Texas Mountain Lion Regs and a Trip to Fort Davis

TPWD is off the rails and their latest attempt at freedom infringement is under the guise of mountain lion harvest reporting. Davis Mountain State Park is the best kept camping secret in Texas. Hear more about why you should go west this summer. Dayton highlights pigeon control at TXU plants during his tenure as a government trapper. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Lone Star Trail, a new outdoor show aimed at bringing you hunting and fishing updates and compelling stories from around Texas and right here at home. Get ready to join us down the trail. Now, here's your host, Nathan Smith.

SPEAKER_04 0:23

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of the Lone Star Trail. I'm your host, Nathan Smith. Glad you can join us again today. We're gonna have a little bit of everything today. We're gonna talk a little bit about camping, uh, a hidden gem out in West Texas, best kept secret, a place to go camping uh this spring, summer, and fall. I'm making my reservation right now for this fall. So uh we're gonna talk about Fort Davis and the Davis Mountain State Park out there uh in far west Texas. We're also gonna talk a little bit about planting food plots uh this weekend. It's not too late to plant certain plots, and don't forget to consider certain grains in your food plot. We're gonna talk with John with Northwoods Whitetails about certain options when it comes to food plots and uh and how to make your food plot a little bit better and some questions that you should be asking yourself as you consider starting a new food plot. We're also gonna give an update on some parks and wildlife proposed regulatory changes to mountain lions. So we'll stay tuned for that information uh right after the break. We'll have all this plus house rules with our best friend Dayton House. Grab some more coffee, stay tuned, and we'll be right back. Whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acreage to sell, you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. They use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway, call Ranch Pro Real Estate at 325-642-3630. That's Ranch Pro Real Estate at RanchproRealEstate.com. The land is their life. Welcome back to the show. Hope you're having a great May. It is uh toward the end of May. Hope you're getting some rain wherever it is that you are listening from. We appreciate all of our listeners, whether you're listening on a radio station or uh through the podcast formats. We uh appreciate all of our listeners. Want to invite you to write to us at Lone Star Trailradio at gmail.com. You can check out our Facebook page, TikTok, Twitter. Uh hopefully going to have a YouTube page up and running pretty soon with some great videos. So uh we'd love to connect with you. We talked a couple of weeks ago with Jeremy Harrison, and uh Jeremy talked a lot about the things going on at Texas Parks and Wildlife. Uh again, I want to reiterate that there's a lot of great folks who work for Texas Parks and Wildlife, um, a lot of great game wardens, uh, Texas Parks staff, uh State Park staff. There's uh there's a lot of great folks that still work for them. There's some there's some really excellent wildlife biologists that still uh work for the or organization, for the agency. However, uh top-down administration has just gone off the rails. And uh there's it's a death of a thousand razor cuts, and that's something that we talked about on that program. And I would encourage you to go back through and find that podcast. It was from a c a couple of weeks ago. Uh you can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, you can go on our website, uh, you can find it on Facebook, uh, where we talk with Jeremy about the things going on inside Texas Parks and Wildlife. There's something that just came out this week, um, and we talked about it a little bit on the show when we talked with Jeremy, but the mountain line regulation proposed changes in Texas. So this is another example of uh Parks and Wildlife claiming we don't know enough about these animals, we don't know enough about the species, so we need to start uh doing some surveys. And they've been voluntary for several years. You could voluntarily report a harvest of a mountain lion or a siding of a mountain lion, and a voluntary reporting system hasn't worked according to them. They aren't getting enough um input from hunters. And so uh they are now moving to try to get mountain lion harvests to be uh mandatory. So if you harvest a mountain lion, if these rules that they have proposed pass, and they probably will, then you are bound by law to report via the Texas Hunt and Fish app or website. And so you have twenty-four hours that you have before you have to submit the the record of the harvest. Supposedly for now you only have to write the county name where the harvester occurred. You don't have to put the exact property. However, to confirm the age and sex of the harvest, a premolar and small tissue sample has to be submitted within 60 days of harvest to complete the reporting requirement. So either the hunter can submit that themselves, or conveniently you can call a TPWD biologist to come out and collect the samples at the request. And this all sounds like, okay, what's the big deal? Uh what's the what's