Need Help In Central Texas.........

[TKD]

Jeez your pour dog! Fas healer I hope!

[Bigtex]

Here's a recent Deer kill with the neck darn near twisted off.

[indiefoot]

Thanks for getting out there and getting the pictures and thanks for sharing them with us.

[Guest]

BT, did you ever hear anything more from your "friend" with the state about what they might know about the Kill Zones?

[Bigtex]

Hey Mulder, good to hear from you. I have not heard from him, but have pretty much decided the animals, or a least most, are being dumped in the areas in question, and is the only thing that really makes sense. I hiked further into the new Kill Zone, and came up on a private dirt road used by the city to access the water treatment facility. The closer I got to the road, started finding ripped up large Hefty trash bags. I figured that these are road kills brought in by city workers in the trash bags, and coyotes are dragging them down into the ravine, and consuming them........mystery probably solved! Nothing new at the original Kill Zone either - could be because of my call to the City a while back which might have prompted them to start dumping at the new place, which I subsequently ended up finding that one too. Might be a very interesting place to set up a blind, and hang there for a night.

Having a little expedition to my research area on the Brazos River this weekend, location of my sighting, and a few near misses. Will be with Shadoangel and a few others from here......wish us luck!

Had a very nice weekend camp on the Brazos River in Texas with ShadoAngel and UPs.......rained most of Saturday, and didn't get to explore a certain area, but a good trip nevertheless. Found some interesting track impressions, along with the full moon over the river, and Tree Man, and in the shape of a body.

Shado & UPs.......please post any of your pictures and thoughts on the trip.

[Guest ChrisBFRPKY]

Awesome pics. Thanks for sharing. I particularly like Tree Man. I'd hate to trip over that in the dark... Chris B.

[Guest UPs]

I want to thank Bigtex and Shado for the invite. It was a good time and its too bad that we had rain and heavy thunderstorms most of Saturday. It an interesting area with as the river and vegetation along the river attract many different animals. We had a large hog cross the river in front of us as we were canoeing up river and also saw sign from coyote, deer, hogs, and a few tracks that stumped us. There were also quite a few bones from what seemed like predator kills. I can definitely see why any apex predator would be attracted to this area. The substrate for tracks is very good in many places

I never did unpack my newer camera as I did not want it to get wet on Saturday and its a bit bulky. I do have to go through my audio recorder from Saturday night/Sunday morning to see if it picked up anything interesting. I thought I had it set to record when it sensed noise, but it never did stop recording, so I have 8 plus hours to listen to. Bigtex has a really nice portable, parabolic sound setup and I need to invest in one of those. If any of you have a recommendation for a reasonably priced one, let me know.

These guys are both good and down to earth people and the type needed in this field. Going into this area when there are fewer people camping and using the river may be more productive. Bigtex also went over his sighting with us and although the trees, brush, and water level have changed, the rock face has not and is quite steep all along the area of his sighting.

ShadoAngel, were you able to pick up any more detail from the track cast? That print was very unusual at least to me. Some debris collected at the bottom of a this wash area and the track was in this debris and actually undercut it with what appear to be possible toes. It had a slightly rounded shape to the toe area and extended about 8-10 inches (approx) long and maybe more, but that is all we could see from the impression. There appeared to be a mixture of small gravel, soil, and Juniper needles in this debris. It sure did look like just one print and I cannot think of an animal known in this area to leave such a large track. UPs

[Bigtex]

Thanks for the post UPs, it was a pleasure meeting you!

Shado took some pictures of his print find, and hopefully he will post those.......it was a fairly fresh and interesting impression for sure.

It was surprising just how many people were on the river over the weekend, and in the pouring rain. Not many campers near us, but a steady stream of canoes/kayaks traveling by most of the day.

FYI.....my audio recording rig UPs referred to cost me about $775.00, and consists of a Marantz PMD670 Field Recorder, using two Shure ECO stereo mics that are normally used to record choirs in auditoriums, and they work great. Trust me, I did many years of experimenting with different microphones, these are by far the best, and is amazing the wide range of sounds they will pick up. I was listening to some of the recording last night, and could hear the Bear growling in the background - no wait, that was me snoring a 100 feet away! The system will record all night without having to monitor, and records in a WAV Stereo file. The mics use 100' cables, and placed away from camp in different directions. The mics are small, and I built a sort of parabolic housing for each one using a large funnel from Home Depot, painted camo for concealment. The funnels also help keep them dry, by placing them in a tree, and pointed downwards.

