The Doug Pike Show 2-25-2024

Doug talks hunting, fishing, and golf with callers, and the conversation drifts to cormorants today.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the Doug Pike Show,brought to you by American Shooting Centers Guns
Shooting at Instruction since nineteen eighty nine. Now here's Doug Pike. Hey,
I'm gonna make some notes over here. I can't surely a pen can't mess
up. I'll tell you. What'sinteresting, honestly, is that this whole

(00:21):
morning, even before now, startedout as kind of a semi train wreck,
and actually it was an extension fromyesterday mornings issues we have over in
the main part of our office area. A guy came in about I don't
know two three weeks ago, andthere were several guys anyway, and installed
these big speakers and microphones up inthe ceiling that are designed for when we

(00:48):
have our staff meetings on Tuesday.What those microphones and speakers are supposed to
do is pick up conversation anywhere inthe room and then distribute it through the
speakers to everybody in the room.Well, the guy has been out here
working on it two or three times, and he was here for a good

(01:12):
forty five minutes I don't know anhour. Well, I guess forty five
minutes to an hour at least thatI know of, and probably more,
because during that time I had tostop and go do fifty plus over on
KPRC on Friday at noon. Comeback out. He's still here. Hey,
can I get you to join thiscall again to see if we can

(01:34):
make it work? Sure? Whatever, So I'm sitting ten feet away from
the guy, and we get allthat done. He finishes with whatever it
is he's trying to do. Apparentlythey think they've got it all dialed in.
And then both yesterday morning and thismorning, hang on, I got
to type in my password again.Both yesterday morning and this morning. If

(01:57):
you sit there for just a fewseconds, you will hear a building sound.
And that building sound is like,oh, what is the highest note
that a whistle can make? Justthis screechy feedback squelch. Somebody's got the

(02:19):
microphone pointed at another microphone and they'retoo close together. That kind of stuff,
the stuff that makes your ear drumsbleed, and it's doing that in
that entire space starting It starts realsoft, and then it keeps building and
building until your ears just almost falloff your head. Oh, it's very

(02:44):
frustrating, and I find it.The last time it went on, I've
sent word to the guy who handlesall this stuff for us, and he's
calling that guy now, hopefully towake him up and get him in here
before tomorrow morning when everybody else isin the office. I'm teeing it up
at about, oh, I don'tknow, nine o'clock and nine thirty somewhere
in there, teeing it up withmy boys out there at the club hadn't

(03:07):
played in three weeks. I'm prettyexcited about that, and now even more
excited because I'm getting away from thisgod awful noise. It's punishing. I
was I was if it had goneoff, and it's going off like every
thirty seconds to one minute, andthere's not a perfectly timed distance between them.
It's just it's random. But younever go more than thirty seconds without

(03:29):
it or more than a minute withoutit, and you never I've almost lost
my mind. If I knew anysecrets about anybody they if they played that
sound one more time, I'd tellthem all. I'd just tell them everything
I know. Whoever asked. Whateveryou want to know, I'll tell you.
If you just shut that noise off, that pretty much explained it at

(03:52):
them. You think, probably so, all right? Seven one, three,
two, one two five seven ninetyemail me Doug pick At iHeartMedia dot
com. Before we dive into thetransition from winter to spring again, we
talked a little bit about snakes andspiders and alligators and all those good things
that come right back out with thewith the springtime. We'll talk more about

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them today. I'm sure we'll talkabout fishing. We'll talk about anything you
want, oh quickly before we getthere. And this is technically it's outdoors,
but I found it very interesting.I'm becoming more and more skeptical of
our federal government and its current conits current body, and this just makes

(04:34):
me more and more sure. Whenthe Pentagon releases a story this morning,
fighter jets were scrambled to go checkout a big balloon over Utah. Again,
big balloon over Utah. The fighterjets go out there check it out.
There's a photograph on the internet.I saw that this morning and the
email I got from our news directorto let me know there's nothing to word.

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The Pentagon's letting us know that they'renothing to worry about. It's just
the balloon of a hobbyist. Now, this thing is huge. It's up
about probably I don't know I didn'tget into the details of it all,
but it's way up there, andit's got a big set of solar panels
on it so that they're because aballoon doesn't need solar panels. It just

(05:18):
needs hot air or gas to getit up in the atmosphere, maybe a
little solar panel to run a fewinstruments. If you're a hobbyist, a
weather hobbyist, this thing's got Idon't know. It's hard to tell the
scale because it's just a picture ofa giant balloon in mid air. But
those solar panels look like they couldcover my house, in the house next

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door. And if that is theballoon of a weather hobbyist, I think
they should. I think they shouldbring that guy on TV and let him
tell us what his balloon does.I think they'd be fascinating to know.
And I'll bet you that will neverhappen, because I'll bet you it's it's
not a hobbyist balloon seven seven nine. Email me, Doug pick at iHeartMedia

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dot com. Brandon beat Rick tothe punch. What's up, Brandon,
Hi, Doug, are you I'mokay? I got a couple of minutes.
What you got I'm a starting Yes, it is so. Yeah,
I'm riding a horse, Brandon.No, that's pretty fun if you ever

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get the chance. If you geta chance, just hop on. Get
it's somebody just walking around for awhile. It's just very relaxing. It's
it's very u what is the wordI'm looking for. It's hypnotic almost,
the way you just kind of youlenk forward and you lean back in that
saddle and just rocking back and forth. It's very comforting. What about Sono

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shadow? But oh no, onesad rock Riding is not relaxing at all.
That's it's not it's not easy.It's hard. That's yes, it
is. That's much different. Likethe ground they fall on with they get
bucked off that horse pretty much.Yeah. Yeah. Talking about hunting,
I will do it. We Ihaven't got I haven't gone hunting. Yeah,

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well, hunting season is pretty muchdone for this year, so you
may have to wait until fallow.Yeah, it'll be all right, you'll
be good. You'll be good.Astro's got off to a good start.
I know that I heard. Yeah, so that's it gets spring training for
us. Did you watch your lastnight? I watched most of it.
Yeah. You can't win them allif you don't win the first one,

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right yep, Nate our first newmanager. Yeah, yeah, I bet
it did. Yeah, he's gothe's got a big old spotlight on him
this year. I'd love to seehim do well. That guy's been sitting
on the sidelines for a long time. Part of the game, but sitting
on the sidelines. I'm glad tosee him where he is this afternoon.
Yep, twelve, I'll probably geta little peak at some of that word

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Rick go just gonna grab him,man, I guess he's got a lot
to talk about. Hey, Brandon, I'm gonna get going because I want
to go through a couple of morethings before I get to the break,
and we'll chat again soon. Man, Okay, all right, buddy,
have a good weekend. Audios.Oh, I do want to in this
show. I want to go goahead and talk about not only maybe some

(08:20):
experience you had or some trick youknow about how to first and foremost avoid
being bitten by some of the thingsthat are out there in the summertime,
in the springtime, and then maybewhat you do if you do get bit.
I had a brown recluse spider byme right on the ring finger years

(08:41):
ago. I was moving some firewoodand holy cow, Holy cow, go
ahead and put him on hold.I grabbed him real quick. TikTok TikTok,
TikTok TikTok. There he is.What's up? I'm here already,
You got me. Let's go okay, all right, I'm just going to
wrap and file our time fire fourthings. I'm gonna cut it to three

(09:03):
that you can pick. I'll hangup. You can pick what you want.
Put it off fal autough, Let'sgo. All right, here we
go. We was talking yesterday aboutinvasion species and you know, I'm on.
We have beat this horse to death, but I'm gonna bring it back
it up one more time on theFarrell Hawks. Yep, okay, okay,
okay' something I deal with every day, one for or another. The

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landowners want to complain about it,but they won't let somebody that's qualified,
well ensured let them come hunt themor other organizations get them out and I
and there's ways to hit them out. Yeah, they need to quick complaining
if they're not gonna let anybody doanything about it. But you hit the

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nail on the head the last time. We talked about that when you said
that those those people, those landownersfor in many cases enjoy the kind of
the thrill of the chase, andthey it's just a big treadmill there on
they kill some of the hogs,unless their friends come up and kill some
hogs. But then they don't dowhat you're talking about and get somebody in

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there who really knows how to tryto get rid of them. Interesting,
well, if they really understand thegame, you want to get with somebody
that knows the game. They canbe well protected, well insured, and
they can probably make more money thantheir taxes and upkeep on some of their
their annual expenses are by charging orlett. Let a real hog hunter come

(10:31):
in there, because he's gonna bringa he's going to bring a client with
him, Okay, and they're probablygonna use if they're really good, they're
gonna bring in uh thermal scopes andand and they don't put the herd on
the real real quick all right,number two, but uh got I'm gonna

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put two and four together here onreal estate brokerage farming ranch. I'm a
member of a network eight brokers.We all worked together, yeah, okay,
and we saw a video this weekand we were talking about how high
our insurance was getting on our houses. Okay, all right, they show

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us a video, or they didn'tshow us. One of my guys show
us a video. There, we'vegot a they've got a big property over
Anti Wack. But they went downthe coast from about Anti Wac over to
Sergeant and they're showing all this outwith good graphics that all these places with
with with those of sea walls ornothing, and they're just it's exploding with

(11:43):
construction and when the next hurricane carbecomes, it's gonna blow it all away.
Well, they're in the title zoneand that means the state is subsidizing
them. Well who is the state, juck, it's you and me.
It's our dollars. So now yourhouse went up. They we're paying for
all that they need to put zonesin there where it's just no build fricking

(12:07):
period. Yeah. Yeah, that'snot a bad idea. And the other
thing that we've had discussions about inreminders to each other is and this is
a reminder to your your farming ranchowners, your weekend people to try weeke
in home and I do this twoor three times a year. As you
know, you know where I'm goingthe memo to this little small group.