the problem with reporting mountain lion harvest? There is no problem in reporting mountain lion harvest, except that the uh motivation behind it is to eventually list the species because uh Parks and Wildlife Department is uh being overrun with folks who are all about species conservation uh without the science behind it. Now, as hunters and and anglers, I mean species conservation is super important, and we all recognize that. Population control super important, we understand that. Um however, this uh this uh mountain lion so-called working group research, um the the folks behind this is uh the folks behind this are should scare us as hunters. Uh they're not hunter-friendly, they're not landowner friendly, they are uh wildlife activists, animal activists, and uh the goal is not to just harvest and re report harvest of mountain lions so we can know how many live in Texas. The goal is to get these animals listed as threatened or endangered. And so if you're uh a sheep rancher in South Texas, um tough luck. If you if you have uh cattle operation and you have predation from a mountain lion, uh good luck. Because uh Parks and Wildlife promise you their goal is to get this animal listed as a threatened species and eventually endangered based on uh what they claim to be scientific background. So uh the good news, or I guess the the the silver lining in this is that they have to take public comment. And uh we're gonna post that on our Facebook page and and uh and TikTok and show you how to make that public comment. Uh call this out for what it is, it's ridiculous. They were successful already in getting uh canned hunts banned, which wasn't even a thing then uh or now. They also have uh a regulatory rule in place that you have to check uh traps every I want to say 24 to 36 hours. Thirty-six hours, I think, is the rule that they pass. So you have to you have to check quote unquote mountain lion traps every 36 hours. And so whether you have you know 200 acres or 20,000 acres, you have to check those every 36 hours. Completely unenforceable rule, uh, but they they were able to get that passed and they just kind of slip it in there. Uh it's a death of a thousand razor cuts. So if you're interested in in preserving uh rights as a landowner, rights as a uh uh cattle raiser, as a livestock producer, as a hunter, uh as someone who's engaged in outdoor and true scientific-based conservation, I encourage you to go on this public comment page and uh and comment. Comment with your opposition to these rules and propose regulatory changes. So uh that's uh that's it for uh the soapbox today, but it's it's something that you know is it's important because uh it's a death of a thousand razor cuts. On its face, it's like, well, yeah, sure I support mandatory harvest. The word mandatory though becomes problematic because uh there's no end in sight. Where does it stop? Where does it end? Uh if they can be successful with mandatory mountain lion harvest regulations, then uh next we're gonna talk about coyotes, and we're gonna talk about bobcats, and we're gonna talk about beaver, and we're gonna talk about all these other quote-unquote nuisance animals that uh are wreaking havoc in certain parts of Texas, and certain parts they're not, and we're gonna have a program, we're gonna have a season now for coyote uh hunting, and season for bobcat hunting. A lot of states already have that, and it's because uh these kind of regulations were allowed to occur. Again, Texas Parks and Wildlife, there's not an elected board or elected uh administrator. They are uh an agency that's under the Sunset Commission, which the Sunset is a committee made up of elected officials who look at every state agency every so many years and determine whether or not this agency is being efficient, if they're doing the right things. Uh so encourage you to look at the Sunset Committee also and reach out to your elected official about um the oversight of Texas Parks of Wildlife, especially as it relates to their ability to write new regs, new laws, and to and to impose uh their will based on uh wealthy donors who are animal activists. So if you want to know more about what we're talking about, uh you can visit Lone Star Trail Facebook page, uh the Meat Eater visit with Mike Bodentchuk, who's been on this pro show a lot uh recently, Stephen Renella visit with Mike. They talk a little bit about predator control and population. It's a great it's a great start. I wish they'd gone a little deeper. I wish I wish Stephen had asked or had allowed and not edited so much uh what Mike was saying, because I I know Mike uh is is is based completely in science and experience, and so a super trustworthy source and uh and a great uh conservationist, great trapper, great hunter. Uh but but go online and and look at this Parks and Wildlife information for yourself because it's uh it's a serious issue that um that has a possible impact beyond just mountain lions, beyond just a harvesting report. It's not just about the harvesting report, it's not about the mountain lion, it's about the way that this agency goes about uh making and passing regulations.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Stay tuned, right here. Lone Star Trail will return after these messages.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

