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Showing posts from May, 2009

In the Bayou City Crawfish are King!

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Growing up in Houston, Texas we spent countless hours exploring the farms, lakes, streams and bayous in and around this great city. On some of our explorations we found lakes, streams, tanks and bayous brimming with crawfish or as we used to call them, crawdads. We used to spend many hours catching 50 to 100 crawdads big enough to eat. It did not take long before we recognized the potential of a seine. With a seine we could catch a meal in short order. My mother would boil up our crawfish very much in the same way we had crab boils. We were always proud of the fact we provided a meal for the family. Over the last 30 years crawfish have caught on here in Texas in a big way. We used to trap and seine our catch for free. These days crawfish are big business. Prices per pound rival that of lobster. Folks in Dallas are even in the mix. Competition has become fierce in the quest for a sack of crawfish. Typically, my family attends several boils per season. On special occasions w

Squirrel Hunting With My Dad!

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My father used to take us squirrel hunting on the Brazos River bottom. One morning my father let me shoot his old Winchester .22 pump. My father’s old Winchester would take .22 longs, long rifles and .22 shorts. On this particular morning my father wanted me to shoot .22 shorts. As I was very young at the time, I was just glad to get to hunt with my father. Before daylight we walked to a huge oak tree and sat about 20 yards away to search the tree for any signs of squirrel activity. As the sun began to rise a cavity in the trunk of the old oak tree about 15 feet above the ground became visible. I told my father I thought a squirrel was looking at us from the cavity in the tree. My father said if I was sure it was a squirrel to go ahead and take a shot. I raised the old .22 to my shoulder and carefully aimed. I squeezed off a .22 short and to my surprise it appeared the squirrel had dodged the bullet. I carefully looked at the hole in the trunk of the tree and sure enough a

The Family Crab Boil

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Many years ago blue crabs were plentiful. So plentiful in fact, it was very common to catch 100’s of male crabs in a matter of hours. Even before it was illegal to keep female crabs we never did. We knew taking the females would hurt the harvest. We used to fill large igloo coolers with male blue crabs and clean them in the surf. Catching blue crabs was a family event. Everyone would participate. Our primary method of catching blue crabs was to push a round stick about the length of a broom handle into the sand with a thick twine tied to it and a chicken neck and weight attached to the twine. We would set out about ten of these lines at a time. When the twine straightened out we would slowly pull the twine in and scoop up the blue crabs with a crab net. This method was very effective and produced many blue crabs for the boil pot. After the big haul we all would sit around the dinner table as the crabs went into the boiling pot. The smell of crab boil spices would fill the air