Offshore Business

September 14, 2014 
Corpus Christi, Texas

Port Aransas 

There are perks to traveling for business. I was able schedule an offshore fishing trip with some of my new co-workers. I started a new job working for a chemical company in Texas shortly after I graduated from Auburn University. I started the chemical company in an entry-level training program with nine other chemical engineering graduates. We were split into groups to travel around to various oil refineries and petrochemical plants. I was traveling in Corpus Christi, Texas with Jeff and Christian when we got to do a little offshore team building. 

As with most fishing trips, we started for the dock before daylight. There was an 80% chance of rain and the sea conditions were expected to be 5-6 foot swells. This is usually the limit for when the chartered boats will stop the trip and stay at the dock. We took a ferry over to Aransas island where we bought our one day saltwater licenses and waited for the captain to load the boat. While we were waiting a monsoon type rainstorm started battering the dock. The wind was blowing the rain nearly horizontal. We passed around a few looks of possible regret but no one was ready to quit on the trip just yet. Thankfully, the rain subsided after about 20 minutes and we loaded the boat. After passing the break water, we knew we were in for a rough day of fishing by the size of the swells. We motored out for about 2½ hours until the brown, costal waters of South Texas turned into the deep blue that you would expect to see offshore. Even the foam on top of the breaking swells was blue. Most of the trip included dodging the 15 different sea sick passengers on the boat. Sea sickness is due to the conflicting information that your brain is receiving from the rocking of the boat and the still horizon. 

We started our day drift line fishing for king mackerel. We used light weights and baited our hooks with cigar minnows. We all fished from the same side of the boat and let out about 150 feet of line. This allowed the minnows to drift away from the boat and stay suspended in the water column. We hooked up with several bait fish and then the kings started piling in the boat. I landed a 3 foot king and then we moved spots and started bottom fishing for reef shark. I was the only person in our group to land a king but both Christian and Jeff brought reef sharks home. We finished the day with a 2 ½ hour nap on the way back to the dock. We got a couple of recipes from the deck hand on how to prepare the reef shark. He told us to fry the fillets and use salsa to make a reef shark quesadilla.

Thanks to Captain Kelly's Deep Sea Headquarters for a great fishing trip!

Whitetail Hunting in the Mountains of Northern Michigan

Grayling, Michigan

This hunt was a hunt that young outdoorsmen dream of; a hunt where you travel to another part of the country in hopes of killing a trophy. We encountered lots of cold weather, deep snow and some northern whitetails.

November 22, 2012

We loaded up Jonathan’s truck last night so we could get on the road early this morning because it’s a fourteen hour drive to the property that we’re hunting in Michigan. We stopped 3 times for food and gas – there was nothing stopping us from getting there as soon as possible. The drive started in a moderately cold Alabama driveway and ended in a few feet of snow in Northern Michigan. We could feel the temperature dropping as we made our way across the country. We drove late into the afternoon on a highway through northern Michigan, missing our exit by about 30 miles due to an intense blizzard. 

Later we found out that this was due to the lake effect from the nearby Lake Huron. This was a blizzard beyond what I had ever seen and Jonathan was doing his best to keep the truck on the road. There were countless vehicles crashed into the snow banks that were accumulating on the sides of the highway. Backtracking to the right exit took us over an hour driving in 4-wheel drive and never getting over 40 mph. This was the nail in the coffin for our truck’s transmission. We barely made it to the right exit when the truck wouldn’t shift out of 1^st gear. Luckily, BP, the man we were hunting with, picked us up at the exit. We made it to the hunting camp very late that night. Tired and cold, we had dinner with BP and one of his buddies. BP is one of Jonathan’s great uncles and we were hunting at his camp. Needless to say, we slept well that night.

