one time. You're looking out one mirror, and I get a stiff neck and don't look at all three mirrors when I need to, and so I'm gonna have to agree with my dad. That'll take reverse out of a vehicle when a man turns 60. I've had a few stitches over the in my lifetime, very few. The last one was up there at Colmeen, and I was trying to crawl over a barbed wire fence and it slipped, and uh, I needed eight stitches in that, but uh I didn't go to the doctor till Monday morning, and the doctor said, Well, it's a little late to stitch it up, let's uh just wash it off and go about your business. It healed up fine. There's a little bit of a scar there that you can see. A few years later, I was helping the grandson skin a deer, and my knife slipped, and that required about 30 stitches there.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Yeah, yeah, I can see that scar right there in your hand.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Didn't cut any tendons or ligaments or anything. It bled a little bit, but uh stupid mistakes like that'll get you in trouble, and as I get older, well, I'll make a few of those. Over the years I broke lots of ribs, and that was again excessive speed on a motorcycle. Had what was called a big wheel, a Yamaha, and the front wheel was eight inches and the rear wheel was 11 to 13 inches, and it had a jack shaft on it, and the top speed was about 35 miles an hour, but it would climb hills that horses couldn't climb. And I liked it because it was low to the ground. You could go along a fence line where you couldn't ride a horse, and oftentimes I'd be going across a pasture and hit a rock or a stump or something and hit the handlebars and nearly always break a reel when you hit the handlebars. And it's hard to upright one of those machines when you're crying and in pain. Twice I've had cows run over me or pin me against the fence, and don't ever depend on your family or in-laws to help you out. Once my dad was sitting on top of the fence and I was being pinned against the fence right under him, the bull was just a hook him in, butt me. I was glad he was a Muley bull, didn't have horns. But I looked up at my dad and his mouth was open, his eyes were big, and he was so frozen that he couldn't move and could not help. And then another time I was in the middle of a working pen, and old cow got me down, and uh five in-laws were sitting on the fence laughing at me.

SPEAKER_04 35:49

They're like, all right, now's now's the time we've been waiting for.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Exactly, yeah. And not one of them jumped down and helped me, so uh you don't depend on anybody.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Every man for himself had a cow. Exactly right. Have you and uh have you and your wife worked cows together? Yes. And y'all been married for 50 years?

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Uh happily married a week and a half, but uh we've lived together for 56 years.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

Oh, that's not true. Well, I I uh I bought or I was gonna buy, I told my wife I was gonna buy her a t-shirt that said, sorry for what I told you, or sorry for what I said when we were working cows.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Wives try, but uh they're oftentimes not good hired hands, and so it's easy to fire them, and they'll not help you again. But uh few years ago I talked the nephew into redoing all my working pens and corral. Now it's like a donut, and I've got 14 gates around the donut, and I can put a few cows in there and close the gate. I have to open and close lots of gates to working by myself, but uh uh this works better. Uh a good dog would be at help, but uh all of my bad dogs laid down in the gate or caused more problems than the wife did. So uh tie the dogs and let the wife cook dinner. Uh the old cow that got me down when the in-laws were all on the gate, the next week she got gut shot and died uh two days later. So somebody was mad enough that the wonder who that might have been, huh? A neighbor that lived down the road. Oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:45

Nobody we know.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

That's right, exactly. But uh it's oftentimes easier to get forgiveness than it is permission. And so uh that was one of my rules that I like to live by, especially when you're working for the government. You can't get written permission to do hardly anything that's out of the ordinary. But uh, if you do it and it works great, well, you may get a uh pat on the back. But uh I was one of those guys that always tried something new or different, and I got five written citations in one day. I hold the record for that. Uh disciplinary action, they called it.

SPEAKER_04 38:40

And I didn't know which way you're going with the citation, if that was good or bad, but it was a bad five in one day.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Five in one day, and one of them was real stupid. Uh I raised my voice against co-workers.

