Baker's Branch

  There’s this thing about muzzleloading for deer that both the new to the game as well as the old (that would be me) forget. Black powder does not produce one-half the knockdown power that modern smokeless powder does. “Dead deer” get up and run away all the time during black powder season. The biggest part of a black powder firearm’s knockdown power comes from the weight of the bullet coming out of the end of the barrel. Even at that, the “stopping” power of even a seemingly overlarge bullet is not to be trusted. The minimum legal bullet size of a muzzleloader in Oklahoma is .45 caliber. Most use fifty cal. as an absolute minimum bullet choice, and it does an adequate job. Most of the time. During the American civil war, many rifles, on both sides, were launching .68 caliber bullets, horrendous junks of lead when held in the hand and looked at dispassionately, in the direction of soft tissue lined up in unwavering company fronts. The results were devastating. Ask General Pick...

    Here’s what I know about bird migration: Next to nothing. Maybe a little less. I’ve been reading about it (studying?) since I was six years old. That was when in Charlestown, Maryland, smack on the edge of Chesapeake Bay one “city” block from our house, I spotted what I came to know as a black and white warbler on the side of a tree down by the water where I was fishing. It was close enough that I could see all of its dramatic markings, so close that I had the feeling I was holding the “new” (to me) bird in my hand. I didn’t know what kind of bird it was, nor did Miss Wright, my teacher, when I asked her about it the next day. She handed me a bird I.D. book, showed me the index, made me promise to bring it back (which I did), and I took it home, not knowing I had begun a lifelong journey that continues to this moment. Well, think about it: You are reading about it, my interest, as we speak. So it’s still going on, right? I had only just begun “The Adventures of Dic...

I’ve dug a lot of graves in my lifetime. Burying friends is a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. There is that character in Hamlet, Act IV, that says, “There is no ancient gentleman but gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam’s profession,” which probably gives me more credit than I am due but I’ll take it not always having been viewed as a gentleman. I have been many things to many people. On the side, I bury dogs; mine, and those belonging to others. I only draw the line at familiarity, burying dogs I do not know only in emergency. It started when I was ten. The cat I buried at seven at the behest of my friend David and his sister Gladys does not count, cats not being much count at all in the quail fields, in fact quite the contrary. You can bury the cats. I’ll bury the dogs. No man ever had a better friend than a dog, if loyalty is to be the main marker of friendship. You can kick a dog in the ribs, and two minutes later he will lick your hand. Your oth...

Pam and I took the grandkids on a “vacation” last week. We took them to Branson, Missouri. We deserved the vacation, they didn’t. They got the vacation, we didn’t. You’ve herded four kids for a week, ages four to sixteen, hundreds of miles from home, without them getting killed, and so you know what I’m talking about. Pam made breakfast and dinner there in the cabin on the shore of Lake Taneycomo every day, clothed them (the sixteen year-old managed that on her own, it took hours), and then made the rounds of all the water parks, Silver Dollar cities, Dixie Stampedes, and bumper car parks known to man. She drew the line at tattoo parlors. I went fishing. Taneycomo, in my boat. Everyday. By myself. Pam will get a medal, someday, in heaven. I never will. You have to show up to get the medal, right? I deserved at least a limit of trout (four on Taneycomo). I got only one: not one limit, one fish, all week. Which, thinking about it, is probably one more than I deserved. When I left...