Welcome back to the show. John Comps with us with Northwoods Whitetails Inc., a food plot seed company. Uh John, thanks for being here. Uh talking about whitetails. Uh cover seems to come up a lot in the discussion about what attracts whitetailed deer to a property. So uh obviously cover uh is necessary, but uh we're really talking about food plots. Uh kick us off here.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

You need cover. Well, of course, you need cover. Whitetails aren't going to be on your property if you don't have cover. But if you don't have food, they're not gonna stay on your property. You might have cover and you can hold them maybe during the day or afternoon, but how do you control that movement? Where are they heading? They're heading to food at night. Every deer heads to food at night. And if you own a parcel, you want food on your parcel, so they're heading to your parcel. And the number one way to do that is food. So what we want to talk about is looking at getting food plots on your property. And the first thing we want to look at is location. It's very important what's in your food plot, but it's also very important what's around your food plot. And what I mean by that is if you're looking at a food plot, you can't just walk onto your property and say, hey, there's an opening here, let's plant it. There's got to be a strategy. There's got to be a rhyme and a reason for where this food plot is. Because, you know, you could have perfect soil and grow a beautiful food plot. But if you're bumping deer, getting in, getting out, every time you go to your parcel, uh, you know, you park and the deer can see you, and you're educating them quickly that that food means danger during the day, they're not going to stick around long. You're gonna get deer on that food plot, but it might be 10 o'clock at night. So if you're looking at a food plot, you have to make sure this food plot is hidden away from any human intrusion. They can't be seen. You know, you can't have a field where guys can drive up and down the road at night, shining your field. It has to be hidden. And that's where products like our HD food plot screen or switchgrass come into play and can help that. You know, I tell folks, I'd rather you have a half acre of food and one quarter acre of screen than three quarters of an acre of food and no screening. And you ruin that, you know, the security of that food plot. So it has to be hidden, it has to be a strategy. You need to be able to move about your land without bumping deer on this food plot. That has to be considered. That's very important. Like, and then this is number two, and it's almost like one in one eight is a soil test. You know, you jump in your car and you're heading somewhere, you've never been there before. So the first thing I'll do, I'll uh jump on Google Maps or whatever it is, I'll I'll put in the address, and that gives me a map on how to get there. Soil test is the exact same thing. If you just go out there and say, well, I'm just gonna throw this out here and hope it grows, not understanding what your pH is, not understanding what the organic matter percentage is, which to me is the two most important things you need to look at on a soil test. And then the product you are planting, whether it's rye or clovers or brassicas, will determine what nutrients you need in the form of fertilizer. So the test is the roadmap. So if you don't have a test and you don't know what you're dealing with, you're just kind of driving to Chicago and you might end up in Albuquerque because you don't have a map. You don't know how to get there. This is the same thing, and that's how important a soil test is. We need to know one, what your ground will allow to grow, and two, what nutrients are going to be required to grow sud, you know, whatever product you check. So those are the two most important things when it comes to putting your first food plot in. You need to know what your soil can produce. You know, every every piece of property, every food plot, every square foot of soil, dirt, whatever you want to call it, can produce something. Some places like in Iowa, Illinois, um, you know, that whole Mississippi River valley, that can produce anything. You can grow darn near anything. I mean, the soil is so good, so rich, you can grow just about anything on our shelf. But now you look at like central Wisconsin, the northern half of Lower Michigan, sand. It's just pure sand here in Upper Michigan. I got clay and rock, garbage soil, organic matter of less than one, pH of five. But I can still get some beautiful food plots because I know what the soil will allow to grow to its full potential versus something like in Iowa or Illinois in that really good, you know, Midwest cornbelt soil. So you need to know what your soil will