November 23, 2012

We woke up early, around 4:30 AM, in order to get some breakfast before our first morning hunt. We found out quickly that in order to stay warm in temperatures around 0°F requires consuming mass amounts of calories. After finishing off about 2 dozen eggs between the four of us, we headed to the snow blinds. The blinds had to be heated with propane so we wouldn’t freeze while we were hunting. It was a very cold morning and no one saw any deer. This gave us time to head back to town and get Jonathan’s truck put in the shop to have a new transmission installed.  

Needing some success out of this adventure we took back to the woods that afternoon. I ended up spotting two doe work in and begin feeding on the corn and doughnuts that we used as attractant. Yes – doughnuts, the deer loved eating the doughnuts and could smell them from miles away in the cold weather. Not knowing what type of deer management strategy they had for the property, I passed on the doe in hopes of a Michigan buck. Later I found out that BP wanted us to take as many doe off of the property as possible. That night we settled back into the cabin and prepared to ride out the cold night with the wood-burning stove. The cabin’s only heat source was a wood-burning stove in the center of the cabin. We had no electricity just a few light bulbs scattered throughout the cabin that were lit with propane. We had running water that came from an outside deep well. This meant using an outhouse for seven days and no showering. In order to take a shower, we had to pump the well with enough pressure to reach an outside shower head. Then, we had to get the shower running before the water froze in the pipe going to the shower head. Like I said - no showering for the week. Jonathan attempted a shower once and we ended up unfreezing the water hose on the wood stove. He got his shower and said it was all worth it.

November 24, 2012

The next morning provided the same results as the last: lots of food, cold weather, deep snow and no deer activity. By this time we realized that the deer were moving closer to dark in the afternoon and throughout the night because it was too cold for them to stay bedded. Later that afternoon, I had some success with the same doe that fed the evening before. I was able to take a mature doe that I had seen the previous afternoon. We packaged up the deer and waited until the next day to process it for the meat. This wasn’t a problem because the outside temperature was equivalent to a deep freeze. 

November 25, 2012

Instead of cleaning my deer at daylight we decided to hunt for a few hours and tackle the task of cleaning a deer in near sub-zero temperatures later that morning. This proved to be a good decision because Jonathan was able to take a mature 6-point at daylight. These deer were much different than the whitetail that we were custom to seeing in central Alabama. They had much thicker fur coats and the meat was full of fat. We also noticed that the deer had much shorter snouts, this was to help them burrow in the snow for the underlying food. We spent the rest of the day cleaning the two deer and scouting the property on four-wheelers. The rest of the trip provided no more deer activity but we definitely made some memories. Jonathan was able to get a new transmission installed and it took us all the way back to Alabama. We still joke about not showering for a week and all of the vehicle issues. We haven’t been back to Michigan as of today and no plans to go in the near future. 

Striper Fishing in Tennessee

July 14, 2012 

Nashville, Tennessee

I was able to surprise my best friend today with the help of his soon-to-be wife, Whitney, with a surprise fishing trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Whitney had the whole day planned and worked with me to make sure Jonathan kept his schedule clear. We booked a guide and headed to Tennessee to catch some striped bass. Striped bass fishing is very different than largemouth or smallmouth bass fishing. Striped bass inhabit deer clear-water lakes and most of the fishing is done from a depth finder. We started out the day by making the drive to Nashville. We bought some rain gear on the way due to the rain that we were expecting that day. We met the guide at the boat launch and headed out on the Percy Priest Lake. It wasn’t long before we hooked up with our first striped bass.

For the next 4 hours we reeled in countless stripers and got to know our guide. We were mainly trolling with Alabama rigs and watching our depth finder for the tell-tale banana shaped readings that indicated a striped bass.

The day ended and we released all of the fish and headed back to Alabama. We chalked this up as a great day of fishing. We avoided most of the bad weather and caught several striped bass. We had several doubles and one triple. As with any good fishing trip, we had an excellent guide. Thanks to Billy Flatt and Nashville Fishing Charters for a great fishing trip!

