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Do The Math: One Deer Equals 60 Squirrels

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  Hunting squirrels in the middle of winter is different than hunting them in the middle of spring; I knew that. Hunting them in the middle of the day is different than hunting them at dawn or dusk, too, and I knew that. But I wanted to go, so I conned Brian Loveland into making a run with me up to our deer camp on the upper Arkansas near Ponca City to shake ‘em up a little just to let ‘em know we’re still alive. A lot of this was just a fight against “old timer’s” boredom, but part of it was Brian’s fault, too, the way I saw it. One night during deer season sitting in the tent and chunking fine burning ash slabs into the woodburner, Brian asked, “Reckon how many squirrels it’d take to equal one deer?” I started to grin at the seeming impossibility of such a guesstimate, until it suddenly occurred to me that, yes, a fairly accurate approximation could be made, and probably in one’s head without a calculator, regarding such a figure, and said so. “If you’ll let me round some numbers...
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Best Buds: Kevin's dog is not for sale. Is yours?

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  It’s not often I go fishing and come home with a dog story, but it happens. It happened a few days back when Leon Mears of Mannford called and asked if I’d like to go crappie fishing up on Skiatook Lake. Well, sure. There are people around here (not many) as good a crappie fisherman as Leon, but none better. The plan was to meet up with a friend of Leon’s, Kevin DeLong of Hominy, and fish an area of the lake where the two of them had located swarms of cold weather, open water crappie feasting on shad in the mid-reaches of the lake. The fish, for no apparent reason, were schooled up great distances from the shoreline, and not near any known brush piles. It was a weird set-up for any crappie fisherman familiar with the mid-winter habits of what people in our country see as the best eating fish there is, walleye and the various catfish species not excluded. Years ago, Dave Hladik and I had stumbled upon an exact duplicate pattern down on Lake Tenkiller when, fishing for “whatever”, ...
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Can there be ice fishing in Oklahoma?

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  We live on the edge of the Southern Plains; some of us by accident, some of us on purpose. The Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa lived here on purpose. They wintered here. They knew a good thing when they saw it. The hunting was always good, the weather never bad for more than two or three days at a time, with long sunny stretches in between, and the fishing which, truthfully, didn't much interest them, could be unbelievable. It still is most of the time. Great fishing, I mean, even in winter. One year a few duck seasons back, Dave Hladik and I were hunting mallards on the east side of Blackberry Island up on Grand Lake. The birds were in, rafted up by the thousands in the mouth of Horse Creek, making daily runs that made the air rumble into nearby milo fields. It was bitter cold, a light wind out of the north, and a good day to get a sunburn. Once the sun was high, the cold seemed to melt from the air like midmorning frost. The shooting was good, but sometime aroun...
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Banded About

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  January is deep down into the waterfowler’s season. There will be a few odd goose seasons into February, but the duck and crane season for this country ends January 25th. So long, boys, it’s been good to know you. Hope to shake your hand again next year. Any bird that turns into as good a dinner as a duck, goose, or crane is a treat, but shooting one of the same that has been banded for research becomes every waterfowler’s ultimate trophy. I’d as soon shoot one as I would an eight-point buck. Really. You think I’m kidding; I’m not. Every waterfowler wants the “jewelry”, the “bracelet”, the mystery of the far wanderer, a leg band represents, and it has been many, many years since I picked up a duck, goose, or crane without first looking at its legs before I did any other part of it. The government agencies that band waterfowl to plot their travels will send you a nice printout, suitable for framing, if you send in the tag’s number, and of course the band itself becomes yours, ...
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Squirrels, Man and Boy

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  Some of the field sports carry way too much drama. Deer hunting is one of them. I like saying that because it’s true, and, of course, we’re right in the middle of the “Big Deer Season” right now. Sometimes we need to back it off a couple notches, if you catch my drift. Hunter success on deer in Oklahoma the last time I checked is somewhere close, but still below, 50 percent. Hunter success on squirrels? Hoooo, boy. If you count success as one squirrel headed for the pan, and I do, then the success ratio is somewhere pretty close to 100 percent. “Eat more squirrels,” the deer would probably say.  The daily limit on squirrels is 10, either fox or gray species, with 20 allowed in possession. That’s a lot of meat, in case you haven’t bagged up any squirrels lately and have forgotten how quickly 10 bushytails will overfill a gallon Ziploc bag.  The squirrel season is the longest annual hunting season in Oklahoma, lasting from May 15 through the following January 31. Even so,...
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Buried Treasure

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  I was digging for treasure. I knew where it was. Way down in there. I found it, too. All the way to the bottom.  Pam came out into the garage and looked over my shoulder. “Well?”, she asked.  “Look at this!” I said, holding up my prize for examination. “And more! Two tenderloins and four sirloins. Not a bit of freezer burn anywhere. Like new, even if a year old. Man! I’m charcoaling them tomorrow.”  Maybe yours doesn’t, but our freezer holds treasure from year to year that escapes being eaten, and we eat game and fish out here on The Branch a lot. If you aren’t careful, it escapes to the bottom of the freezer (somehow) uneaten, in perfectly good condition, hidden covertly by new “draftees”.  You must dig for treasure. He who seeks, finds.  I already had a new deer from the recent muzzleloading season, with the prospect of more to come during the high power season. I wasn’t just searching for treasure, but more room as well. You’d think our freezer, a twen...
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Me and Emeril

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  During deer season, Brian Loveland of Sand Springs and I eat home cooked meals in a 12 x 14 wall tent. Well, the tent is our home for the duration of the season, and that's where we cook our meals. I really think that TV cook, Emeril, would fit in, in our camp. He's about the only yankee I've ever thought might be able to get his brain wrapped around redneck ways. It's just a feeling. I could be wrong about that, but you watch him throw handfuls of this, and handfuls of that, into a pot and yell, "Bam!" when he does it, and you get a sense of something redneck a slick, New York TV producer can't cover up. Like I said, I could be wrong about that. Certainly, in a good, downhome deer camp, you should not expect to find any measuring spoons, or measuring cups. Meat thermometers? Croutons? A little lemon zest? White wine? Good grief. Call your mommy, will 'ya? All of our food up on the wild Arkansas River is heart horrible, and fried the same as Grandma ...
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