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I'm the real farming retch brokers.I'm talf with I kind of lead it
is. We need to go checkanything that we are involved in as far
as marketing, farming ranches or whatever, for make sure that it's being maintained,
the grass and the down, etcetera. And we need to you

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know, do or what we callit a wasp walk. They'd love to
get around the doors, but I'mgonna tell you one of these things.
People don't look for a lost gottabe cool patio and in front porch furniture.
Oh yeah, yeah, under theseat cushion. Yes, yes,

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I ain't got no loss. Youset out and when it comes up and
he kind of gets you where youdidn't want to. All right, all
right, well with that, thankyou, Rick, I say, buddy,
audios man, we ran the rack. Huh. All right, let's
get moving. Carter's Country big inventorysale right now. A lot of guns.
More than one hundred different models ofguns are on sale now at Carter's

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Country while they get ready to bringin the new inventory for the twenty twenty
four season, which is still monthsaway, but they've got to make room
on those shelves. There is alot of hunting and shooting gear. There
are a lot of firearms, alot of reloading supplies, a lot of
optics, a lot of AMMO,a lot of everything. Everything that you

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needed this past year, a lotof that stuff you might need again,
including a new gun. Why not, who doesn't need a new gun?
Honestly, Carter's Country's been around forsixty plus years. They got stores in
several parts well pretty much convenient toanywhere in town really and then of course
online and if you buy a gunonline it costs more than five hundred bucks

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free shipping. Buy anything else intheir non gun product, and boy,
there are lots of it at Carter'sCountry. If you've ever been there,
buy any of that more than onehundred dollars and you get free shipping as
well. They got a great selectionof use firearms. They got a huge
selection of brand new firearms, everymaking model, you can imagine. Just

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about anything you want you can findat Carter's Country. Carterscountry dot com is
the website. Go check them out. Carterscountry dot com. This is Sports
Talk seven ninety on the go withiHeartRadio friends, You've got to try.
The conversation continues this as the DougPike Show, a beautiful Sunday to go

(15:09):
along with the beautiful Saturday, andtomorrow's beautiful Monday, and a few more
days of it. There's actually Ithink a twenty percent chance of rain maybe
today and tomorrow or something like that. Insignificant. I'll call it insignificant.
If it does rain, it won'tlast for long, and it might be
one of those quick heavy showers orsomething like that, or maybe a little

(15:30):
sprinkle. Speaking of I've got tohave a guy come out tomorrow morning and
change a sprinkler head in the frontof my yard. They're installing in the
entire region, basically new underground andeverything. We've got to underground now.
But they're replacing old fiber optics withnew fiber optics and just making a mess
of things a day at a time. It's not bad. Mojo weighed in

(15:56):
on this piercing sound out there inthe bigger open part of this office and
referred to it as a hearing test. If it goes off two or three
more times in my ear, itwill be a deafness test. We're gonna
we're gonna cross that threshold and begoing the other way and losing hearing to
that gosh awful mess. Captain Scottand I, if you've listened long enough,

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know that we have kind of arunning, a running bet on who's
gonna finish first. Hit him anentire house that he's building, and I
my garage, and I'm getting better. I'm getting closer, but I'm not
that close yet. I'm not thatclose yet. But he let me know
that he's putting the sea says he'sputting the finishing touches on the laundry room.

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I don't know how many more roomshe has. I suspect not many.
The way he's kind of I canjust sense his his pride puffing up
as he's typing this email to methis morning. I'm gonna owe him around
to golf, I'm pretty sure.And that's not the end of the world.
That's not the end of the world. Back to spiders, Aaron just

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weighed in. He said, Idon't know if it was as bad as
your brown recluse incident, but Ihad a little run in with a black
widow about six or seven years ago. Foolishly, this is here's this is
a little warning to everybody. Letme take a look at the bite and
then I'll go back to the email. Oh my word, No, that's
nasty man, holy cow. Sohere's here's the the words to the wise.

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And you could just listen to whathe wrote foolishly comma. And I
think I would have put that inall caps and bolded it and underlined it.
I didn't go get it treated asI just started my business. I
was out of town, and Ithought a deadline was more important. In
hindsight, I wouldn't do that again. And this is exact, boy,

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this is exactly what I was goingto talk about in just a second.
It's right here on my sheet.It says, in hindsight, my advice
gloves went handling firewood. That's whereI got my brown recluse bite, too,
is in a stack of firewood.Too many scorpions, spiders, and
even small copper heads, small orlarge. I would be willing to go

(18:14):
with aaron. Yes, snakes likefirewood, scorpions like spirewood, firewood,
spiders like firewood, and we shouldnot. I will never go grab into
a either. And I'll tell youwhat else becomes a major spider and spider
and scorpion magnet once you do,and snake magnet too, once you put

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it in the yard. Somewhere isa pile of leaves, or not pile
of leaves, but a pile ofbranches you trimmed off your trees to get
them ready for the new season.I got to get a guy out.
I got some I need somebody.In fact, i've got a guy already.
I've got to have him come thinout a little bit. About a
forty foot tall crape myrtle that's beengrowing for twenty something years in my backyard.

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We had two originally, but theyjust were eclipsing the sun basically,
and it was hard to get grassto grow this one, unfortunately for my
good neighbor friend behind me. He'svery nice about it, but I need
to get a trim because once theflowers start falling off that tree, they

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fall in his pool on any kindof a south wind. So I'm gonna
try and get as much of thattree back on to my side. They
like the shade, they like.It's a beautiful tree, there's no question
about it. But it's just gota little big for its britches. So
we're gonna have to thinner down sevenone three two one two five seven nine.
Email me dougpick At iHeartMedia dot commy best advice, and I'll go

(19:42):
back to Rick's wasps and I'll throwyellow jackets in that in that pile too.
If there's any place you haven't been, whether it's your house, your
weekend house, your summer house,your deer le's that you might go back
to to do a little hog huntingthis time of year before it gets just
too hot. If there's any placethat you haven't been in about four to

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six weeks, you better look itover really really close, before you PLoP
yourself down, before you reach into grab something. Had that email just
yesterday about somebody getting bit by acotton mouth inside a pool skimmer, Reach
into that pool skimmer to grab theleaves out of it, and bow getting
nailed by a cotton mouth. Notfun running around playing in leaf piles or

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in thick mulch out in your yardanywhere really out in the suburbs kind of
from Beltway eight out, I thinkthere would be potential at least to trip
over a copper head, I meannot exkewed me to trip over a coral
snake, so be aware of that. They're little snakes too, and they
don't like to be found, andthey don't like to be seen, and

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they're very reclusive. However, ifyou disturb them, step on his tail,
he's gonna swing around and try tobite you. And by try,
I mean as we talked about yesterday, these are coral snakes, are a
rear fanged. The fans are inthe back of their mouth a little bit
more so it's hard for them toreally get a good bite on you unless

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they can get their mouths around somereally loose skin and kind of bring it
in and find it with their littlefangs. But buddy, if they do
get you, you'll wish they didn't. You'll wish they didn't because they will
leave you hurting pretty bad. Itsays National Invasive Species Awareness Weeks. As

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was mentioned by Rick a minute ago, we talked with what was their name,
was it Monica mcgarritty, Yeah,it was Monica mcgartty yesterday from the
Parks and Wildlife Department, mostly aboutaquatic aquatic invasive species, and that includes
plants and animals. There are awhole lot of fish, a significant portion
of buffalo bio has an infestation reallyof what are called burrowing catfish, and

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I think they're called algae suckers andthings like that. When they're about two
or three inches long in a petstore. But once they get a little
bit bigger and they get to aboutI think Monica said they get twelve fourteen
inches long. I didn't realize theygot quite that big. I had them
pegged at about a foot because ofstuff that we did back at the paper

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years ago on those things. Butman's once that thing hits about five or
six inches and you got it ina five gallon aquarium or a ten gallon
aquarium, even it starts to lookpretty big in there next to the rest
of the fish, and it becomesa nuisance. And what do you do.
You take it down to the bioand you throw it in there.
Oh, it'll be okay in here, it won't hurt anything. Well,

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enough of them have been tossed awaylike that, or flushed down toilets and
found their way through the plumbing andsurvived through the treatment centers and whatnot.
Enough of that has happened that nowthere is a breeding population of those fish
and many other invasive species, allover most of the water bodies in the

(23:11):
state of Texas, and Monica wasquick to point out also that we've got
to be careful even in the stateof Texas where there's a problem in one
lake not transferring it to another lake, and that goes for some of the
zebra muscles are a good example.Go look them up and look how fast
that they can tear stuff up oncethey get in. They are prolific breeders.