 

Family Traditions – Rabbit Hunting in the Deep South

February 25, 2012

Brewton, Alabama

I have dreamed about this hunt since I was a young boy. I remember going to Christmas parties when I was a child and hearing about all of the exciting and funny stories that my dad and granddad told of the days they spent rabbit hunting. My granddad owned a pack of beagles when my dad was growing up. I’m not sure if it’s the nature of every hunter to stretch the truth about the quality of their hunting dogs but my granddad will still to this day tell you that they were they best rabbit dogs in Jefferson County. These stories got me more and more excited about going on a rabbit hunt. I remember telling my granddad that I was going to go on a rabbit hunt and how excited I was about continuing a family tradition.

I started my third generation rabbit hunt early in the morning at a gas station near Brewton, Alabama. I rode into the hunting property with my co-worker, Johnny. We let the dogs out of their boxes and I loaded my granddad’s browning auto 5 while the dogs patrolled the nearby woods for rabbit scent. The shotgun I was using had been passed down from my granddad to my brother, Garrett. Garrett was generous enough to let me borrow the gun so I would get the whole experience of what my family has done for generations. We were hunting a pine cutover; we walked the roads while the dogs dug through the underbrush. We had a few false alarms as the dogs picked up on old rabbit trails. Then finally, the dogs jumped a rabbit and chased it out of hearing range. Johnny, knowing that I had never been rabbit hunting told me to get set up on the road exactly where the dogs found the rabbit. Rabbit’s do something very unusual, when being chased by dogs, they will run in a large circle and will run back to spot where they started. 

I got set up on the road and listened as the dogs left hearing range, shortly after I caught the sound of the pack as they had made the turn and were headed back my way. I waited and listened as the sound of the pack got closer; listening even closer for any sounds of the rabbit that would surely be out front of the pack. Then I heard what I was waiting for, a broken branch about 30 yards away. The rabbit jumped onto the road almost landing on the end of my shotgun. He took a quick bounce and started hopping down the road. I put the bead of my granddad’s browning on the rabbit and made the gun a third generation rabbit killer. I bagged the rabbit and got the nickname ‘no miss’ Nick. No one expected me to be able to hit a rabbit on my first shot. That was the only rabbit that we shot that day but we had several races throughout the morning. We stopped by a nearby creek on the way home and Johnny showed me how to clean the rabbit. It was a nice south Alabama cottontail. 

Brown n' Down

January 31, 2012

Brewton, Alabama

Hunting in South Alabama is very different than the hunting I an accustomed to in central Alabama. The deer population is much more dense in the lower part of the state. This hunt started when Dylan and myself made a deal with a local land owner to help manage his property in exchange for hunting rights during the hunting season. 

This property was split into two sections. We hunted one section during bow season and the second section during gun season. The second section of the property had two food plots that neighbored each other along a single access road. This was the perfect set up for two hunters. We would get off work and ride to the same section of the property and sit on the two fields during the afternoon. I was able to kill a deer on the last afternoon of the last day of the season. I was sitting in a blind at last light and three doe popped into the far corner of the field. I knew this was our last chance at success on the property so I put the cross hairs on the most mature animal and squeezed the trigger. 

We took the deer to the landowners house in order to clean the deer. This was the most efficient and unique process I have ever used to skin a deer. We hung the deer from the tractor and made an quick cut around the deer's neck. We then used the tractor's hydraulics and a cable to pull the skin off in one motion. We had the deer skinned in less than 10 minutes. We processed the deer for the meat which provided meals for us for the next several months.

Finding Success While Hunting Public Property

Central Alabama

Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area

Hunting public management are in Alabama is very challenging. Most of the hunting property in the state is personally owned and leased. Majority of hunters can’t afford to pay the high fees of a hunting lease and resort to hunting publicly managed properties. Most public management areas are severely over hunted and lack the proper management to grow trophy animals. Mulberry Fork Wildlife Management Area is an exception because it has a unique strategy for managing its deer population on its 35,000 acres. The state only permits bow hunting on this property with the exception of a few days where gun hunting is allowed. These gun hunts attract hunters from all over the state to try their luck on a low pressure, public hunting property. I have had decent success during one of these gun hunts and here is the story.  