SPEAKER_04 38:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

And so the boss and I weren't agreeing, and so he wrote me up for everything I did, and I was smart enough not to ever make the same mistake twice. And so if they write you up three times, they can fire you over it. So I never got another written citation, but I hold the record for getting five in one day. Wow. Uh, it's always easier to plead the Fifth Amendment than to confess. So that's another one of those rules. Uh Lily. Now my excuse is I've got uh Old Timers disease. So that would be my excuse. Years ago I would say the devil made me do it, but uh that's no longer true, and I have to admit, uh, well, I've got old timers. But I've enjoyed nearly everything that I did. If I didn't enjoy it, I didn't do it. And all my life I've worked by myself, played by myself, and hunted by myself, and uh it was easy to uh go out there and do it the way you wanted to. My wife talks to herself and I get on to her about it, and she said, Well, I'm seeking expert advice. So maybe I ought to do that and start talking to myself. I've done everything else.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

There's no comeback to that. That's right. There's nothing you can say when she yeah. Yeah. Oh man, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

And uh it is rather cheap sometimes, I guess, to get that advice.

SPEAKER_04 40:47

Yeah. So you get what you pay for.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yes. But she and I get along well together. Uh we don't hunt together anymore. I've kept her out too many long nights after 12 o'clock, and she doesn't enjoy it anymore. So uh you young guys, if your wife goes with you, well, you better make sure they enjoy it if you want them to go again. Yes, yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 41:14

I had a uh conversation with a guy the other day, and he started talking about uh hunting techniques and this and that, and I said, Well, what do you what do you recommend taking a five-year-old hunting with you? And he didn't miss a beat, and he said, uh lots of snacks and more camo and headphones.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yeah, videos if you can. Yeah. Yes, let them watch it.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

I think a boy needs to be twelve before uh you take them hunting and on and outing. Uh a little guy of five or six would like to go, but uh their attention is limited to usually five or six minutes. That's right. About their age, and so it normally doesn't work out, especially if you're in a deer blind and they need to be quiet. I've taken little boys with me and leave them in here and uh pick up when I walk out, and they can scream and holler all they want to, but uh they don't scare the hogs. Yeah. Yeah. But I wouldn't recommend that. Little boys need to stay at home and grow up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:22

I wanted to ask you about uh you you said something earlier when you were talking about hunting coyotes. You know, it I follow the Fox Pro guys and the Fox Pro podcast quite a bit, and they're most of their hunts are up in Kentucky and Missouri and uh northeast of here. And I think their timeline on things is a little bit different than ours. But you know, it's been so warm really this winter. I mean, we had a really mild winter. Um where do you think we're at as far as the the cycle goes right now? Do you think we're we're seeing those coyots dent up yet, or is it still too early for that? What do you what do you think? Where do you think we're at on these coyots?

SPEAKER_01 43:04

When I started in Mills County trapping in 75, they said we'd do good to catch 25 coyotes. Now they're catching 250 coyotes a year. And I got in trouble one year for telling this. For every coyote that you catch, two's gonna take its place. And it got around to the state office that I was telling the boys uh not to catch coyotes. It was supposed to be in a joke, but that there's a little more truth in it than they realized. Oftentimes, when you catch one, a pair will come back in, male and female. So for everyone you kill, two will take its place. And there's a little bit of truth to that. And so uh there are times that uh my wisdom wasn't as smart as what. I thought it was and got me in trouble. But the numbers are up, and part of that reason is when the property divides up, some of the new landowners are not wanting you in there, or the deer hunters don't want you in there. So the we're not able to get on the property like we once did. Some of the old ranches were thousands of acres, and now there's a thousand houses on that. And you cannot hunt near the residential area. Stephenville, a few years ago, I caught more dogs one month than you should catch in a lifetime, but uh that area was 12 miles from Stephenville, and everybody had four or five dogs, and it wasn't anything to catch four or five dogs a day for a month nearly. And so I had a good supply of dog collars for a lifetime. And our rule was never release a dog that doesn't have a uh uh rabies stamp on his collar. If the dog was collared, you still were supposed to kill the dog because we didn't want to take the chance of getting rabies. But if you wanted to, you could release the dog if he had uh uh the little metal or aluminum sticker that had been vaccinated. But uh most dogs in the rural area don't have back then weren't vaccinated. Yeah. And so we didn't want to take the chance of getting bitten. And everyone's gonna bite you. And so we put them all down. Same true with deer. You catch a deer, and oftentimes it's gonna dislocate one leg, especially if it jumps a fence and hangs up. He's gonna dislocate that leg and probably will die within two or three days. The stress will kill them. So we were never to release a deer that uh had any type of broke leg or dislocation. A couple of times I've tried to cut them out of snares, and some of the little bucks oftentimes would, after you turned them loose, they'd turn around and and charge you. And so I learned the hard way and uh we shot every one of them. I didn't want to take a chance. I can't outrun one of them. And we'd use the meat for bait or I wouldn't eat one that had been hit by an automobile. It's gonna be all bruised, and same with caught in a snare or a fence. Uh, it makes good coyote bait. But as a whole, I think the hogs have made deer relocate. Hogs come into an area and uh they're gonna drive the deer out. And uh we seem to have more hogs now in some area than we do deer. And probably the same's true with the cows. But uh in my lifetime, cows have just probably increased a hundredfold. In Mills County in the 50s and 60s, it was no one had ever seen a cow. And now if they're catching two and three hundred, well, they're everywhere. And the same's true with the deer. Back in the early 50s, we didn't have deer. First one I saw was in 67. And I credit that to the screw worm program.