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And once they attach themselves to things, you blink three times and there
is a completely complete cover of thosethings on really critical infrastructure in some areas
that takes care of cities, watersupplies and such. Holy cow, it's
already eight thirty. I need totake another break. I'm supposed to do.

(24:00):
That's what I'll do. We're goingto try and get back on time
a little bit. I think,Adam, timber Creek be a good time
to make a tea time at timberCreek Golf Club right now before everybody else
kind of wakes up and starts lookingoutside and going holy cow, holy cow,
all this yardwork can wait just onemore day, Make a tea time,

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go down to timber Creek. They'reon FM twenty three point fifty one,
just about I don't know, maybefour miles west of the golf freeway.
Very easy to find, all kindsof goodies to play with when you
get there. You've got a generouspractice range. You've got a huge putting
green, which if you've got alittle time between your arrival and your tea
time, I would recommend taking advantageof both. Hit a few balls,

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work on your short game, goputt for twenty minutes. That'll save you
probably four or five strokes in thatround alone. You've got a nice selection
of food out there. They gotgreat people all over the property wanting to
help you have a good time.I'm great teaching staff, and that it's
run by a guy named David Pilsner, and David and his staff can pretty

(25:07):
much fix anything that's broken in yourswing. Timber Creek Golf Club dot com.
Three nines and probably at any giventime, twenty thirty people on that
property who want to make sure youhave a good time. Timbercreek Golf Club
dot com. Go make yourself atea time right now. Timber Creek Golf
Club dot com. This is SportsTalk seven ninety online at Sports seven ninety

(25:32):
dot com now more. Doug Fightespending some time this morning talking about all
of the lions and tigers and bears, on much smaller scale, spiders and
snakes and faral hogs. I askedMonica mcgarretty yesterday in our visit about aquatic
invasive species. If a hog's swimmingacross the bay, does that make it

(25:55):
an aquatic invasive species? I thinkit does. If it's if it's okay
to whack them, I think itdoes. I'm not a big fan of
hogs. I don't know the statusof cormorants, the official status, but
I'd sure like to get rid ofthem as well. They probably do as
much or more damage to our inlandfisheries along the coast even and certainly throughout

(26:21):
the state than any other single sourcepound for pounded. I hate cormorants.
Let me go talk to Dave andget me in a better mood. What's
up, Dave? Hey Man?Oh Man, I requested that center field
you know old he couldn't play.Yeah, he couldn't play for ten years
because of a contract that he signed, oh said in his garage, Yeah,

(26:44):
he said, in his grudge andby two by two because he had
all this equipment around him on thatalbum. He did every every instrument on
that album. Oh wow hisself.Yeah, then he had to go out
and get like Donald up done,played base and all that. You know.
So we toured. But anyway,no back in like when I was

(27:04):
seventeen, man, I got mydad. He handed down at dots and
B two ten. Man, Iwent and got some souped up Goodyear tires
on there with the white letters.So I drove over there to the blimp
station and for ten dollars you couldwrite on the blip. So I got
to write on the blimp because Iheard you talking about that big balloon,

(27:25):
you know. Yeah, yeah,I remember that thing I do. I
actually got back when the shell Houstonopened was at the Woodlands, which is
way back. I got an emailonce it said, hey, we're going
to do it a little when thewhen the blimp comes to town a couple
of days early, we're going todo a little media ride if you want
to ride along. And I couldn't. I couldn't email them fast enough.

(27:49):
Heck, yeah I want to writeon the blimp. Let's go. So
okay. Media day was like Tuesdayor Wednesday. I don't know whatever day
it was, they wanted me upthere all the way up there at that
blimp landing area. You remember wherethat was on the freeway, like maybe
I don't know, eight o'clock inthe morning and I'm living down in sugar
Land, like, holy cow,but I'm going I want to ride on

(28:11):
the dog on blimp. I getup there, Dave and I sit.
There's the blimp and there's guys outthere walking this thing out of the hangar
and all this good stuff. AndI went into the office and there was
just one woman sitting there and nobodyelse in there, And I said,
where's the group that's going on theblown And she goes, oh, you're

(28:33):
you're one of the media guys.I said yeah. She goes, well
you're the only guy. I said, oh that. Oh that's horrible.
Man. They're not going to doit. I said, oh no,
they're going, and you're going goingout there. So I grabbed my cameras
and I walked out there and itwas just me and the crew riding around
for like two hours up in thatballoon. It was awesome. Put one

(28:56):
of those pictures on it. IfI can find him, my will what
you know what I did. Thisis this is how I am. I
get up there and we're riding around, and you know, they said,
we can't go all the way tothe coast, but I'll get you up
high enough where you can see it. So we get south of town a
little ways and we get up highand then we go back up toward the
woodlands and all, and I'm takingpictures of stock ponds. I'm taking pictures

(29:18):
of small water bodies to kind ofget a better idea of what they look
like, of water clarity. You'reit's a fisherman in me. Man,
Yeah, I got you map itout. Your road was a drone pilate
before there were drones. Man,Yeah, what's up? Okay? I
got to go to the rodeo tookoff yesterday. I got there about nine

(29:41):
thirty. Yeah. I tried tostart leaving out about five o'clock and man,
it was like somebody opened the gatesand it was a stampede. I
didn't get home because I rode thetrain down there, but I didn't get
back home till eight o'clock at night. And so I'm trying more out,
but he got I got to goin this one booth and there was the

(30:03):
Marine band playing there, man,and the conductor was up there, and
I was at the back of thetent, deep in the heart of Texas.
And then they played Stars and StripsForever Boy John he invented the suzophone.
Yeah, I have somewhere at thehouse. You'll appreciate this, Dave.
Somewhere at the house, I haveone of the original records of that.

(30:30):
Somewhere. I can't the money.Yeah, it might be who knows.
Hey, hey, real quick,now, the police. Now,
every every police officer I saw,i'd walk up and thank them for their
service, and I tell them whoI was, and they were like,
I told you, I told yourvoice. And there was the hpd uh

(30:52):
Polk County Sheriff's apartment everywhere. Yeah, they're out there everywhere for this great
guys and gals. And then Igot to go to the front stage and
and I'm up there and I tookmy hat off because somebody asked me,
you know, how old is it? And I said, well, look
on the inside, man, youknow, because I keep it clean on
the outside. But when I tookmy hat off, this dude comes up

(31:15):
behind me and he says, uh, aren't you guitar, Dave, and
I said yeah, and he goes, remember when we pulled you out of
the bench over there, when thatdude t bone stuff, that's got to
meet it. I got to meethis wife. And oh and then the
guitar player, John Wolf, hethrew the pick towards me and I couldn't

(31:37):
reach it, and all the youngpeople next to me started hollering at the
security guard, get that nick andgive it to me. So I got
you. Go, Yeah, greattime, go ahead, Too bad Dave
didn't have a good time with therodeo. What do you think, Adam?

