9 Pound Bass
4/4/13
Springtime is officially here I suppose. We had what I hope to be our last freeze about 2 weeks ago. There was a line of showers that cam through the past 48 hours that gave us about 7/8" of rain. It felt like more, but we were happy to get it. Fortunately, we had the Sudan field prepped and seeded before the rain, so this will give it good moisture for it to grow. I have soil tests back from A&M and need to get Fertilizer on the field soon.
With the soil tests, I can order custom fertilizer so that it gets just what it needs and not pay for anything that it doesn't. As soon as the ground dries up enough, we'll spray for weeds in the coastal field and wherever else whenever we can. The new fence line in the back is officially complete. The cows are still up front because we are hoping to document as many calves births as possible before we move them to the "back" where they will be much harder to find. Plus, we are feeding some old hay that we want to get rid of--- with the optimistic hope of needing the room for this years bountiful hay crop.
The new fence creates two pastures where there used to be one large one. So I need a name for each. The "back" encompasses land from Old Car all the way to All Seasons. So be thinking on that.) Once we move the cows, my goal is to rest as much as we can, the Lake Pastures, the cow pastures, and the east side. They have been hard hit, and I'd really like to see the grasses come back there. The other day Isaw three young bull elk standing in the middle of the big lake. Really beautiful sight to see. I then saw them wandering around some more up front.
The carpenter completed the new gun room. It turned out really nice. I had an electrician come out to put a few plugs and lights in there, as well as a motion light on the outside. I've got a list of supplies that we need to get in order to start our ammo reloading operation. There will be lots of brass to reload. We are finishing out the interior of the east barn. It looks like many of the Cypress Trees are starting to leaf. Between the drought and the lake receding, I was scared that they would suffer. We watered them some, but there's only so much you can do. I think that the soil below them stays wet enough that we'll be alright--hopefully.
We had the annual fish fry. Dave caught the most (big surprise) I think around 30. However, the Lunker award goes to Jerry-- He caught a Nine Pound Bass! It was beautiful, and we have some pictures. He actually caught it up in the twin tanks. We released anything over five pounds, so he is back swimming happily around. The food was great too, we cooked and ate around the fire pit. I went to an exotic auction and bought six more sheep-- two more young males and four young females. These sheep were white, so they are what people refer to as "Texas Dall" sheep. We kept them penned with the other four male Corsicans and gave them some good wormer and antibiotics (you never know what comes from these auctions) and released them to the wilderness last week. I learned that all the different lines of sheep interbreed, which is why these various lines of Dall, Corsican, Mouflan, etc, are not "species" but rather, genetic lines that people have refined in order to get certain characteristics. In fact, the White Texas Dall were originally created on the King Ranch. I am hoping that the ones I released will be able to thwart the coyotes and mountain lions. I found several old sheep or goat skulls in the cave. After seeing the amount of dollars these trophy rams are bringing at the auctions, I think we should seriously consider forming our own Trophy Ram operation.
On the day of the Pugmore burn, the humidity stayed really high, so it didn't burn as hot as I'd have liked it to, but it did go well and we accomplished some good goals. One of which was to kill a lot of small regrowth cedars and a lot of that Bacharis Willow that has been invading quite a bit. --Adam