icon caret-left icon caret-right instagram pinterest linkedin facebook twitter goodreads question-circle facebook circle twitter circle linkedin circle instagram circle goodreads circle pinterest circle

HOME RANGE: Notes on Literature, Nature, Working Dogs, History, Martial Arts, Other Obsessions and Sundry Annoyances by Henry Chappell

Words I Wish I'd Written

You stick with a Cormac McCarthy novel for passages like this one from All the Pretty Horses:


"In the evening he saddled his horse and rode out west from the house. The wind was much abated and it was very cold and the sun sat blood red and elliptic under the reefs of bloodred cloud before him. He rode where he would always choose to ride, out where the western fork of the old Comanche road coming down out of the Kiowa country to the north passed through the westernmost section of the ranch and you could see the faint trace of it bearing south over the low prairie that lay between the north and middle forks of the Concho River. At the hour he’d always choose when the shadows were long and the ancient road was shaped before him in the rose and canted light like a dream of the past where the painted ponies and the riders of that lost nation came down out of the north with their faces chalked and their long hair plaited and each armed for war which was their life and the women and the children and women with children at their breasts all of them pledged in blood and redeemable in blood only. When the wind was in the north you could hear them, the horses and the breath of the horses and the horses’ hooves that were shod in rawhide and the rattle of lances and the constant drag of the travois poles in the sand like the passing of some enormous serpent and the young boys naked on wild horses jaunty as circus riders and hazing wild horses before them and the dogs trotting with their tongues aloll and foot-slaves following half naked and sorely burdened and above all the low chant of their traveling song which the riders sang as they rode, nation and ghost of nation passing in a soft chorale across the mineral waste to darkness bearing lost to all history and all remembrance like a grail the sum of their secular and transitory and violent lives. "

 Read More 
Be the first to comment

Not an Exact Fit, but Fitting Nonetheless

Your outpost for half-baked ideas. Courtesy of Patrick Burns aka Terrierman.
Be the first to comment

Come See Us in Dallas on November 10!


This promises to be a fun event - our first signing of Horses to Ride Cattle to Cut: The San Antonio Viejo Ranch of Texas in the Dallas area, November 10, 6 - 8 p.m., at the Bush Library.
Post a comment

Morning Memories

Dad with a nice mess of crappie, Lake Cumberland, early 1960s.

He has been gone more than 31 years now. I still think about him several times every day. And, good lord, miss him. Woke up this morning thinking about him. Apologies to Facebook friends who've already seen this photo, but it's one of my favorites. It's hard to think about Dad without thinking about fishing and cleaning fish. Read More 
Be the first to comment

Tube or Kayak?

Back in the early nineties, on the odd summer day when my daughters didn't have a soccer game or practice, I'd blast off from my engineering job toward a certain large bass pond about an hour and a half north of Dallas. If everything came together - meaning no more than two or three people wrecked or stalled on Central Expressway - I'd get to the pond, launch my float tube, and enjoy an hour or so of good bluegill fishing on little popping bugs. When surrounding post oaks and blackjack oaks began to cast shadows on the water, I'd switch to slightly larger deer hair bugs - #6 or #4 being all I could handle with a 6 weight rod - and catch lots of small largemouth bass and an occasional three or four-pounder. I'd clamber up the steep bank after dark, load my tube, sit on the tailgate and sip Ski when I had it and Diet Coke when I didn't, and listen to the sound of things being eaten out on the dark water. On the way home, I'd stop for a greasy cheeseburger at a certain joint, then, about 11:00, crawl in next to J., who never asked for a fishing report until the next morning.

I wore out one of those old-style, inner-tube, low-rider Caddis float tubes. I finally tossed the thing when it started falling apart around 2010. As I recall, I paid around $50 for it - as good a purchase as I've ever made. Sure, I always hoped no one would be there to watch me launch the thing or flounder out of the water after dark, and even with a 9-foot rod, my back casts slapped the water whenever I got lazy, but the old tube sure beat the hassle of a johnboat or even a canoe.

Since J. and I bought our lake shack, my fishing has been a matter of walking down the hill and wading along the rocky shore. Just after sunrise or just before dark, I'll catch plenty of small bass and, occasionally, one that puts a worrisome bend in my 6-weight rod.

Lately, I'm getting restless for some of my old ponds and a certain stretch of a certain river. Tube or Kayak? The tubes are much improved nowadays. Easier to launch and get in and out of, and you ride a lot higher. Everyone seems to be going to kayaks, especially in deep East Texas, where anything bigger than a puddle holds alligators nowadays, but I do most of my fishing well north of Dallas. Yes, gators seem to be making their way into the Red-River drainage, but, for now, they're rare. Furthermore, I can't see how a kayak can be anything but a hassle in the near-constant North Texas wind.

Eventually, I'll have one of each, but the tube will come first. I'd already made up my mind, but this video just reinforced my thinking:




 Read More 
2 Comments
Post a comment