I was glad to see that my homemade toilet from last time was still there!

[indiefoot]

The chair looks like something wickie would do.

[Bigtex]

Thanks for your posts ChrisB & Indiefoot......the Tree Man was very creepy, saw it out of the corner of my eye first, and did a double take. Yes Indie, the 'chair' works great, beats the heck out of squatting, gotta watch that crack in the front though......it can be dangerous!

Here's one of those internet pictures, so who really knows the real story, however......the story goes that the guy was hunting alone, and set the timer on his camera for a trophy shot. He didn't realize the lion was even there until he looked at the pictures later.......WOW, we all need to stay frosty out there!

[Guest UPs]

Cool picture Bigtex. The feet of the lion and left side look a little off, but I am by no means an expert at photo analysis. The pics you posted of the outing were awesome. About 1 out of every 50 or so pictures that I take actually looks really good and that's only because I get lucky. Usually when I am hiking or hunting, I am so busy looking for stuff that I forget to take pictures. I recently bought a Nikon Coolpix L110 that takes great pics, but its a bit big and I would much rather have a smaller point and shoot when out hiking. Next purchase is going to be another Bushnell Trophy cam and then a handheld parabolic mic setup like yours. UPs

[Bigtex]

Thanks UPs.....my Dad was a photographer, and learned a lot from him. Try Ebay for your camera.....for the money, hard to beat a Sony, especially with the Carl Zeiss lens. Send me your email, and will send the lion picture to you for more detail, doesn't appear to be photo shopped.

[Guest vilnoori]

Here's one of those internet pictures, so who really knows the real story, however......the story goes that the guy was hunting alone, and set the timer on his camera for a trophy shot. He didn't realize the lion was even there until he looked at the pictures later.......WOW, we all need to stay frosty out there!

What an awesome shot. Proof positive of my statement last week about cougars following hunters, waiting for the gut pile. LOL

[Guest]

Hey all. It was a great weekend. It was good to meet UPs and see 'tex again as it's been a while since we've been out together. This area where 'tex had his original sighting is incredible. It's a new area of Texas I've never been to and it was great to drive through it and then go up the river to the campsite I've heard so many stories about. As previously mentioned, it did rain most of Saturday, but it was great to sit and talk with these guys. And once the rain stopped, we got out to do a little hiking and, purely by chance (UPs and I were out and made an alternate route coming back to camp, rather than the way we came out) stumbled upon this very interesting impression. I've attached photos, but as always, the original track impression has so much more detail that what we were able to capture. I gave it my first go at casting and I'm pretty sure I made a few mistakes (I think the mixture could have been a little thicker and I forgot to bring hairspray with me to prime the track before pouring) but overall the track was a total failure. I need to take pictures, but the prime difference is that if you compare the cast to the pictures, you can see that right behind the "toes" is a large mound of dirt, which could be indicative of movement, where the mound was created by pressure between the ball of the foot and the toes, as the impression continues behind the mound.

Also, this impression was facing downhill, which also explains why the heel is very unpronounced and the toes seem to be extremely deep, given the surface. Even if I was trying, and the ground was very damp from the rain all day, I couldn't have made an impression even half as deep. So whatever made this track weighed a ton.

[Guest UPs]

Nice pictures Shado. The mound behind what appear to be toes, was very obvious when looking at it in person. It was a good spot by Shado as we are hiking downhill and there are some low branches to avoid. I would estimate the width of the track at about 6 inches, but I did not measure it. I am usually pretty good when it comes to figuring out tracks, but this one has me puzzled. The area is a forested hillside that drops to a river and includes trees and rocky outcrops. Along this drop off, there are flatter tiers and on some of them, there was a whole bunch of different scat and also some bones.

I am glad Shado tried casting this print as I have never done that yet and it is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be (to get a good result). Thanks for posting those pictures Shado. UPs

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