produce and can take browse pressure and still grow back, regenerate. What I mean by regenerating is if let's say you mow your grass, your grass regenerates, it grows back, and we want your food plots to be the same way. If the deer come in and start browsing them, we need that regeneration. A lot of the better soils, I can grow different foods that will regenerate. But if in sandy soil, there's only some foods that can regenerate quickly enough to withstand browse pressure. So we need to look at that. So the third thing, the biggest question is, and I get this every day, and I love helping people. What can I plant? What do you suggest based on three things I ask them? Okay, would you have a soil test? Like I talked about before. That is so important. We need to know what the ground can produce successfully. Um the second question I ask them, what equipment do you have? You know, I don't want the new food plotter, you know, you you watch these hunting shows, YouTube, you know, hunting channels, and you see, you know, a hundred thousand dollar tractor and twenty to thirty thousand dollar drills and you know, all the latest and greatest equipment. That's not what you need. Don't be intimidated by that. My first food plot was put um was in a f an old overgrown farm field in Michigan. And my father-in-law, and I've talked about this before, I married into a farming family. He had a uh nine, a Ford Ninein tractor, and uh, I think it was a two or three bottom plow. He came up with no spring, nothing. I didn't know anything about food plots. I think this was like 1999 or 2000. There was no YouTube channels, there was nothing. There was a couple of hunting magazines, maybe some videos on VHS tape, and there was not a lot of help. I was actually relying on a co-worker telling me how he put in rye. So we we had him do three food plots, and I think it totaled probably a third of an acre between the three, not very big. He moldboard plowed, just rolled the soil over, and that was it. And there's there's an old run-down farmhouse, there's nothing left to it now. Maybe a barn, I can't remember what it was, but it wasn't very big. And there was an old bedspring in it. So I took that bedspring and hooked it up behind a Honda three-wheeler, just a little three-wheeler, and I just kept dragging until it was flat. A nice spread on the three food plots, 50 pounds of rye, and I just kept dragging until I couldn't see it anymore. That was it, I was done. So I didn't own any equipment. The the camp had uh uh the three-wheeler, and honestly, I could have done it with a riding lawnmower, but it would have been a rough ride, but you know, I found a way. Seed needed to be buried, got the seed buried, and had a beautiful food plot in three locations, and deer were using it. It was amazing to see a deer using a food plot that I created for the first time was just it was like you know, the fire was lit inside, and and I've been just loving putting in food plots, you know, ever since 2020 or tw or 1999. I can't remember. So let's say the last 25, 26 years, we've always done food plots since. But that's how we started, and I didn't have any of that equipment. I didn't even know, you know, other than watching my father-in-law plant corn and beans and you know, alfalfa and and stuff like that for a dairy operation, I didn't know much about farming. I just knew, you know, seed had to get in the soil and we needed some rain. But if you're looking at doing your first food plots and you don't have equipment, there's a lot of people out there, there's a lot of YouTube channels just saying, well, you can just, you know, get a sprayer and just throw a bunch of seed out there and it's gonna grow. Uh I've been doing this a long time and I'm telling you, that's the that's the worst chance of success. There's a lot of ways to get seed planted and throw and grow, spray and pray. Will it work? With some varieties of seed, especially rye. Yes, it can work. But it's also the best chance of failure. Burying your seed like every single farmer in this country does for a reason, is the greatest chance of success. Throw and grow, spray and pray will work, but it's also the greatest chance of failure. And I get that question every single day. I bet sometimes it's five to six times a day. Can I throw this product on top of the ground? No, you cannot. So there's a few products that'll work, like the little tiny seeds, brassicas, clovers, it might work. But honestly, folks, if you're listening, you think about what farmers do. They've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment that does what? It puts a seed in the ground. And there's a reason it puts that seed in the ground. So just be careful on how you're planting that, and you have to taper your expectations if you're doing throw and grow.

