OUTDOORS So much to hunt or catch, so little time
May a prime time to target squirrel, turkey, catfish, shad and trout
The bare spots on the two-track winding like a tunnel through still-dark East Texas woods showed no tire marks, a sign no one had driven into this stretch of public land since a good rain about a week before.
This was welcomed news; I had the woods to myself. Well, not really to myself. Turnedout, I had plenty of company on this Maymorning— just not any other people. But the squirrel woods usually don’t see many human visitors during spring.
I parked the truck, shucked on the old Filson game vest, doped up with serious insect repellent, loaded a Winchester Model 62 .22 rifle that was old when I was born, said a little prayer of thanks for, among other things, the lack of wind, then walked into the enveloping dark woods.
By the time I reached the flat where the big beeches, hickories and swamp chestnut oaks grew, the sky had lightened to a dark blue. After slipping as quietly as possible to the black shape of a huge beech and sweeping the beam of a small flashlight on the leaf-carpeted ground to make certain I was not intruding on a snoozing copperhead or, much more serious, canebrake rattler, I carefully snugged to a seat, back against the smooth trunk.
I scanned the silhouetted canopy, looking for movement— shaking leaves, the involuntary flicker of a bushy tail, a blur of movement on a tree trunk or limb. I listened for the scratch of claws onwood or the out-ofsync spattering of dew knocked from live leaves and splatting on the dead ones carpeting the forest floor. Theworld shrunk to those woods and the sights, sounds, smells and my place in it all.
Barred owls warbled, wood ducks squalled and a half-dozen other birds — cardinals, wrens, warblers and some I couldn’t identify — chimed in as the forest changed from night shift to day shift. The air was thick with the heavy aroma of wet, fecund earth and that rich scent of whatever it is (chlorophyll?) that comes from the profusion of leafing trees and shrubs.
It is good to be in the woods in May. Andthere certainly are plenty of good reasons to be there. Or on the water, along the coast or on a Texas river or reservoir. Maybe too many reasons — so many it’s hard to pick and chose and give any of themtheir rightful due. A spring secret
“May” is a good name for this month; a person who enjoys a variety of outdoor recreation may pick squirrel or turkey hunting, or maypick freshwater fishing, or may pick saltwater fishing or may pick blackberries.
This Maymorning, I’d picked squirrel hunting.
Notmany people know Texas offers a spring squirrel hunting season, and fewer take advantage of the opportunity.
Since the mid-1970s, Texas has allowed a squir- rel season that opensMay 1 and runs through the end of the month. The spring season, set for 51 East Texas counties where squirrel populations and densities are highest and the tradition of squirrel hunting remains an integral part of the social, cultural and culinary fabric, was meant to offer additional opportunity to harvest a renewable resource.
Butwhile the traditional autumn squirrel season continues to drawasmany as 70,000 hunters afield, the spring season sees only a fewthousand participants.
Yes, the hunting can be tougher in the spring season, whatwith the thick leaf cover on trees making it harder to see squirrels and easier for them to disappear. With alwaysmoving gray squirrels —“cat” squirrels to East Texans— being the dominant species in the region (as much as 90 percent of the harvest is cat squirrels, with 10 percent the more upland-oriented and less “twitchy” fox squirrels), collecting the now-yousee-him/now-you-don’t arboreal ghosts takes some hunting/shooting skills, especially for hunters using the traditional .22 rifle.
That challenge made the morning’s result — four cat squirrels, heavy, firm muscled and bound for a final swimin a pool of leaf lard bubbling in a cast iron skillet, then a spot of honor next to some gravy and biscuits — hugely satisfying. But they were just a part of the rewards.
Slipping through the woods, I found two shed deer antlers — bony treasures/talismans that take mebackto the woods when I see them among the pile stacked by the fireplace.
Even better, in a large opening in an upland area grewa tremendous mixed patch of dewberries and blackberries, both of which reach peak ripening during May. I filled (and ruined with purple berry juice) my camouflage cap with plump indigo berries, then remembered the small plastic bag I carry in my hunting vest and filled it, too. Blackberry cobbler goes great as dessert after a meal of fried squirrel. Two weekends to go
It goes good, too, with grilled or smoked wild turkey. And that’s another hunting option available during May. Spring turkey season runs through May 15 in Texas’ North Turkey Zone. So hunters have two more weekends to get afield and offer their best hen imitations to try convincing a long-bearded gobbler they are potential mates, drawing the big tom into shotgun range.
Yes, it’s late in what, for a whole lot of Texas turkey hunters, has been a frustrating season in which gobblers have been unusually uncooperative. But it’s still spring turkey season, and a perfect excuse — er, reason — to spend a May day afield. Even if a gobbler doesn’t showup, there’s always the possibility of stumbling across a great blackberry/dewberry patch or discovering a particularly rich stand of just-developing mustang grapes that will deserve a repeat visit come September.
May’s angling opportunities are just as compelling — more so, really — as its hunting options. Some great things happen on the water this month.
Onthe lakes, May is perhaps the best month of the year for rod-and-reel fishing for catfish. Andthat’s because of two things that happen this month: threadfin shad spawn, and so do catfish.
During late spring — now— threadfin shad move into the shallows to spawn. Clouds of adult threadfins gathers in coves and along bulk-headed and rock-lined shores or breakwaters. They pick these areas because fertilized threadfin eggs must be attached to some sort of “hard” structure — rocks, brush, floating logs, wooden bulkhead, pier pilings, even floating leaves — to develop.
As the shad, a primary forage species, move shallow, they are shadowed by the fish that feed on them. Andcatfish are big shad eaters. It’s not coincidental that catfish — blues, channels and flatheads — begin their annual spawnduring late spring. Catfish are “cavity” spawners, building their nests, females depositing eggs, in hollows under submerged logs, tree root balls, bulkheads, undercut banks and anything else that offers some sort of overhead protection.
All of this means an- glers can enjoy outstanding shallow-water action during May as congregations of catfish move into the shallows to gorge on shad and begin their spawning rituals.
Several Texas reservoirs, including lakes Conroe, Houston, Somerville, Livingston, Tawakoni, Palestine and RichlandChambers, see some of their best catfishing in May, when hooks baited with threadfin shad and fished in 3-8 feet of water can produce 25-fish limits of blues and channel cats. Runoff an ally
Then there’s the coast, whereMay can produce some of the best speckled trout fishing of the year when— as is happening this year — heavy freshwater runoff from rivers swelled by spring rains pushes trout from the upper reaches of the bay and concentrates themaround jetties and in salty pockets in lower reaches of the bay.
That’s happening right nowin the Galveston Bay complex, where freshwater runoff has packed specks in portions of East Galveston Bay and along the Galveston Jetties. Andits happening in the MatagordaBay system, where freshwater runoff has concentrated fish in available salty, green water.
All of this can prove a pleasant misery to someonewho enjoys hunting and fishing and is forced to make a choice onwhich of May’s many opportunities to pursue.
The good thing is, there is no wrong choice.