SPEAKER_02 47:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

But uh now in my yard every night I'll have 15 or 20 come up and bed down and eat an acorns. Uh I wished I had all hogs and no deer.

SPEAKER_04 48:10

You don't really care for deer.

SPEAKER_01 48:11

No, don't like to eat it.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

Eating, yeah. Not even the backstrap.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

Well, occasionally I'll I'll enjoy that, but uh I'd rather have a quail and turkey or I'm a white meat fan.

SPEAKER_04 48:25

Speaking of turkey, you know, um turkey hunting has gotten a lot more popular in the last, I would call the decade or so ago. And uh in this area we have those Rio Grande turkeys. And uh what do you think about the turkey population in our area?

SPEAKER_01 48:44

I saw six last week, the first ones that I'd seen in two years, and these were young Jakes, and they flew across the road, and I don't know where they came from, but uh it's unusual to see a turkey even once a year where I live there. Mine's real open around the house. We've got a lot of improved uh coastal, and the the turkey wouldn't have a place to roost there, but uh there are a few in the area, but uh seem like they've decreased. Uh 30 years ago I knew a place there north of Goldwaite that'd have seven or eight hundred, and this guy wouldn't allow anybody in there to shoot at them, and he fed them and protected them, and now that same area you'd do good to see 20 or 30. I think that's deer. Nathan and I are uh trying to hunt hogs tonight at Beattie, and we've had something come in vision three or four hundred yards away, and it's hard to determine whether it's a hog or a deer, but uh the way they're acting, I'm gonna opt for deer, unless you want to walk down there and see.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

No, it looks like I think I saw a head raise earlier.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:14

Looks like a deer.

SPEAKER_01 50:17

But we're inside the pickup. The temperature right now is uh in the lower 40s, and we've got the heater on and all the comforts of home except for the TV. Uh seat will recline, and if need be, well, I will go to sleep and uh wake up and the hogs you oftentimes will be a lot closer than you'd want them. But it's hard for this old man to stay awake all night like I used to. But it's fun. I enjoy it. Uh hog hunting is the most fun that I've ever had. I've hunted all my life and that's what I live for. And uh one reason is you can hunt every night if you want to, or if you've got hogs, so uh get out and enjoy it. Now, for you young guys, I don't advise buying your wife a rifle and thermal for her birthday or the anniversary. I tried that a few years back, and my wife really didn't appreciate a new rifle because she shot it once and never went back with me, but and uh it's not for sale. I mentioned this sometime back that uh our greatest fear is that uh when we die, our wife will sell our guns for what we told her that we paid for them.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

Well, that's all the time we have for the show today. We thank you for stopping by and joining us on the Lone Star Trail. We invite you to come back next week, same time, same place, and you can find us on Facebook and write to us at Lone Star Trailradio at gmail.com. We love to see those pictures and stories. From all of us here at the show. Thanks for listening.