SPEAKER_04 21:08

John, a minute ago you talked about equipment. Um give us some more insight on your thoughts on equipment.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

So equipment. I'm gonna reference tractor supply just because there's one, you know, five miles from me. And if you've got access to a side-by-side or a four-wheeler, a three-wheeler, you can go to tractor supply for about I'm gonna say twelve to fifteen hundred dollars, and you could be set up to put in a couple acres of food plots. And you know, you you can look at the I still have I I want to say it's fifteen years old, and I don't know how many acres are on this thing. I still have a four foot drum roller, steel roller, lawn roller from tractor supply. And I've tried cultipackers, and the problem I have with a culti packer, especially with those big grooves, is I got done putting. food plot in and it looks like I put it in with a drill. When I broadcast it and ran it in with a cultivator, why do I have rolls? Because a lot of the seed didn't germinate because it was either buried too deep or not buried deep enough. I will not use a cultivator. I still have one steel cultivator and the only time I use that cultivator is with there when there's rock. I really like a steel lawn roller. All the farmers around me that are putting in their alfalfa plots and food or uh crops now have big rollers. I don't see many cultipers anymore and I think there's a reason for that. If you look at a lawn roller there's 100% contact 100% of the time you look at a cul-tipacker you've got a groove then a space then a groove then a space and I'm not saying it's right I'm not saying it's wrong. I'm just saying one's better than the other and by far it's a lawn roller. And you can get a lawn roller at Tractor Supply for two or three hundred dollars. You can get a ATV sprayer for a couple hundred bucks. You can backpack sprayer there's I found one on I don't know if I'm going to try to put a link up to it or not but I found one on Amazon I really really like. I tried a couple from from Harbor Freight and you couldn't give me any more of those because they just it it worked once and and um I think they quit selling them. But I found a couple on Amazon for like sixty dollars really nice backpack sprayer electric one. You know you can get uh the one that that you know it's gonna depend on your soil and everything. You can either get a Harrow Drake it looks like a big piece of chain link fence. You know if you flip it one way the fingers are up you flip it the other way the fingers are down. I don't think that good works the greatest for for um let's say a virgin piece of ground um I think like a disc or a small tiller just to break the dirt. But once you've got the dirt you know worked up and that top half inch to two inches busted up like say with a disc or something like that, um I think you can switch to a Harrow Drag. But you know if you got a Harrow Drag or a disc, I mean if you've got fifteen eighteen hundred dollars invested you're you're sitting pretty good. And that that'll do a couple aco a couple acres of food plots. You know and and the thing that I don't know if I and I was having a discussion with the uh with a customer the other day that that people are trying to tell you the fastest you know how do I word this the easy way out. And I said to the guy, you know, I I do this for a living now so I look at things a lot different. But when I was working you know for corporate America my therapy or quiet time was sitting on a tractor or an ATV putting in food plots. I didn't want to rush it. I wanted to take my time and do it right. And I think the guys that get the best most successful food plots don't try to take shortcuts like throw and grow. They actually do they mimic what the farmer does stay tuned right here.