(31:59):
I think you had a large orsuper large, extra large or jumbo.
It's like going to BUCkies and gettingyour getting your diet coke in a
five gallon bucket. Right there,that guy has a five gallon bucket full
of fun. Every time he walksout the door. I think, good
for him. Man, that's awesome. That is awesome. I'm gonna have

(32:20):
some fun tomorrow. I'm gonna comboplatter it and do a little golf,
a little fishing tomorrow. I thinkI've taken a couple of Mondays off to
go do other stuff, and thenafter that I've got to I've got a
rendezvous with Jason Fortenberry. I can'tremember. I think he said tomorrow is
not good for him, but ifit is good, my wife and I
are gonna go over there after myround of golf and we're gonna tee up

(32:42):
a new front door. I'm gonnabe I'm gonna be speaking for him a
little bit more loudly come next weekend. I couldn't get the stuff in early
enough yesterday to get it officially donefor today. But yeah, my my
new front door is coming from fromJason over at Primo Doors. And I'm
thrilled, absolutely thrilled. Seven onethree two one two five seven ninety Email

(33:04):
me, Dug pick At. iHeartMediadot Com. Slip into my Southern drawl.
I've got it in me, andI don't think when I when I
speak most of the time on theradio, when I'm doing national commercials,
I try, you know, stuffthat's gonna go outside of Houston at least,
I try very hard not to notto let any more than is just

(33:28):
absolutely necessary of Deep South come through. And then I hear I'm gonna go,
oh, yeah, I'm from here. I know where I'm from.
Everybody knows where I'm from. Ican't fake it. I think I could
fake a Northern accent of pretty muchany type, and I play with that
sometimes when i have nothing else todo in the studio and I'm bored,

(33:51):
I'll I'll try to record in differentaccents. And I'm not gonna do it
here. I promise I'm not gonnabore you with it. And it's fun.
But in the end, just Iam who I am, and I'm
not gonna that's that's all I'm tryingto do. Tell you somebody else who
are who they are? Well,No, you know what, I'm gonna
save this one for the top ofthe hour when I've got a little bit
more time. Tell you what.We're gonna take a break here on time

(34:14):
to throw at him off a littlebit and really confuse him. After the
start we got off to this morningwith all that stuff going on, We'll
keep that theme going and just goout cold The Doug Pike Show on Sports
Talk seven ninety. This is SportsTalk seven ninety, facefoo dot com,
slash sports Talk seven ninety. Backto the Doug Pike Show. Mike sent

(34:37):
me an email just a minute ago. He sent me a picture yesterday of
him and some buddies out fishing inthe morning during the show, and with
that full moon out there the lastcouple of nights, I wondered how they
did, and he reported this morningthat it was pretty tough. A big
feeding period was about noon, andI told him my son and I actually

(34:59):
had this exact same discussion yesterday.Was it, I think either yesterday or
Saturday or Friday afternoon on the wayhome and I saw that full moon coming
up, and I said, tomorrowmorning, Louie, I said, full
moon tomorrow morning. Good time orbad time to fish? Said bad time,

(35:19):
Dad, They'll eat all night.I said, thank god, he's
learned something about fishing from me.And that's just how it works. The
major feeding period, as Mike pointedout, was at noon, and I
just emailed him back a few minutesago. Full moon not even a good
reason to get out of bed thenext morning if you're going fishing until about

(35:42):
ten o'clock or so. And that'sif you have a long drive to where
you're going fishing. Mojo sent mea page from the Farmer's Almanac, the
Old Farmer's Almanac about the February snowmoon, which was the twenty fourth,
that was just yesterday. In theseventeen sixties, it says here Captain Jonathan
Carver, who had visited the notA Wessey Dakota Indians, wrote that Native

(36:08):
Americans wrote that the name used forthis period was the snow Moon. And
there's a quote out of what CaptainCarver wrote, because more snow commonly falls
during this month than any other inthe winter. I'm not gonna fall around
here. It's okay. My golfgame tomorrow will be played under a forecast

(36:30):
of eighty four degrees and joking thatI just told Nicki Courtney, Oh that's
just too hot for fishing, huh, or for golf. No, No,
there's no such thing. There issuch thing as as really cold for
golf. But look at the brightside. If it's a if you can
get on the golf course, evenif it's totally if it's zero degrees,

(36:52):
there are no more water hazards.You're gonna just put the ball across an
entire lake. Can't do that inthe summertime. What's going on for us?
What's going on? Grand Master Doug. I'm leading the band trying to
get to ten o'clock and then thefund's gonna start from there. Well,
there'd be a chore period, butthen the fun starts. What's up?

(37:15):
Well, I'm about fifteen minutes awayfrom Lake x and Nowherevilles, Texas as
A as A as A what's hisface? Mark Zanna would say, But
I'm what I'm doing today? Yougot that bright move, got warm skies.
I'm there's some big females with thisside of my polarized glasses. Ooh

(37:35):
maybe so, yeah, it shouldbe starting. It hadn't quite start on
Talada Bend and rapern. If you'vebeen watching any of the Elite series,
they're still catching them out there spotlightinga twenty five to forty feet deep.
But that's such a grind. Iknow this is a smaller lake and I'm
thinking, I'm thinking I could seethem and if it's on, you're gonna
have to tell me what day offyou want to go up? I take

(37:58):
off any day you want to go. I'm gonna get you and that boat
I got for Yeah, like wecan go to during the week and dang
there having to ourselves. I thinkI have an idea where you're going.
I'm not gonna say it out loud. But yeah, that'd be fun.
That'll be a video out on itlater. Not do that, man,

(38:19):
I know right, I usually callit a lake X on my YouTube page.
Sure, if I wanted to backno where I always saw it lake
X. But how did idea?I want to run by you? It
would take a significant amount of moneyto do this in Houston, but here's
my collaboration. Okay, Texas Parksand Wildlife, Mattress Mac, Pass Pro
Shops, Academy, Houston Astros,and Houston Texans. I don't think there's

(38:40):
enough money in that group to prettymuch do whatever you want. You could
have just stopped at Mattress Mac.Probably, what do you want to do?
Probably I want to take the astronomeand turn it into an indoor lake.
Dude, you're so far lake.I hate to bust your bubble,
but I've already proposed that more thanonce, and I am a percent with
you. Yeah, put some structureon the bottom, sick. Yeah,

(39:05):
take a box of stuff. Yougot the concession aggre with all the shopping,
get money, the money, moneyfish, take a whole bunch of
whatever's left of seating and all ofthat, and just throw it on the
floor because that's going to be yourstructure, and then you fill it up
to about ten twelve feet deep,climate controlled kayaks paddling around everywhere. Bass

(39:25):
on one end of the lake.Well, you have to divide it so
you can have a little fish andbig fish, have a special area for
the kids somewhere who knows where inthe bullpens. Yeah, oh yeah,
we could fill it up. I'mone hundred percent with you. It would
take a lot of money, though, Holy cow, First you'd have to
fumigate the whole entire structure and getall the mold out of there. That

(39:45):
wouldn't be easy. But yeah,I'm I'm right. Besides you, man,
if all we got to do nowis find about a billion and a
half dollars, I'll get enough tothat group. That's five people there have
it, you know. Yeah,Yeah, they wanted to jump in.
They certainly could. They get itdone in about probably in two years,
you could have it all built out. That sounds fun. That I love

(40:08):
that I did for yous, Butlike I said, I'm about fifteen minutes
away by probably ten minutes away fromthe boat round. Now it's good for
you. I'll send you some pictures. It's seriously matter. If you like
to sightfish, bring you smooth glasses, and you can bring your hat in
your butt, as they say.And I got everything else. I saw
the biggest bass I've ever seen upat Lake Fort, probably about twenty years
ago now, maybe twenty five.And boy, we turned a corner.

(40:30):
We were up there doing that.We were sightfishing, just like you're talking
about doing. And we turned acorner on a on a little point and
there was a fish on a bedup in there that looked like somebody,
I don't know, somebody dropped atelephone pole in the water. Man.
It was just monstrous. I've neverseen I don't know. I'm not gonna

(40:52):
guess because I don't want to.First of all, I don't want to
be called a liar. But itwas. It was the biggest large mouth
bass I'd ever seen in my life. And i'd I've seen a few big
ones, so holy cow. Yeah, it was fun. Man, You're
gonna have some fun today. You'llsee him. We'll always catch what we'll
catch it. Will you catch aton of three to five that I missed
it? Last year? About twoweeks I talked to a local guy there.

(41:13):
He said, you just missed thebig ones. So I'm going a
little bit earlier this year though.Yeah. Well yeah, once once the
word is out, it's it's probablyabout half over exactly. Yeah, you
got a chance to be first.Now. You never want to be next
on something like this. You justtry to be first, man, And
if you miss it by day,go back the next day. Yeah,

(41:34):
good thing they there. I turn, I turn that garment spotlight on,
and I'll go out there like therest of him, you know, I
go out there and watch TV findthem that way. Oh my gosh.
All right, buddy, I hateit, but I gotta do it.
I hear. Yeah, I know. You gotta do what you gotta do.
All right. Thanks, it's greatto hear from you. Man audio
man, Yeah, I got Forestinvolved. I got him involved with Oh

(41:57):
man, I'm looking right at theguy. I hope he's not listening,
because I'll be embarrassed. My guyfrom good golf friend of mine. Oh,
I'm looking right at him. Holycow. I'll think of it,
and I'll probably remember on the wayout of here. Right as soon as
I turn my Michael phone off,his name's gonna jump into my head.
I'm so embarrassed. He's a greatguy and he's out at Meadowbrook Farms.

