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Have you looked in your backyard lately?

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  It never ceases to amaze how close wild things will live in proximity to humans if given half the opportunity. You don’t have to live out here on the Branch to witness it, either. So close do wild things come up against human habitat, you sometimes get the idea they’re just biding time until we leave. All kinds of wild things. Last night Brian Loveland and I took our wives out to dinner in Tulsa. It is a custom of Brian’s, post meal, to drive through different neighborhoods in the vicinity of the chosen eatery to explore new neighborhoods, learn new routes “to and from” and otherwise familiarize ourselves with neighborhoods yet unknown to us. For me, you never know what strange neighborhood driveway is going to present a treasure trove of yard sale hunting and fishing gear. I’m always looking. I need more, right? Somewhere north of the TU campus, along Jamestown, I spotted a wild cottontail rabbit smack in the middle of the neatest manicured yard, miles and miles from the nearest...
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The Perfect S'more

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  I’m pretty sure the last s’more I ate was about forty years ago. We ate some out here on Baker’s Branch a couple of nights ago that God pretty much handed us on the wings of a storm.   My yard, which is composed of way more trees than grass, was left littered with deadfall after last week’s latest round of near-miss tornadoes. A group effort was made to gather up all the loose limbs and logs, even, and pile them up in one place for a future removal bonfire, something still legal out here in the country. Men and boys still pee in their own yards out here without fear of arrest, too, the ladies knowing which windows not to look out of during daylight hours. Hard to believe people are still living that way, right? Welcome to my world. I’ve heard it’s now legal for men and women to pee in the same restrooms, back East, today; at the same time, even. You’re welcome to that world. Anyway, we make fires out here when the wind blows right. I set fire to the pile about three hours be...
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For Me, It's All About 'April Madness'

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  Nothing bores me more than “March Madness.” It is a contrived celebration if there ever was one and made for sordid city folks afraid of spending a night alone in the woods where country folks live. Nothing rings more hollow and empty than the sound of a basketball hitting an empty gymnasium floor at midnight, or at any other time of the day as far as I am concerned. You can have all my share of it, and welcome to it. The madness I want, and the sound I want to hear, is that of a boss turkey gobbler sounding off at dawn in a gathering peach colored sunrise just over yonder in that line of giant cottonwoods. That’s an “April Madness” I’ve been hooked to for close to fifty years now. Hard to believe. Time passes fast when you’re having fun. It has been well known for decades that all bird activity, both migratory and breeding, is keyed to the amount of daylight in the sky. When days shorten, birds that migrate do. All birds breed when the weather is nicest for them, and for us as w...
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Deliverance

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    Shown is an area of grassland scorched by wildfires around the Mannford and Lake Keystone areas. We are again out here on Baker’s Branch confronted with the horror of potential wildfires. The story that follows is true and happened in August 2012. "Conrad, we gotta' get out. The TV just said they're evacuating Mannford and all of Round Mountain down Coyote Trail down to Tower Road." My son-in-law, Tyner Jordan, said that while I was sweeping family photographs off the walls and grabbing them out of the corners of the house, and that's when the lights went out. Tyner's friend, Jeremy Craddock of Prue, rushed by me into a darkened hallway with a load of guns from the safe headed for my truck. That had been the plan Pam and I had worked out the previous evening when the alarm first went up about the building wildfire between Drumwright and the intersection of State Highways 33 and 48. Throw the family photos and jewelry into trash bags, scoop up the heirloom ...
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During Duck Season Watch the Wind

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  Early season duck hunting is a joke, full of party favors and laughter all around. Late season duck hunting is a deadly serious game, complete with dead bodies for the inattentive. I could have thrown late season fishing into the above comment. I passed a bass boat on the way to the lake yesterday, windchill down in the teens according to the guy on the radio. You can kill a wet fisherman in January just as quickly as you can a wet duck hunter, it just doesn’t happen as often. Fishermen hate the wind in all seasons and will stay off the water even in July and August because of it. Duck hunters? They love the wind in their season. It makes the birds move and fall into the decoys for rest. What could be better? Maybe a backside warmed by a crackling fire, and a hot cup of spiced tea to flavor the memories of your youthful stupidity. There are old duck hunters, and there are bold duck hunters. There are no old, bold duck hunters. I cannot count for you the days on January waters tha...
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Cheap, Local Fishing

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  Custer disliked being surrounded by all those Indians. He disliked it as much as I do like being surrounded by more lakes to fish than I will ever get around to. See that preposition right there at the end of that last sentence? Watch out, they’ll kill ‘ya. Cheap as I am, I am never so cheap as I am right before Christmas. Partly, it’s based on my kind disposition: I don’t like disturbing the moths in my wallet. The other reason would be the high cost of Christmas items at the Dollar General Store these days. My wife is pretty picky to have come from such a long line of hash slingers and dishwashers. It took $6.78 to get out of there with a present for her this year. It’s pretty, though, and not even all plastic like last year’s, which she liked so well it made her cry. It’s true, I guess, that it’s the thought that counts. What it did do, however, this year’s gift, I mean, was cause me to pare back my fishing budget here at the end of the year. I’m staying close, and off the hig...
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First Rule of Muzzleloading: Reload Immediately

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  The first rule of muzzleloading hunting is to reload. Immediately. Now. It didn't use to be that way. It used to be the second rule of muzzleloading hunting. The first rule used to be, "Keep your powder dry." Every mountain man knew it. Wet powder, no explosion; no bullet propelled. Indians, grizzly bears, win. Every time. People understood that back in the day and went to extreme measures to keep their powder dry. The old rule of muzzleloading does not apply to the modern version of same. Modern, in-line, muzzle-loading rifles "hide" the powder and ignition system from all moisture, even torrential rains. Not long ago, I saw a fellow on TV selling a product, dunking his muzzleloading rifle, on purpose, into a small tank of water. He held it there for a good five minutes, then withdrew it and fired a bullseye with it, just to show he could. It was a stunning demonstration to an old guy like me who cut his muzzleloading deer hunting teeth on an original p...
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