SPEAKER_04 24:57

Lone Star Trail will return after these messages whether you're looking to buy your next hunting property or have acreage to sell you need Brian Clark and Ranch Pro Real Estate in your corner. Use the latest in technology to make listings easy for sellers to maximize value. In the market to buy that perfect ranch or hunting getaway call ranch pro real estate at 325 642 3630 that's ranchpro realestate at ranchprorealestate com. The land is their life you're listening to the Lone Star Trail we're glad you're here now let's get back to the show on the show today we have Tory Bonham and he is the uh park superintendent out at Davis Mountain State Park in Fort Davis. Tory thanks for being here with us yes sir so um Fort Davis is uh if you if if our listeners if you haven't been to Fort Davis you're really missing out yes it's a long uh trek out there from most places in the of course the I-35 corridor Central Texas it's a long time to get out there but it is worth it for a few reasons it's one of the best state parks I've ever been to I've been to several but it's one of the best state parks in uh management and the way it's kept up the way it's uh always seems to be improving. Uh Tori let's let's talk a little bit as we start the new year off where we're talking about uh a short series on uh getting outside getting folks outside especially if you have kids or families it's a great opportunity to be looking at springtime traveling or talk to us a little bit about what all the Davis Mountain State Park has to offer in the way of hiking trails.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Oh yes sir thank you for that it is a a beautiful West Texas gym that we have out here um Davis Mountain State Park as many know is is very scenic picturesque and absolutely beautiful sight. We've got 11 miles of hiking trails uh within our park um some that span over to Indian Lodge we also have a primitive kind of backcountry area um across the highway so there's a lot of different trails and a lot of different challenges and intensity levels that um our our visitors get to experience when they're out here most notably um many know the Skyline drive trail which was actually built by the Civilian Conservation Corps it's a picturesque drive that goes up the side of the mountain um four and a half miles long all the way up to the top views down into Fort Davis and um Marfa over there different intensity levels for everybody who's coming out um we also offer some equestrian trails um and some primitive campsites so for the for the extreme adventurous people we have some backpack insights five miles up the mountain on the primitive side you can actually backpack um all the way up to the top and camp there so there's a lot of different trails at the park and offers um something for everyone's intensity level experience you know it's so true in the Skyline Drive I've taken that a few times with the family as we've been out there and uh you take halfway good binoculars you can see the backside of Fort Davis as you mentioned um and and see kind of what that fort was built for um and we're gonna be talking hopefully with uh Fort Davis folks soon and get a little bit more information about the actual fort structure that's that's remaining uh now but but you know when you're up on the top of that Skyline Drive area you can really see a long way uh you can see for you know for several miles in any direction talk a little bit you mentioned the equestrian sites uh or the equestrian trails can you guys uh accommodate uh horses on on your property yes we can so we've got those equestrian there's six equestrian sites over there that customers can reserve um there's enough parking over there to accommodate you know those traveling with horse trailers um it is a is a beautiful ride for the equestrian fans up the side of um Lympia Creek trail goes up the side of that primitive side uh mountain over there and then there's a five mile loop uh trail called uh uh sheep pen canyon and it's a beautiful takes you kind of the more hidden area of the park lots of rolling soft hills and views for as long as you can see you actually get a great view of of our neighbors on the other side McDonald observatory up there see some of the satellites um beautiful views over there from the equestrian fans now um how long have you been at Fort Davis Tori? So I've been here just over a year um before that I was at um our neighbor's Belmray just down the road in that in that country we've talked to some folks in shows past uh from Alpine some researchers from uh BRI uh that area part of the state you know every state park has its share of wildlife raccoons and possums and you know that kind of deer uh but uh you guys you guys kick it up a notch you all have lots of different kind of wildlife what what's been the craziest or most unexpected uh sighting you guys have had at the park there I think most notably is um our recent sightings of black bears in the area you know this was their historic range in past and through conservation efforts throughout the state they've started to make a comeback we've actually seen a couple of um sightings within the park you know far out in the distance um as well as mountain lions that have been spotted in neighboring property none in none in park property um and then also this area very unique to us in the Davis Mountains is uh elk we've actually seen some of those um in within the park boundary as well what's and I hate to even ask this because it it gives away some secrets that I may not want to give to everybody but what you know Parks and Wildlife has a five month uh reservation window you can you can reserve up to five months in advance.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

So um what what you any you any tips or tricks for folks that are trying to get specific date ranges because you guys stay booked up pretty much through the peak seasons, right? We do.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Um post post COVID for for I believe all state parks, you know, is is been a very different animal we've been very busy our our visitation is increased which is which is just excellent for us to see out here in in West Texas that people are coming out and getting to see kind of some of these hidden gems out here. But for reservations um book well in advance is the best recommendation that I can have give to people make yourself um very familiar with our online reservation system um that really helps I'll I'll say uh last minute cancellations are are definitely a thing that happen and and those without reservations can do that as well. The Texas State Park System also has a call center uh where they can if anybody who's not familiar or or doesn't want to do the online reservation system they can always call in and speak to uh one of our uh call center representatives and help them make reservations um at all Texas state parks that's great information you guys like so many state parks uh in Texas are are upgrading um your your infrastructure uh you guys at Davis Mountain State Park have a unique structure called uh the Indian Lodge uh tell us a little bit about that the history about it how did it come to be there uh I'm assuming it's a Corps of engineers structure but uh talk a little bit about that and then and then you guys recently just finished a remodel in the last 12 months uh talk about what's what's new for that structure yeah that is a I mean just a breathtaking um site up there it's it's uh a testament to those that have become come before us originally built in the 1940s by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression era. Um it's an all adobe structure um with 39 units in there and they each room has just a totally different feel a totally different build out there's there's really not two rooms that are the same in the historic section um most of those units over there feature the original woodworking and the floors the exposed beams and all this stuff would have been harvested locally from the site um from the area and in neighboring neighboring locations all of our timbers that were done the the cane that lines the ceilings as decorations um was all local as well as some of the adobe brick that was made they were sourcing those uh those sand and aggregates locally to to build those brick um that site just completed its renovation um a couple of months ago I think we reopened if I recall correctly in May for reservations um and a lot of those this area um the scope of work on this renovation project was had to do with um addressing some of the exterior finishes that needed to be done we did a lot of replacements of windows upgrading that um a lot of adobe work and the largest the largest portion of it was um improvements that would help make customers stay more enjoyable so there's a lot of infrastructure improvements we had um a new chiller system put in our hot water um heating system was also redone um a lot of new electrical in there the pool also got totally revamped um that is an absolute um beautiful view if nobody has had the chance to sit in that pool in the in the afternoon and just look at the mountains totally surrounding you with this crystal blue water um it's a beautiful experience and then over in the two to three hundred section um of the lodge those rooms over there they used to be joined kind of a with a a slight patio um in this renovation that was totally reworked that is now a native plant garden there is um pergolas outside the rooms there's lighting there's a a fire pit for when we're not in a burn band those few months um that the guests can enjoy with natural limestone um pathways down through there a a water feature it it really it blends the needs between an outdoor recreation space and also still providing something for um native wildlife and native habitat all the grasses and trees are are species that you find in the native West Texas climate that we're in um which then helps for you know migratory species that are relying on that and it's just an absolutely beautiful site that matches the historic nature of the Indian Lodge.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