(42:22):
Gosh, darn it, I wantto be in so much trouble if he's
listening. I'm getting old. That'smy only excuse. Every now and then
the name will fall out of myhead, and then just after I can't
spit it out and be proud thatI found it in my head, it'll
come back. All right, Whereare we, by the way, In
case anybody's wondering, the white Massrun has started. The croppy are moving

(42:46):
shallow. Everything that signifies spring aroundhere is happening, both inland and along
the coast and offshore. Actually itwon't be long. Well, it'll be
another month or so proper, butwe'll start hearing about people catching ling.
And this is one thing that Idon't think, I don't think Texans take

(43:07):
full advantage of, is the migrationof ling through here. They tend to
move relatively close to the coast.Tend to be some really big ones that
you can catch during this migration.And if you go east of the Mississippi
River, you see guys who havethe burn boats that are used for redfish.

(43:29):
We've got the towers on them wheresomebody can stand up there and see
see their house while they're driving alongthe shoreline and see their house back in
Houston. They're up so high.They have boats like that that run around
out in the Gulf of Mexico,the near very near shore Gulf inside three
four miles typically over east of theMississippi River. Oh okay, okay,

(43:51):
adam. Anyway, we don't takeadvantage of that. And as it gets
a little closer, maybe to celebratethe first time somebody catches one off a
pier, then we'll start talking aboutlaying around here. And that's a fun,
fun trip to go. Sitecast intoling Shooter's corner Palmer Highway twenty nine
street down in Texas City, ownedby Jerry and JTK the father and some
team who first of all builds someof the best custom rifles anywhere everywhere.

(44:15):
I've got to go down there andpick one up. Actually fairly soon and
as soon as Jerry gets back fromwhere he is up in the hill country.
It's nobody's business but his. Butyeah, once he's back, I'm
gonna go down there and pick upthat gun. These guys know their stuff.
They take their time. Everybody inthe store is excellently qualified to help

(44:37):
you find the right firearm for you, to help get a busted firearm fixed.
So it's working like brand new.They've got guns, they've got Ammo,
they've got shooting supplies, they've gotreloading supplies, they've got Camo optics,
anything you could possibly need to enjoy. The Shooting Sports is in Shooter's
Corner. And it's a small store. It's not some giant place. He

(45:00):
said, it's not gonna take you. You walk in. I was down
there what two weeks ago. Now, walk in the store. You look
left, you look right, you'veseen the whole store. You can't see
the shop where they work on guns, but you can see the store and
you can get an idea of howmuch of a gun store it is.
And just like I've been telling youfor a long time, it smells like
a gun store. If you don'tknow what a gun store smells like,

(45:21):
go to Shooter's Corner. The ShootersCORNERTX dot com is the website forty plus
years, family owned and operated.And if you wear a badge for a
living, you get a discount.The Shooters Corner TX dot com. I
didn't even get into the break before, who wasn't bailed me out? Hold
on, I'm not sure who.It's all initials, but whoever FHW is

(45:45):
FHW let me know really quickly.And if I'd have looked at my emails,
I might have bailed myself out.I'd have given credit where credit was
due. Though. It's Lane Rixwho I introduced by Facebook to Forrest,
and the two of them have alreadymet up and hung out a little bit,

(46:07):
probably had a couple of beers together. And Lane, well, Lane's
got a place up on Livyson now, and that's where Forest mostly fishes.
And so I've kind of connected thesetwo guys that Lane wants to learn that
lake and Forrest knows it like theback of his hand, and they're both

(46:28):
good guys in my book, andit seems to be working out really well.
And now it's I got to goget in forrest boat and go figure
out where all those fish are.I think I know what Lakey's on today,
I really do. And it's gotsome really big fish in it.
There's no question about it. SinceSoutheast Texas. But that's all I'll tell
you. And it's not a biglake. I'm already giving up too much

(46:51):
information seven three two two five sevenninety. Email me Doug Pike at iHeartMedia
dot com. Let me get this. This internet connection of mine kicked off
in here. I had to restartmy computer. I'm kind of curious to
see if my documents ever came up. That one is okay, but the
other one there it is. Yeah, everything came back. I lost everything

(47:16):
in this one document. It reallykind of spooked me earlier, but all
is good now. Let's just keepmoving. Seven one three two one two
five seven ninety Email on Medugpike atiHeartMedia dot com. I'm trying to get
the PGA Tour event down in Mexicoonto the screen so I can tell you
all about that at present. Andby the way, this college kid,

(47:40):
I can't remember his first name.What's his first name? It starts with
a jay. Anyway, he haswalked himself. He has walked himself into
a four shot lead going into today'sfinal round. And the way he he
did that yesterday was by going outand shooting. I want to say sixty

(48:04):
three. Let me get this thingto load up. It's taken forever this
morning. Somebody, come on,give me a leader board. There we
go. Yeah, he shot sixtythree yesterday, and so did Ben Silverman.
By the way, there were birdiesto be had. Let's see the
top four or five players sixty I'lljust read down the list. Jake Napped

(48:25):
sixty three. Sammy Vlamaki shot sixtyseven yesterday and kind of fell apart.
Yeah, he lost strokes to thefield. Silverman sixty three, Henrik Norlander's
sixty five, Chan Kim sixty six, and by the way, again,
I know these aren't exactly household names, but this is one of those events

(48:45):
where some of these guys you'll probablybe hearing about down the road, or
some of these guys you used tohear about a lot but don't anymore.
That's kind of where you're gonna findthem. It's at these events. There'll
be bigger events coming up. Alot of these guys are getting ready,
they're they're playing elsewhere in the world. Sometimes when when one of these goes
down. But as I've always said, anybody whose business card says PGA,

(49:07):
to remember anybody whose name I mentionedon SAT on Sunday morning especially, Yeah,
that's their golfers. Okay, Igotta shift mice here and go over
to Bob and see what's up?What's up, Bob? How you doing,
young man? I'm good. Hey, uh, you know I heard

(49:29):
you talking about the astrodom. Ihave another, you know, one of
your pet peeves. Oh, buddy, I know how much you love them.
We could fill the astrodom with deadcormorans and it wouldn't hurt my feelings.
Well, that's what I was askingyour screen. And I'm sorry I
forget his name, but Adam,what what is the problem with an open

(49:52):
season on them? There is somehow, some way, some federal proclamation somewhere
that declares them off limits, andthey have at least lifted it a little
bit so that so that they canbe hunted and taken out if they are

(50:14):
causing a threat to a fish population. If you're a fish farmer, for
example, you can get a permitto shoot them out of there. You
can get them away from your profitmaker, your cross. It's like being
able to spray pesticides on crops tokeep from losing your crops. But otherwise,
I don't know why it's still ineffect. I don't know how I've

(50:36):
done stories on them. I justcan't remember exactly how long they've been protected.
Their protection is somewhat lifted now,but not entirely. And until it's
an open season like faral hogs,not going to be soon enough for me.
Yeah, I would, It doesn'tmatter what size lake. I remember
a couple of years ago, Iwas up on Somerville Lake. Yeah,

(50:58):
and Doug, you remember how thegeese get up out on the charity.
Oh sure, very Yeah, that'swhat these comrades that they got it.
For ten minutes, they covered thesky. You couldn't see the sun.
That's the same thing in very smallscale on this little it's probably about ten
acres of water on this one golfcourse lake that I'm mentioning here. And

(51:19):
I've seen when we have a shadhatch there and this is no life,
talked about it so many times,but when we get a shad hatch there,
there's always about a half a dozenof them that hang out. They're
the scouts, okay. And whenwe get a shad hatch, all of
a sudden, out of nowhere,there will be two to five hundred of
these things on there, just swimmingand diving and swimming and diving and pushing

(51:42):
those shad into a shallow corner.And then just wiping it out draws me
crazy. Well, there's and there'sanother thing, you know, Texas Parks
and Wildlife Stock these ponds around thestake. Oh yeah, yeah, and
you know the comrades eat half totroutditch in there. I would guess they
ate at least half of them.It wouldn't be surprised me. Yeah,

(52:06):
yeah, because they are the smallones. I know ISAA Howard gets a
lot of them. And you knowit's got where you can't hardly catch the
child up there when they stuck itanymore. Yeah, and they they can
eat bigger fish than you think.I can't remember who it was who started
the nightmares that I've had ever sinceI got this video, but somebody sent
me a video of a cormorant eatinga bass that probably was between thirteen and

(52:31):
fifteen inches long. I've seen themwith crappies that big. Yeah, oh
my god, twelve inches no,but still that's a big fish to get
down that little scrawny neck, thatneck expands like a balloon, and down
that fish goes. Eventually, It'shorrifying. I hate them. I'm going

(52:52):
over I'm going over to Lake Houstonright now. In the McKay Bridge and
there's hundreds of them out. Ohwell, I mean that's a ship.
Yeah, okay, and they'll staythere until there's no fish left. All
you put me in a bad mood, Bob. Go have enjoy your tea
time, all right. I'm sorry. Well take about fish on Lake Fork.
There you go, I'll do that. Thanks, by, I'll see

(53:16):
you. Yeah, Holy cow,that best I saw at Lake Fork?
That no fool, and that wasit was a toad. That it would
have I've seen ten and twelve poundsbass on nests. I've seen that one,
and it was it would have eclipsedthe rest of those fish I've seen.

