Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: New Avatar test

Eloquently and articulately put, Billy.

Kudos to all for handling a potentially explosive topic with honesty, restraint, and an open mind. Wish the av123 forum could read this thread. It might temper their opinion of our nastiness.

I don't belive we passed their maturity and sophistication tests.

Well said, Squirrelyz. If there were more people like you, this world would be a better place.

Mark

Aw shucks...thanks for the kind words, guys. The next round is on me!

^billy

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I wasn't aware there were ostriches in Texas. Be careful

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Ray, we have so many ostriches in Texas that we have to be careful where we step while wearing our ostrich boots.

testing avatar...

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I recognize that the mouth and gun are similar...once you shoot it off, you can't take it back

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It is, however, much easier to apologize and be forgiven for doing the former...

Very well said, nonetheless.

well, just thought i would go to the 'gun' thread and fill ya'll in on my turkey hunt this weekend.

we(wife and i) got out there saturday afternoon, and set up the camp. luckily, the others there were taking care of food, so we basically just had to set up the tent and blow up the air mattress. cole, the guy who owned the ranch, took me out to one of the blinds near a stock pond and said the turkeys will usually come in around dusk to get water. i had a mouth call, that i havent got good at using yet, and was trying to bring them in. to bad it aint deer season, cause we saw PLENTY of them coming in to drink. couple nice bucks, but mainly doe's. anyway, we could hear the turkeys in the tree line, but they never came into range. as the sun started to set, we could hear them flying up to roost in the trees. we never did get a 'clear' look at a turkey, but they were definitely all around us. we walked the trail back to camp(about 45 minutes), and i was nearly exhausted.. i am getting too fat, and too old. it was almost nine by the time we got back, and they had just started dinner.. these guys are all big hunters, so it was an 'all game' dinner. we had potatoes w/deer & jalapeno sausage, deer back straps, turkey breasts(killed that morning), quail, and goose. one of the guys was from amarillo, and apparently, that is a popular place for migrating geese. it was my first time to have goose, tastes like duck.. it was pretty good. we all ate well, drank some beer, played some songs on the guitar, and hit the tent. i was tired.

sunday morning,7:30 am, i get woke up to a gobbler just up the hill from the tent, probably 200-250 yards. my wife said she was too tired, and just wanted to sleep, so i grabbed the 12 gauge, and a jacket, and headed up the hill. once up on the top, i nestled down by a tree and reached into my pocket to grab my mouth call, IT WAS GONE.. with no way to call them in, and not wanting to get up and run them off, i just stayed there, hoping they would cross my path. it never happened.. once again, i could hear them in the tree line and could see movement in the trees, but they never got in range. i did have two big jack rabbits move up on me though.. they never even knew i was there, they probably got within 15 feet of me. i could swear i kept hearing an armadillo digging in the ground behind the tree i was against, but i never checked. once i got up to go back to camp, he was gone. got back to camp around 10:30, shannon had already deflated the air mattress and was fixing to pull the tent pegs..(thats a good wife that will break camp alone).. and she found my turkey caller, it had fallen out of my jacket.. as i walked up to the the tent, she just laughed, threw it at me and asked,"did ya forget something"?? anyway, got back just in time to have a havelina & egg burrito, and loaded up the jeep. we left around noon, and were home by 1:30.

although i didnt drop a turkey, we had a great time, and it is cool just to get out in the country for a while. lucky for me, the guy who owns the ranch(cole), is fixing to marry one of my wifes best friends, so looks like i will have a good place to hunt come deer season..

just thought ya'll might like to know how the weekend went.

have a good week..

bigjohn

sorry everyone, I hope I did not come off as having gotten a little 'work on the forearms' there. Seems like I stirred things up and then took off for the weekend. That was certainly not my intention. That being said, this was the most civil political discussion I have ever heard!

I will admit that being Canadian, it kind of freaks me out thinking of that many people owning firearms (and I'm glad that isn't the case in my area). In fact, i had never even fired a gun before my vacation this year, when I had the opportunity to fire an AK-47 in Cambodia. It's really strange there, with the history of that country that they could be so seemingly nonchalant about guns. We'd just toured the Killing Fields where 10,000+ bodies were buried and they take us to the shooting range!?! And no one thought this was weird!?! Very beautiful country, but made me happy I live where I do.

A big "thumbs up" to Billy on that post.

It reminded me of something. My wife collects cookbooks. One I bought her a couple years ago was (a personally autographed copy of) "Kill it and Grill It" by Ted Nugent.

Now, I don't hunt. Mostly because I was raised in suburbia, and partially because I don't like to walk around outside in the cold. But Ted's book and Billy's post gave me a new and profound respect for the deep spiritual meaning that hunting has for many people. It is an approach that is often attributed to Native Americans, but it clearly is not exclusive to that group.

Nugent may be outspoken, but he is neither as stupid nor as extreme as some people make him out to be.

I believe in the Second Amendment. I have seriously considered joining the NRA. And I don't own any guns.

And bigjohn, thanks for the trip report! Wonderful imagery! Does javelina taste like chicken?