Well uh excited to see that and and that's open year round correctly it is yes sir um extremely busy in the wintertime our our peak season out here for Indian Lodge is is definitely in the wintertime um we didn't get to see any snow covered mountains this year but snow covered mountains while staying at the Indian Lodge with a with a hot cup of coffee outside your room is it's one that's gotta be on everyone's bucket list. You talked about peak season for the Indian Lodge I guess that would kind of be the opposite for the the rest of the state park is that right summer yes we obviously um when when students are out of school and everyone is traveling for a vacation we get extremely busy um on your your general holiday make up that most parts experience um additionally we actually see an increased visitation um during the early winter months um kind of is our really our biggest peak season outside of any holiday related um event and that's because there's there's a lot of people that are traveling down to Big Bend you know it's it's uh it's West Texas it's hot out there down in the Big Bend area so a lot of people push those travel plans off until um late fall and and into the winter when it's still 70 degrees down there. So we we catch a lot of that traffic as people are coming down and seeing us visitation spike during that time.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

Great information from Tori Bonham with the Davis Mountain State Park thank you you as well and we hope to see you all out here you're listening to the Lone Star Trail and it's time once again for House Rules with Dayton House. Dayton is a retired government trapper a firearms expert an outdoors enthusiast and a true textan at 76 years old he's still going strong and enjoys sharing his passion of the outdoors with others you're listening to the Lone Star Trail it's time once again for House Rules with Dayton House. Dayton House you're a retired government trapper 30 plus years as a trapper had a lot of interesting experiences in that 30 year time span.

SPEAKER_05 38:42

Oh yeah I enjoyed every minute of it what are some things that stand out most uh from your time there at the state probably the last 10 years I had the opportunity to work with TU Electric some of their generating plants would have trouble with buzzards. And at Fairfield this was an unusual thing I'd never heard of uh most of these generating plants have big ponds so that they can use the water to cool off their plant and so the discharge would be warm water and go back into the lake and they could recirculate it in several months time but uh the buzzards always had a safe haven there. None of the employees were allowed to carry guns or shoot or anything and they had a picnic area at one end of the lake and the employees would go up there to eat lunch and the buzzards were so plentiful they started roosting in that area knowing they could get a free meal or a handout and over time they'd land on the car and while people were eating well the buzzard would land on the hood and if you didn't feed them they'd pull the weather strip around your windshield and cause it to leak and then they started eating the windshield wipers the rubber off them and that was the straw that they couldn't uh uh tolerate there so we were called in to uh do some budget control because of the windshield wiper damage wow and it was uh a fun work for them we'd work a month at a time in one plant and then the next month might go to uh 100 miles away and work at another plant so it was that's the most enjoyment I had some plants would allow us to do hog controller coats and buzzards, pigeons and it it that was the fun part. For the buzzard traps we were allowed to trap the buzzards and dispose of them but we had to bury them on site and I always went through the dog pound or a butcher and got my meat scraps or dogs and baited the traps with them. So it was easy to get uh uh bait from the locals because uh next year they're gonna yeah come back we'll give you all the meat scraps you want and TU would dig a big pit and I'd go in there and the buzzard trap and that's the nasty part of it is having to shoot those buzzards and go in there and pull them out every time you'd shoot one well then throw up oh it is a terrible stink but uh did you wear a mask or anything oh at times but during the summer you'd uh choke to death and it wasn't pleasant I enjoyed that I had the opportunity to go to uh several places that the regular trappers were not allowed to normal government trapper was stationed in one county and one county only but uh there were 63 counties in our district and I got to go in probably 40 of those during the last 20 years that I was a biologist and I got to see things and do things that the average trapper couldn't do or would never have the opportunity. We were controlling buzzards, pigeons, neutra, beaver, uh coyotes, hogs, and a little bit of everything I had the opportunity to go with Kelly Sphinx and ride the helicopter and uh it was enjoyable. Every month was a different uh situation but I had to leave out Monday morning and come back Friday evening and I did that for 23 years and I got tired of traveling and that was time to quit when you no longer enjoyed it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