(53:37):
I've never seen it in my I'venever held or even been in the
boat when anything bigger than about twelvepounds was landed. I have two fish
that I know for sure were doubledigit fish, but I didn't weigh either
one of them. One of themI caught on the last cast I made
before I sacrificed myself to a lightningdorm. But Kyle Lee, when you're

(54:01):
throwing a spinner bait over grass andyou're getting five to eight pound fish every
cast, as this thunderstorms building,you can't leave. It's very hard.
I didn't have anybody else in theboat, so if anything happened, what
only happened to me. I wouldn'tsacrifice someone else for that. But when
I'm the only one and it's notrees have exploded anywhere really close to me

(54:27):
yet, I stayed out for afew more casts. In the last cast
when I caught that fish, Icould have dropped both fists into its mouth
and still rattled them around, probablyopened up both hands. And I let
that one go and put the trollingmotor on high and just beached it and
ran into the barn. And thatwas one of them. The other one
was actually at that golf course lake. It surprised me. I knew that

(54:49):
there were bigger fish in there thanin the other lake. But this one
fish came up and rolled on alittle eight down spinner bait and missed it
first, and I saw her mouth, and her mouth was about the size
of a dessert plate at least,and maybe a little bit bigger. And
I thought, holy cow, Ineed to catch this fish. And I
threw right back into the same placeand let that spinner bak drop and then

(55:13):
twitched it once and bam like that, and out she came. And again
I'm not gonna I'm not gonna dragher dad back to the clubhouse and put
her in a plastic bag and takeher to a meat market and throw her
on a scale. I know whatten pounds looks like, and I know
what nine pounds looks like, andthis one was north of ten somewhere,

(55:35):
but it was definitely south of twelve. There's no question I had probably might
have gone ten five, might havegone ten to two. Maybe on a
good day, if it just atea bunch of stuff, might have gone
eleven pounds, but I doubt it. Probably between ten ten and a half.
But wasn't nine anything. Great fish, absolutely great fish. I just
love this time of year because there'sa big bass running around. The white

(55:59):
bass runs on the crappie or biden, the trout, biden, the red
fish or biden. It's just on. It's fun, and it's gonna be
in the eighties, and the fishknow it. What I'm looking for now
is an afternoon cloud cover on thatwarming, warming water. I'm gonna give
it two or three more days ofsunshine. Then we're gonna get some clouds
at some point, and that's theafternoon. I'm gonna go out there and
throw top waters and I'm gonna killthem, absolutely kill them. My favorite

(56:23):
bait to throw. Oh good,Yeah, there's Mark from Georgia. He's
weighing in on a cormorants. I'mgonna take a look at this during the
break and i'll tell you about itwhen we get back. On the way
out, I'll tell you about BellevilleMeat Market. They are holy cow.
They are just going so strong becauseevery time somebody new goes in there for

(56:44):
the first time, they come back, they come back because everything in there
is absolutely delicious. Now, theydon't do salads, Okay, if you're
a full blown vegan, it's outof our way, okay, But if
you are anybody who's interested in deliciousbeef, chicken, and pork cut the
way you want it. If youwant some sausage, they've got two dozen

(57:07):
flavors of pecan smoked sausage. Ifyou want to eat while you're out there,
you can. They serve lunch ordinner depending on what time your watch
says. Every day of the weekMonday through Sunday ten am to seven pm.
And I can assure you from personalexperience that it is gorgeous and that
the portions are generous. They haveeighty five to fifteen ground beef on sale

(57:31):
all the time, really for threefifty nine a pound. When you buy
ten pounds or more, it's rodeotime. It's barbecue time. Put yourself
and your family in the mood.Go grab drive out there today, grab
the whole family throwing the minivan andbring a pad in a piece of paper
and then write down everything you wantto bring home with you. And then

(57:52):
when you get to Belleville meat Mark, it's pretty easy to find. They're
about fifteen minutes north of Sealy,fifteen minutes south of Hempstead on Highway thirty
six. When you get there,hand that order off to somebody behind the
meat counter, and then take aboutsix seven steps to your left and get
in line for the lunch slash dinnerdepending on when you get there. Go

(58:14):
out on the patio and eat it. It's gonna be eighty four degrees today,
but under that patio roof it'll feellike every time I've been out there,
it's always about eight to ten degreesmore comfortable than the real temperature.
It's warmer when it's cold outside,and it's cooler when it's hot outside.
It's to be a perfect day toenjoy a lunch like that. Belleville Meatmarket

(58:37):
dot Com been going for more thanforty two years now. They say,
serving the greater Houston community. Isay serving pretty darn near most of southeast
Texas because anybody who's ever been thereonce is going to go back. And
if you can't get there, justwet your whistle with a trip through the
website. Send yourself something from BellevilleMeat Market and see if I'm not right.

(59:00):
Belleville MeetMarket dot com. That's thewebsite, Belleville MeetMarket dot com.
Qu This is Sports Talk seven ninetya Houston sports fan on air and on
Facebook. They contact back to theDoug Fike Show. I have been reading
through much of the break about cormorants, and I don't need to read about

(59:23):
their behavior. I know pretty muchof that. I don't need to read
about conservation. I know that theywere protected all the way back in nineteen
eighteen. Thank you very much whoeverbrought them here. And that's what I'm
trying to find out. I'm tryingto track this back to cormorant number one

(59:43):
in North America. Just listen tothis. Double crested Cormorant populations have rebounded
from persecution and pesticides over the pastcouple centuries, and today they are widespread
and abundant. Yeah, no kidding. Populations increased by about two point six

(01:00:05):
percent per year between nineteen sixty sixand twenty nineteen. According to Blah blah
Blah Global Estimates breeding population six hundredand thirty thousand, and rates them eight
out of twenty on the Continental ConcernScore, indicating a species of low conservation

(01:00:25):
concern. Yeah, how by takethat number down a little bit more.
In the eighteen hundreds and early nineteenhundreds, cormorants were frequently shot, and
their numbers declined with westward settlement.In the mid twentieth century, they also
suffered greatly from the harmful effects ofingesting pesticide from contaminated fish. Since the

(01:00:45):
seventies, populations have grown steadily,even explosively in some places. I can
point to a few of those doublingin periods as short as five years in
the Great Lakes. They're still regardedas threats to fishing stocks by some and
the US Fishing Wilefe Service issues permitsfor controlled cormorant shooting to protect fisheries.

(01:01:10):
There is a way you can getone of those permits. I don't know
what it says on the permit,what you have to fill out, and
what reasons you have to give,but I may just look into it myself
and see what we can do.And the notion that they're not high on
the conservation list ought to tell youhow many of them there are. It

(01:01:32):
is just it's very frustrating to havea species that when we have such big,
bold talk about bringing people into fishingand improving our fisheries, because everybody
who fishes, and a lot ofpeople who don't even fish, know that
that activity is very calming. It'svery soothing. It's very friendly and welcoming

(01:01:55):
in most places. And if youstep on somebody favorite spot and they get
mad at you, that's on them. They've got other issues in their life.
But by and large, the peopleyou meet fishing in public places are
pretty friendly and pretty nice and prettyhelpful when they're asked to be very frustrating
to have this fish out there orthis bird out there eating so many of

(01:02:22):
these fish that could be used formuch better purpose, used for much better
purpose than to feed these nasty,ugly birds. And even if they were
beautiful, I wouldn't care and chantedas I mentioned the protection and the first
mentions of them in the United Statesin North America come in nineteen eighteen,

(01:02:45):
and then it fast forwards kind ofto twenty twenty when there was legislation passed
to develop a permitting system to getrid of them in places that went into
effecting February of twenty twenty one,and then in January of twenty twenty two,
just two years ago those the permitprocess was tweaked a little bit fine

