Oh, the stories I coulld tell

People often say to me,"Cader, why don't you write a book of your experiences at Riverview  over the past 43 years". My simple answer is that the statute of limitations has not quite run on many of them. To put it another way,I am counting on many of the folks who will be in my stories going to that great plantation in the sky before I do. Although, I do not know why I worry so much about that because,based on my experience with them, they could not hit me if they shot at me as long as I was standing still.
 However, there is one group that I can feel free to write about as I am convinced that they are never going to die. As many of you know, we offer a discount on our base rate during the holidays to encourage families to hunt with us, and families make up 99% of our business during this time. It is the other 1% that I am writing about here.These men all hunted with me when they were still active in their businesses. Now that they are retired, they still come as a group of friends over the holidays. I termed them cheapskates years ago. Not to be outdone, they were slightly miffed with my terminology, and have named themselves"The Frugal Hunters" club. Most of these guys live north of the "Smith&Wesson" line,and can be deemed Yankees. Surprisingly for a bunch of Northerners, they can shoot pretty good.
 I have to give them this much--they do pay and on time after the leader threatens to go to a couple of their homes with a baseball bat. One of these men in the past would bring me a country ham as long as I paid for it as soon as it arrived here. Evidently, I was a day late paying him one year because the next year he claimed that the country ham store burned down. I will say that they gave me a break this year because the crustiest curmudgeon in the group failed to make the trip this year.I can guarantee you that pro shop sales will not fall off one bit due to his absence.
 I love my job, and really do enjoy my guests who become more than guests over the years. They become friends. I am proud to place the "Frugal Hunters" AKA "Cheapskates" in that group as they have been coming at this time of the year for almost 20 years now. I sure hope that they do not read this as they would be inclined to ask for the "20 year discount"!

Thanksgiving family and hunting

Since we are in the hunting business and our season only lasts six months, we can't afford to close down for all of the holidays. We do shut down for a solid week around Christmas, but we have always stayed open for guests hunting here over the Thanksgiving holidays.Thanksgiving is also the holiday that usually finds all of my children and grandchildren here because children can always be baited in with the promise of a lot of food and free hunting.Many years ago, before Martha and I even had children,much less grandchildren, an old Oklahoma oilman once said to me,"Son, I love the holidays and the pretty holiday lights. But the prettiest lights I ever see are the tail lights of my children and grandchildren as they drive away from my garage". I now understand what he meant. Whew!
 We had a lot of fun,but old folks get accustomed to a schedule, and there is no schedule with a house full of rambunctious grandchildren. I took the five who were old enough to go with me on a short quail hunt Friday morning to observe. Then we had a dove hunt on Friday afternoon. Two of the five grandchildren were old enough to hunt dove,but not quail. They each shot a couple of doves with their youth model shotguns while the younger three claimed to have killed literally hundreds with their BB guns. I sense the making of real hunters in this younger pack as they already know how to stretch the truth.
 Precious memories !

South Georgia weather

As we say down here,"If you don't like the weather,just stick around because it will change". We had our first freeze and a killing frost last Wednesday,Nov.13th. When Martha and I went to visit with our grandchildren on Saturday afternoon of the same week, I wore shorts and a T-shirt because it was 79 degrees. It had been getting dry here lately and someone mentioned in prayer meeting that we needed to pray for rain since most of our crops have been harvested. I politely declined as I told my friends that I made myself a promise never to pray for rain after our river floods of 1994 and 1998. I might remind the Lord that it's getting a little dry, but I do not pray for rain. Well, someone must have because as Noah would say,"It come up a cloud this morning", and the bottom dropped out of the sky. We received 1.6 inches of rain in less than two hours between 8:30-10:15 this morning.. They say that two things a man can want the most and catch up on the fastest are sex and rain. We just caught up on rain!

Our first freeze of the hunting season

This has been a spectacular fall in south Georgia. We opened our quail hunting season on Oct. 17th, and have not had the first unseasonably warm day yet. As a matter of fact, we hunted many days in January of last season that were warmer than any days we have hunted in this October and November of this season. The weather man who predicts the weather like I do the stock market is now saying that we will have our first freeze of the fall on Wednesday morning,Nov.13th. Bring it on as we are ready for it ! The dogs and guides will love it as will my wife who can quit complaining about when she is going to be able to use the clothes that she has moved to her closet in preparation of colder weather.
 As we start our fourth week of hunting season, I am still trying to play myself into shape for the longer hours we spend here. I can honestly say that I totally take back all of the times that I didn't want to take a nap when I was younger. I am struggling to remember the last time that I wasn't at least kind of tired.
 Business is good this fall as we are seeing more hunters than last fall, and the hunting is great ! With apologies to the fine folks who have already visited this fall, the hunting is great,but the shooting could use some improvement. If I were giving odds, I would say that the quail are winning over the hunters in the first three weeks. Every now and then, I am fairly certain that I can hear quail giggling in the woods as I ride around the Plantation.
 Oh well, I need to get back to the old salt mines now.

