Category: Life

Mountain Lion Hunting: Who’s the [Kitty] Here?

Let’s start with a few facts.  I’m from the rural south.  I love to hunt, mostly birds, and I eat what I kill.  In fact, I don’t duck hunt much because I don’t like the way ducks taste.  I shoot skeet or sporting clays every chance I get.  I drive a pickup truck.  I have a beard, etc.  So even though I’d probably disagree with the typical good ol’ boy on a lot of social and political issues, I’ve been mistaken for a good ol’ boy more than a few times.  I am not some animal rights extremist.  I have crapped all over PETA here and on Twitter for years for being so absurdly extremist that it has completely lost the power to convince.

Oh, and one last fact: the next to last fistfight I got in was after I called some guy a [synonym for kitty] for going to Africa and shooting lions and elephants and whatnot.  It was a long time ago after a few beers and one too many great white hunter story.  I proved to be a little tougher adversary than some oblivious lion a hundred or so yards away.

image So, while I generally identify with the hunter/camper/outdoorsman culture, I draw a very bright line between those animals that are OK to hunt and those that are not.  Dove, ducks and deer are one one side of that line.  Lions, elephants and bears are on the other.  So it really bummed me out today when I saw some dude on a hunting blog I read proudly retelling how some other dudes killed a mountain lion in central Texas.  If I saw a mountain lion that wasn’t about to eat me or my family, I would be really excited.  Honored, actually.  What I wouldn’t be is inclined to shoot it.

I understand the argument that mountain lions adversely affect the deer population. Well, guess what- so do humans, and I imagine there are a lot more humans out there killing deer than there are mountain lions.  I love deer meat and eat it all the time, but I certainly wouldn’t kill a mountain lion just to ensure a few more pounds of deer sausage in my refrigerator.  And let’s not overlook the fact that the only reason most of these folks want to keep the deer from being killed by a mountain lion is so they can kill them themselves.

I have heard- and rejected- the argument that mountain lions are dangerous.  The fact is that mountain lion attacks are rare.  Dogs kill far more people annually than mountain lions do in a century.

And I understand, even if I don’t completely believe, the argument that the mountain lion population is growing, with the decline of pesticides and goat and sheep farming.  What I also understand is that in Texas mountain lions are not classified as a game animal, which means anyone can kill as many of them as they can find, any time and without limit.  That’s messed up.  There are only 30,000 mountain lions in the western United States.  There are 30 million deer in the United States, with deer population control becoming a major concern in numerous states.  So I’m not buying the argument that there aren’t enough deer to feed a few mountain lions.

So unless there is evidence that this mountain lion was an immediate danger to persons or expensive property and could not be trapped and relocated despite diligent attempts to do so, those dudes should have let that cat go.

If you are interested in learning about mountain lions- as opposed to just killing them, here’s an informative article on their population, age distribution and mortality rates.

Delaney’s Swim Meet

Delaney has been a competitive swimmer for most of her 8 years.  Currently, she swims for Rice Aquatics.  She had a swim meet today at the University of Houston.  She swam the individual medley, the freestyle and the backstroke, and did great.

Here are her IM and freestyle swims.

She ran out of gas a little at the end of the IM, but she still had a great time.  She swam a beautiful freestyle.

Sunday Mashup: Camping, Sporting Clays and Shotgun Shells

This weekend we spent a lot of time outside, enjoying the beautiful weather.

Saturday morning Delaney and I drove north for a little over an hour to attend an Indian Princess campout.  Delaney had a blast hanging out with her friends, and I had fun meeting some of the other daddies.

This morning we had breakfast and a closing ceremony, and headed back home.

We got home around 10:30 a.m., so I decided to try to beat the coming rain and shoot some sporting clays.

It was windy and it felt like it was going to start raining any moment- though it didn’t.  Still, I felt a little rushed, and didn’t have my best day.  I shot 61 of 72, for an 84% mark.  That’s a decent percentage, but it was on the easier South Course.

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Station 10 killed me, and it’s not particularly hard.

If you’re wondering (and I guess even if you’re not), the iPhone program I use to score sporting clays is ClayTracker (iTunes link).  It’s a $20 program, which blew my mind at first, until I thought about it.  There’s probably a pretty small market for a sporting clays scoring app, so if we want developers to write for a niche market, we have to be willing to pay a little more.  On the whole I am pleased with ClayTracker.  It is well designed and graphically pleasing.  If the developers continue to add features, it will remain one of my favorite apps.

Among the features I’d like to see added are:

1. Skeet scoring, which the developers say is coming.

2. A “Notes” feature where you can quickly add notes about the various stations.  This would be extremely helpful when you’re scouting a new course.