(01:03:09):
tuned to make it more user friendly. In other words, we know we
got a problem. We just don'tknow how to fix it, and we
don't want to bother with it thatwe being the federal government. So they've
made it. And this is theinteresting thing that I saw in there,
says in January twenty two, twentytwenty two, the permit process and I'm

(01:03:31):
paraphrasing, was tweaked for cormorants andpop quiz pop quiz adam, what's the
other species on the list. It'salso you can get permits to shoot some
of them if need be, becausethey become a nuisance where you are.
Fine, Armadillo's No, it's abird. It's another bird, big bird

(01:03:55):
looking big, big big bird.Pelicans is superior, big big bird with
whitehead and brown feathers. Oh itcan't be eagles. You can, absolutely
can. Yeah, up in theNorthwest and all the way up into Alaska
and stuff northwest. In Alaska,eagles hang out at garbage dumps. There's
so much for them to eat there, and their populations are such that apparently

(01:04:18):
they're they're persona non grata in alot of places up in the Northwest.
Oh. Yeah, you can getpermits. I don't want one. I
think we have a nesting pair atblack Hawk Country Club and I don't want
it going. They're beautiful, they'refantastic birds. I love watching them hunt.
I love watching them catch a fishor a squirrel or whatever, or

(01:04:42):
standing under that nest one day talkingto somebody and this little thing is kind
of falling down on a very calmday, and this little something was falling
from the nest down and it actuallylanded on my arm, and you know
what it was at them, itwas squirrel fur about that squirrel fur all
right seven three to two. Hewon two five to seven. Ninety email
on me, dougpick At, iHeartMediadot Com. Didn't want to talk about

(01:05:04):
it, Adam. Oh, well, that was Bob and he just wanted
to apologize for bringing up hit cormorants. Oh no, no, I'm glad
he did. I did some researchand I'm glad I did that too.
The habitat it says here blah blahblahe aquatic bodies big enough to support their
mostly fish diet. However, theymay roost and form breeding colonies on smaller

(01:05:26):
lagoons or ponds. They did thaton a neighborhood pond very close to Blackhawk
once, and there were hundreds ofthem and the stench must have been horrible,
horrible. Here's another downside of thesebirds. They're somewhat like geese in
this way. They will roost elsewhere, and then to reach a feeding area,

(01:05:50):
they will fly as far as fortymiles. So if they might be
they might be feeding at Blackhawk oneweek and then roosting in where's forty miles
from there? Long ways down?Huh, that's pretty good ways away at
Lee, I would say at leastout to maybe Hockley or farther, and

(01:06:15):
it'd be really hard to control themif you were trying to follow them back
to their roost. I don't evenknow that geese will fly. They'll fly
fifteen to twenty miles to fee,but not forty. But you see these
cormorants all the time. That sayshere they will. But after fishing,
cormorants retired a high airy purchase todry off and tost their meals, rocks,
wires, tops of dead trees,ship masts. Boy, if I

(01:06:39):
had a ship with a mast andit was and there were cormorants on there,
they wouldn't be there for long.I'd find a way to discourage them.
They tend to form breeding colonies.Do tell Yeah, here's another charming
fact about them. Then I'm gonnago to a break, says here.

(01:07:00):
After a while, masses of cormorantguano may kill these trees, and the
trees may topple, at which pointthe cormorants may switch to nesting on the
ground. Oh great, they're virtuallyunstoppable. In other words, once they're
here, somebody needs to do somethingabout these things. Oh, here's another

(01:07:24):
charming Cormorans died is almost all fish, which with just a few insects,
crustaceans or amphibians. They eat awide variety of fish, more than two
hundred and fifty species they eat andhave this impressive fishing technique. Blah blah
blah. It's getting more and morefrustrating to watch this clutch size one to

(01:07:46):
seven eggs, number of broods oneto two broods per year, egg length
all that. Who cares about theegg length? How about flat? That'd
be great for a cornor and egg. And that's the only animal that I
really have that much for which Ihad that much disdain, But boy,
I got a heap of it forthem. They just I like to take

(01:08:08):
the little kids fishing, and they'reeating the fish that these little kids could
catch in huge quantities. So they'renot my friend. I'll step back from
the cormorant podium, the big soapboxbox on which I've stood for the past
ten minutes, and we'll move forwardwhen we get back. Holy cow,
I do get worked up over thesedog on things, and I don't want

(01:08:30):
to sit downe with Somebody send mea picture of it cormoran and eating a
fish again, please, It justputs me in a foul mood. On
the way out, I'll put youin a better mood. Talking about black
Horse Golf Club two courses, theNorth and the South. They're on Fry
Road about I don't know, threefour miles south of two ninety and about
the same distance east of ninety nine, more or less. Once you get

(01:08:54):
into the facility and you go parkyour car in the parking lot and walk
into the clubhouse, you'll realize whata good place you are if you like
the game of golf. There aretwo golf courses on the property, the
North and the South. Totally differentpersonalities between the two, and they are
fantastic challenges to your golf game.It play from the proper tea box.

(01:09:15):
Don't try to be a hero andgo back to the tips. If you
can only drive the ball two hundredyards, you're just not gonna have as
much fun. Golf is supposed tobe fun. Let it be. Don't
get worked up over a bad shot. If you hit more bad shots than
good ones by all means, goto the other end of the range and
get a lesson. A couple oflessons maybe, but otherwise, just you

(01:09:38):
and your buddies have to find away to make it fair for everybody and
have a little a little something ridingon at a candy bar or whatever,
and then tee it up and havea good time at black Horse. The
golf course won't disappoint you. Ican assure you. Both courses are always
in as good a shape as theycan possibly be, depending on the weather
and the season. Open year round. They keep them really, really nice.

(01:10:00):
Those greens tend to roll pretty fasttoo. They do that. Blackhorse
Golf Club dot com. Just thispast year they got a new superintendent,
they got a new chef and anew golf pro at black Horse Golf Club.
You could become a member there bythe way, there's a membership option
that gets you discounts in the proshop, preferred tea times, and unlimited

(01:10:21):
practice where you can either take somelessons and get better or you can just
get really really good at making thatswing you make now. Black Horsegolf Club
dot com. That's black Horse goolfClub dot com. This is Sports Talk
seven ninety breaking sports news on Facebooktwenty four to seven. We'll get that
information to them. This is theDoug Fike Show. I covered the rodeo

(01:10:44):
for several years from the newspaper andhaving all that access behind the scenes and
behind the walls and all of thatstuff. There's some pretty tough dudes,
every one of them. Trying tomake a living that way for one thing,
and then just trying to stay ona bull or a crazy horse for
eight seconds. That's that's no picniceither. And some of those bull rider

(01:11:09):
they're not big guys. The bullriders are relatively small human beings and tough
as nails too. It's pretty coola lot. It was a lot of
fun covering that event, believe me. And I went out there as much
as I could, almost every nightsometimes. All right, Joe, what's
up, buddy? Hey man,good morning. I'm sorry my voice mess

(01:11:30):
up, my sins just kicking mybutt, but I'm right with you,
bud. Yeah. And I wasat a couple of questions. Uh,
one, I know that you don'tlike talking about those birds, but do
they have them in Louisiana. Oh, they're all over North America, all
over North America. I guarantee youthey are. I'm surprised, honestly,
I'm surprised the cages haven't come upfor the recipe for him yet. And

(01:11:51):
they probably have one. Yeah,man, you know what, years ago
they did a they did a gatheringof the top chefs in the country and
asked them to come up with theirbest nutrient recipes. And one of them
was like, I can't remember thephraseology of it, but it it translated

(01:12:15):
to big rat on a stick andit was just a kind of a skeward
thing, like a shish kebab typedeal. I think that won the whole
contest. And maybe if we couldshine some light on them and maybe get
somebody involved who it was part ofthat or maybe part of the big black
and redfish craze from a long timeago, maybe we can find a way

(01:12:39):
to get rid of these things.Yeah, the you know, their diet
being all fish. I wonder howabout their eggs. I wonder if they
would be good to eat or not. You know, I can't imagine any
bird that eats mostly fish being goodat all, because I know what a
spoon bill tastes like when it's beendown on the coast for a few weeks

(01:12:59):
eating snails, and I wouldn't putthat on anybody. Well, have you
also, maybe, I mean,if you can't beat them and join them,
I mean make a T shirt,Yeah, T shirt with you,
you know, looking one of thosebirds, and then giving the money to
charity or something. You know,that's not a bad idea. I've got
a shirt company I might go toand see if we can come up with

(01:13:19):
a T shirt like that, Ireally do, and yeah, raise some
money for for not cormorants. Yeah, even for hoodies. You could put
them on hoodies. I mean,I know I would buy a bunch of
them. Okay, So man,that'd be a good idea. All right,
brother yourself. You know, ifI get this going, Joe,
the first thing I'm gonna do getgive Adam your number or Adam, hey,