Hunter's Moon

Well, if you are part werewolf and part historian like me, you are certainly aware of the fact that we have just experienced a hunter's moon.The native Americans took this full moon in October as a signal that it was time to start hunting and curing meat for the winter months. They didn't have microwaves and grocery stores; so they relied on nature and instinct for survival.They also did not have Washington looking after them, and that was a good thing. I don't know about you folks, but I am mighty glad that the circus in Washington has closed --at least temporarily.
 Our forefathers also knew how to live off of the land. Have you ever been asked the question,"why do you hunt"? I have, and I think that this hunter's moon has helped me define my answer. I hunt for the same reason that I eat and breathe. It is in my DNA code, and it is a part of who I am and my heritage. Hunting also gives me a connection to the land, a connection I can't ignore. I feel sorry for people stuck in front of televisions or computers who no longer relish the changing of the seasons and the richness and smell of the earth. We hunters hunt because we love the outdoors,we love the excitement and challenge, and we enjoy eating what we are fortunate enough to bag.
 In conclusion, let me just say that this is our first week of the quail hunting season at Riverview. God has blessed us with a crisp fall weather for our opening week. We got just enough rain to make the scenting conditions good for the dogs, and we have had some hunters actually manage to shoot a quail. I am tickled for that because I am real tired of my guides shooting birds under the guise of "dog training". We had better have some of the best handling dogs in years based on the amount of shooting I was hearing last week in our final preseason tune up prior to the real thing.If you have not booked your hunt for this season, i would encourage you to call soon. Open dates on our reservation calendar are disappearing fast!

Fall season

My favorite season of the year is fall. I think that southerners probably appreciate fall more than anyone.After living through repressive,heat,humidity,and bugs for so long,that first hint of cooler,drier air feels like the breath of God promising better times ahead.It was 51 degrees here this morning with almost no humidity in the air. Fall is also the time of the year when Mother Nature shoots for her grand finale. There is an explosion of colors and smells. It reminds me of the end of the big fireworks shows on the Fourth of July.
 And,of course, there is the smell of gunpowder in the air as hunters take to the woods again in the timeless tradition of their ancestors.I was disappointed upon renewing my hunting license to see that they had not added a couple of Congressmen to my bag limit. All of our winter grass has come up around the lodge grounds now, and we are running water sprinklers day and night. The soft,damp ground attracts the armadillos. Armadillos,like Congressmen, serve no useful purpose, and only destroy our beautiful grounds.
 However, there is no bag limit on these pests,and we have declared open season on them. My only concern is that someone will drive up one night and catch me walking around in my underdrawers in the middle of the night with a miner's lamp on my head and a shotgun in my hand. I'm afraid that they might send someone with a butterfly net to catch me.
 We open the 2013-2014 quail hunting season next weekend, and we are all ready to get started!

Lodge Grounds clean-up

The crops are all harvested except for our late season milo that we plant behind our spring sweet corn crops.Most all of our hunting course preparation work is complete with the exception of woods road maintenance and mowing our jeep trails through the woods. While Ronnie was mowing jeep trails yesterday on the Yates place, he bumped into one of the largest hornet nests that I have seen in years. He was a happy camper to be in a tractor with a cab because he took some photos with his IPhone of the swarm of hornets surrounding his tractor. We are making plans to get rid of those bad boys before the Federal government tries to add them to the endangered species list along with the eastern diamondback rattler. Somehow, I do not think that many of our guests could outrun a bunch of angry hornets.
 While Ronnie was lucky to be in a cab tractor, the same cannot be said for Jarvis. Most of our crew have moved to the lodge grounds for our fall clean up. Jarvis was weed eating along the edge of the lodge lake when he ran his weed eater over a ground nest of yellow jackets. I had no idea that Jarvis was that fast. I happened to be  watching him as he broke the world record for the 100 yard dash. I have never seen yellow jackets give up so quickly. The only small problem has been convincing Jarvis to retrieve his weed eater. At my last check,it was still right there on the ground by the nest. However, we will take care of those insects also.
 We have pruned,mowed, and planted all of our winter grass around the cottages. In another week, it will really look like quail hunting season here. that's a good thing because it is just around the corner with our first guests arriving on Oct.17th.
 While I realize that the NSA will read my blog, I just have to close by expressing my disgust with our dysfunctional government in Washington. Whatever happened to compromise and statesmanship? Wouldn't Mark Twain and Will Rogers have a good time lampooning these clowns we have in Washington today! I would like to criticize them more vocally myself,but I am not overly anxious to incur an IRS audit.