3. More stats, easily accessible.  For example, when I arrive at a station I shoot a lot, I’d like to be able to easily access my recent or lifetime stats for that station.  Historical graphs would also be helpful.  That would let me see my rabbit percentage approaching 30%.  OK, 25%.

4. The ability to snap a photo of a station for future reference.

5. An online service, where your stats would be automatically uploaded and available for review or sharing.  You could even create and link tutorials on YouTube or some other video repository.  It would be cool to be able to access a rabbit tutorial while whiffing at a rabbit station (though miraculously I hit 2 out of 3 rabbit shots today, including the first half of a double).

image Afterwards, Delaney and I went to Academy Sports to buy some gun-cleaning patches and a little Hoppe’s No. 9.  While there, I made an important discovery.  As all shooters know, finding cheap shotgun shells is a never-ending quest.  Generally, I alternate between Carter Country and Academy, based on who has what on sale.  Recently, I have been frustrated at the local Academy to find that the shells I want are not on sale, when other similar shells are.  For example, the last two times I have been there I found a big stack of 20 gauge cases on sale, intermingled among the identical cases of 12 gauge shells which were not on sale.  Today, after telling Delaney we weren’t going to buy any shells because they were too expensive, we wandered over to the camping aisle.  There, far away from the hunting and shooting gear, were cases of Remington 12 gauge shells for $59.  That’s not the best price you can find, but it’s close enough.  So if you’re going to Academy in search of shells, look around.  They may have cheap shells in an unusual location.  And based on my experience, they may not tell you they’re over there.

So I stocked up on shotgun shells, came home and cleaned my guns, and put them away in the (locked) gun cabinet.

With any luck, Cassidy and I can prevail upon the rest of the family to finish off a great weekend with a sushi dinner.

Sporting Clays, Volume 3

After shooting Volume 1 and Volume 2 from a behind the shooter, stationary camera, I shot this round with a gun mounted camera.  It works OK with high, arching shots where there is a lot of blue sky to provide contrast.  It works less well on low, fast shots, where bushes or trees are in the background.  I also learned on editing that I need to start shooting only after I have loaded and am ready to shoot.  This video is pretty sloppy, but it taught me what I need to know for future videos.

It would also be really, really helpful to have a remote control for my JVC GC-FM1A HD camcorder.  That would allow me to easily stop and start between shots while reloading.

I shot OK today, particularly considering that the pull delay wasn’t working on several of the stations and I was shooting alone.  But I still gave away too many easy points.  I should be hitting at least 85% on the south course.

It’s been slow going on the videos, but I’m getting there.

Two Sentence Movie Reviews: Halloween Edition

Three really good films.  5-point scale.  Links to Netflix.

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Kill, Baby, Kill (4): This 1966 Mario Bava gem is a creepy, semi-gothic ghost story, that proves Italians did horror as well as westerns.  It made me an instant Fabienne Dali fan.

Black Sunday (4): Another excellent Bava film (1960), with the great Barbara Steele in a double role as a witch and her look-alike descendant.  One of my favorite vintage horror films, with perhaps the most interesting commentary track I’ve ever watched.

Drag Me to Hell (4; unrated version): A new to DVD, supernatural scare-fest that made me jump a lot, even though it doesn’t break any new ground.  It’s the scariest movie I’ve seen since The Strangers, and you’ll never look at goats the same way again.

Tag: movie review

Sporting Clays, Volume 2

After inadvertently recording Volume 1 in standard definition, I made it a point to shoot in HD today while shooting the South Course with my buddy J.C. MacBarker (known to some as Robert Brannon).  I had some camera angle issues, but the higher definition makes the clay visible, which is cool.  Things will get much better after today, as my gun camera mount arrived in the mail this afternoon.

We did good on the South Course, other than my continuing difficulty shooting the rabbit.  Later, we shot the harder North Course with another buddy.  We all did good, but not great, over there.  The gun camera mount is going to be handy for calculating some of the harder shot leads.  When you’re practicing and can take as many shots as you want, it’s relatively easy to zero in on most targets.  When you’re shooting in a competition, it’s important to get the lead right from the first shot.

All in all, a beautiful day.  And there’s no better way to spend a beautiful day than shooting some clays in the country.

Howl-O-Ween 2009

Cassidy, Delaney, Luke, Lucky Dog and their friends Evie, Aiden and Loossee conceived of, designed (with help from the moms) and wore Wizard of Oz costumes for this year’s Howl-O-Ween canine costume contest and dog parade.  They won, for the second year in a row.

Howl-O-Ween 2009
Here’s the story in The Houston Chronicle