Yeah that uh the helicopter ride with Kelly was uh you did that on more than one occasion didn't you oh yeah several years in a row.

SPEAKER_05 42:46

Yeah it really wasn't a ride you were working I mean you were the shooter I guess a lot of those fixed fixed wing and helicopter right uh I tried the fixed wing but I threw up and I couldn't keep my breakfast down because they banked that thing 60 degrees and uh it's fast and furious you need to shoot four times at every coat and I just couldn't uh stand it I got dizzy in a hurry. Kaylee knew that I had a little problem with it so he'd uh take it nice and easy and slow and uh I enjoyed working with him. But uh we did a lot of things that uh never seen before. Uh got to see the Rose Gardens in Tyler and their beauty and work overnight area. Uh fossil rim was another place. Occasionally we'd get uh calls about cormorants at a uh catfish farm we'd go in there and shoot the cormorants and uh buzzards and cormorants were protected because of the migratory bird laws we agreed with some of the other nations that we wouldn't uh uh kill their birds and they wouldn't kill our birds and we were trying to protect the golden Eagle and the American Eagle, and so that's the reason why buzzards and carmorants, water turkeys, what some people call them, they were protected by state law and federal law. And but uh we had permits and we could put buzzard traps out or shoot the cormorants, and uh normal trapper wasn't allowed to do this unless they were with us or went through a lot of paperwork, and so they never got the opportunity to see the things that uh we did. And every month it is a different critter with uh something new and different, and uh that was the the best part of it. Uh one month I went down to Doth Briscoe's ranch in South Texas and did a little coyote work. Got to work a week on the King Ranch doing some rabies work. So what year was that about, or what range time? Early uh 2000 perhaps. Okay. And uh the uh King Ranch was the late 90s. Okay. Uh King Ranch had armed guards at all their gates. We weren't allowed to take anything that we found, antlers or anything off the land. They looked in our vehicles and didn't do a very good search, but uh they looked in the back to see if you had any sheds there. And uh so that was nice to be able to do some of those things that uh the average trapper could not do, or was never allowed to go and do those things.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

You've you've talked to me before about gray fox. You know, we get a lot of gray fox in this area, specifically about rabies and carriers, um fox and skunks being probably the two biggest, would you say?

SPEAKER_05 45:49

Uh probably uh in South Texas, coyotes were more of a carrier, but in this area the gray fox seemed to be the worst one. And our department did a lot of uh rabies drop baits that uh to control that. And one time they thought they had rabies wiped out of Texas virtually. They flew down in Mexico and dropped some of these baits down there, and uh now it's come back, and they I don't know that they've done the bait drop in several years, but uh it's like the screw worm. Yep. If you think you've got it under control, nature fools you and it's coming back again. Right. But uh during my career I had the opportunity to uh do more things than I ever dreamed of. And uh that was the the the best part of it is go places and do things that you wouldn't normally think about ever having that opportunity, sure.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

Well, that's all the time we have for this week's episode. Thanks for stopping by. Me and old Hank the Guardog will catch you next week at the same time, same place. If you can't join us on a local station, find the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find podcasts. Also, you can connect with us on Facebook and share your hunting and outdoor photos and stories with us at Lone Star Trail Radio at Gmail dot com. Until next time for all of us here at the show, so long.