November 25, 2011

We had an entire hunting party in the woods this morning. Jonathan, one of his family members, Jake, and I all went on the November 25th gun hunt this morning. I took Jake to one of my favorite hunting spots on the management area called one shot. I shot a 98 pound button buck at 7:00 AM. My 270 caliber Winchester Ballistic Silvertip did its work on the animal and he did not take another step after the shot rang through the woods. Jake was hunting close to me so I went and guided him for the rest of the morning. I was able to put him on a doe walking through a hardwood bottom shortly after killed my deer. He managed to make a great shot on one of the branches but not the deer.

Jonathan's girlfriend, now wife, let us bring her dad and brother along with us for the hunt. No one saw any deer except Jake and myself. We took my deer back to Whitney's house and processed it for the meat. The hunt continued that afternoon at a different part of the management area. This marks one of the best days that I have had hunting on the Mulberry Fork property. Jonathan and I split up on the same hunting spot and Jonathan was able to kill a big, cow-horn spike right before dark. It is a rare day to shoot a double on public property but we were able to pull it off. The success we had today was due to a combination of preparation and opportunity. We spent countless hours scouting this property, finding the best hunting spots and mapping the deer activity. We also spent countless hours in the deer stand waiting for shot opportunities on these deer.

Commitment to the Outdoors

Tuskegee, Alabama

Every outdoorsman that takes on the adventure of college enjoys the challenge of finding time to stay outdoors. For me, this was a very hard challenge. There were limited ways to fish and even less public property to hunt. Towards the end of my college years, I found the time to check out the local public hunting property at the Tuskegee National Forest. Here are a few of my stories from the Tuskegee National Forest. I was not able to take a deer or turkey on the property but I had several encounters with both.

November 6, 2011

After an unsuccessful start to my bow season back home I decided to begin hunting at the Tuskegee National Forest. The conception of any hunting strategy for an unfamiliar property begins with scouting and studying. While I was scouting the new property I was able to find a couple of fresh deer scrapes.

November 10, 2011

I decided to go back to the creek bottom where I found the fresh scrape a few days earlier. I got in the woods around 3:15 PM and the deer trail that I was hunting was so heavily used that it smelled of deer. The leaves were still wet from a rainstorm the night before and provided ideal conditions for a ground stalk. I moved east, up the creek bottom and spotted three doe. One of the deer spotted me and quickly ran through the leaf litter making no noise. I stood there motionless watching the remaining deer quickly work into the thick underbrush and out of sight. 

November 11, 2011

I went back to the creek bottom at the national forest this afternoon after school. I backtracked the doe that I saw yesterday which led me to an area of the national forest that I had not yet explored. I found an area where there was high grass creating a boundary between a swamp and a strip of hardwoods. This swamp was heavily traveled and I thought I could easily spot deer moving out of the swamp and into the strip of hardwoods at this location. I found a nice 60 yard shooting lane and began my hunt. At 5:00 PM it was too dark for a shot but I had a deer working in on me through the high grass. My ScentLok clothing allowed the deer to get within 30 yards when I had to leave. I stood up and the deer ran then stopped and looked back. I took one more step, the deer blew once and bounced out of hearing distance.

November 17, 2011

I went down to what became my favorite creek bottom this afternoon. We had a pretty bad storm yesterday afternoon and it brought colder weather with it. I thought with the falling temperature that the deer would move. I was wrong. The large temperature change brought high winds with it. The wind was swirling in the bottom all afternoon. I was fortunate to have it blowing in my face most of the time. Unfortunately, the high winds had the deer in the their beds all afternoon. I was able to spot a flock of turkeys on my hike out.

Hunting public land can be challenging and requires a commitment to the outdoors in order to become successful.