(01:13:43):
grab his number. Can you dothat for me while we're finishing up
this conversation. Yeah, just becauseif I get this going, I'm gonna
send you the first one off thepress. What size you need? Man,
be a double X double X?Oh? I like that, man,
fish God, Well, what weneed is a cormorant recipe that cagus
will will buy. I'm not eatingone of those dang things, but maybe

(01:14:09):
could come. Yeah, there area whole lot of things that cages and
I'm half cagun. That's why Ican say this because I know this.
I know a lot of I knowa lot of way down South Louisy and
the Cage's Way North Louisy, CannonLouisian occasions, and they're not a whole
lot sitting on the side of theroad on a Monday morning that they won't
swing by and check to make sureit's too far gone to eat. Yeah,

(01:14:31):
they're good people, all right,man, Thanks Joe, I see
buddy, Oh you got it atthem? It's right, okay, good,
perfect number inside. We got tohave that double XL when when I
get these shirts going, I knowexactly who I'm gonna call on this,
and uh, we're gonna find away and we're gonna yeah, and I
got to figure out where I wantthe money to go because I got a

(01:14:54):
hunch we can sell a bunch ofthese, and I'm gonna have to come
up with a good design. Ihave a great design team I can go
to on this. H Joe,you might be onto something, my friend,
he just might be onto something.Seven one three, two one two
five seven ninety. We're gonna makelemon aid out of lemons, cormorant lemons.

(01:15:16):
Oh boy, this is gonna befun. It's gonna be so fun,
guys, and settle. Okay,Adam, there's Joe's stuff. That's
good. Mark by the way,Mark all the way over in Georgia,
former Texan now but still the thelone star still flows through his veins.

(01:15:39):
Yeah. He sent me a linkto the Cormorant Protection web page. Let
me see if it's worth even talkingabout the conflict. All that it is
is this. This paper analyzes theconflicting management goals for the double crested cormorant
in Canada and the United States.Doing so, it answers these questions.
Blah blah blah ah. Oh,that's a lot of reading. If the

(01:16:03):
shrill noise out in the main partof this office has dissipated and well gone
away completely, I can't listen toit another time. But if it's finished,
I'm gonna go out to my deskafter this show and read this whole
thing and kind of figure it out. It might give me some ideas of
what to do with that cormorant.We might be like facing off, like

(01:16:26):
me facing a cormorant as though wewere MMA fighters, not taking my shirt
off. That would be embarrassing,That would swing the advantage probably to the
cormorant. That would Yeah, peoplewouldn't. Nobody's buying that shirt. But
we could come up with something.I'm sure we can come up with something.
I just and it's not I don'tever. I don't really want to

(01:16:50):
see any species eradicated, but Ido believe there is room for control.
I most certainly believe there is roomfor control of a species that we all
know is eating us out of houseand home when it comes to fisheries on
anybody of water. I've talked aboutthis on the show before, and I'll

(01:17:12):
say it again before we have togo to this last break. Years ago,
years ago, when cormorants were firstbecoming a recognized problem, when there
were people catfishing on Lake Livingstone beneaththe trees where the cormorants roosted, because
there was so much of their guanofalling into the water that big catfish were

(01:17:34):
coming around to digest the nutrients thatwere still in that guano when it hit
the water. And that's just theepitome of nasty as far as I'm concerned.
But the bottom line is, therewere a lot of big catfish caught
from under those trees, and itwas kind of weird. There were magazine

(01:17:55):
stories written about it. It justI asked one time, early on in
the permitting era, I asked aguy who worked at one of our state
fisheries fish hatcheries, what their policywas about cormorants on the growout ponds,

(01:18:16):
because these, for the same reasonthey show up at the little lake eye
fish to eat the small shad.Once they get big enough to chase down
and eat and get something out ofthem, they show up at these hatcheries
too. They'll put two hundred thousandlittle bitty fish in there, and then
the cormorants show up. And Isaid, how do y'all deal with that?
Deal with that? He said,on the record? Are off?

(01:18:40):
And I said on the record.He said, well, we have these
nets we put out to try todiscourage the bird from getting in the water
and eating our fish. I said, okay, I put my pen down
off the record number fours and Iunderstood what he meant. And that was
a lot. I couldn't tell whoit was on the bed. It was
thirty twenty five years ago at leastprobably when we talk about this, and

(01:19:02):
they were a big problem on LakeLivington then were and they became big problems
on pretty much every lake you havethat has fish in it, that fish
those birds can find. It's veryfrustrating that I would love to see some
sort of open season on them.But the problem is that when they're roosting
forty miles potentially from their food source, when they're on so much private water,

(01:19:30):
it would be hard, I guess. And you could probably if there
was enough effort put forth, youcould move them. You could discourage them
to the point that they just lefta lot of the big public water bodies.
But you also you can't turn youcan't turn people with shotguns loose on
these lakes where other people might befishing or water skiing or swimming or playing

(01:19:54):
or whatever. It's not it won'tbe a small hill to climb, but
there's gotta be some way. There'sjust got to be some way to at
least minimize the damage that these birdscontinue to inflict on our fisheries. And
that's over the entire continent. It'snot just right here in our backyard.

(01:20:15):
Someday, someday, Man, I'vegiven a lot of time to these cormorants.
Today, they're gonna make me.They're gonna make some charity happy or
some conservation costs happy. Though.Once I get these T shirt T shirts
dialed in, boy, yeah,we're gonna we're gonna move them, and
we're gonna we're gonna shine a bigbright light on those nasty, ugly birds.

(01:20:38):
Yeah. I'm trying to find somebeauty in a cormorant, so I
don't have so much disdain for them, but I haven't found it yet.
We'll take a little break here,we'll be right back on the way out.
I'll tell you about American Shooting Centers. Speaking of American Shooting Centers has
been owned and operated by a mannamed Eda Riggy for many years now,
and since he took the reins,since he invested in that property, he

(01:21:01):
has done nothing but improve it tothe point that it is now the biggest
non military shooting facility in the entirestate. There are three sporting clays courses.
Most places only have one because sportingclays can be changed at all.
The la la la, I feellike having three golf courses on the same
property. He's got three sporting clayscourses. He's got five stands setups throughout

(01:21:24):
the property. He's got I thinkit's ten or twelve trapping skiep fields.
He's got a beginner's wing shooting areathat's great for kids or adults who haven't
tried to hit something moving before.There are rifle and pistol benches from five
yards to six hundred yards. That'sa long difference between the two, and

(01:21:46):
it's fun. If you really wantto see what competitive shooting looks like and
really dialed in accurate to long range, go to that six hundred yard range
some morning and just watch. Bringa lawn chair and just sit out there
and watch the people who are doingthat and look down range at a target
that's gonna look like the head ofa pen. Basically, that's all there.

(01:22:11):
That's all that's out there. Sixhundred yards pretty far. It's kind
of fun to watch. If you'renot shooting as well as you'd like,
but you love the shooting sports andyou're just tired of missing targets, get
some instruction. They have professional instructionavailable all the time out there for any
shooting discipline. It's a really great, fun, safe environment to enjoy the

(01:22:32):
shooting sports. Always eyes on everybodyout there to make sure everybody stays safe.
American Shooting Centers dot com, Westtim Or Parkway between Katie and Highway
six. American Shootingcenters dot com ninety. This is Sports Talk seven ninety Houston
Sports online at Sports seven ninety dotcom. Back to the Doug Fike Show.

(01:22:57):
No more corm rants at all.Okay, I got that, I
got that. I got this.What's Lyle got on his mind? Walking
in the park last week? Thiswhite bird flew in. Sorry for the
poor pitt qualities wanting me to identifya picture of a bird. Let me
see what I got. Let's seewhat we got here. It says it's
blurry, so it may be justa snowball. I don't know. Oh

(01:23:20):
that's a white pelican. Yeah,that's just a big old white pelican on
migration headed back north. They willeat fish as well, and I was
under the impression for much of mylife that the pelicans were diving feeders.

(01:23:42):
However, after watching a big bunchof them join the cormorant parade at my
little bass fishing lake. As ifwe didn't already have enough problems with the
cormorants, remember about forty maybe bigwhite pelicans moved in for a week or
so on their way back north,and they absolutely definitely will feed moving forward,

(01:24:09):
just like the cormorants, moving anddiving and moving and diving. And
it's not so much they're diving tomove the fish forward and pin them down
in shallow water, but once theyget there, then they're just stabbing their
beaks into the water and picking offfish and highly efficient feeders as well.

(01:24:30):
I don't know. At least thebig white pelic pelicans are kind of cool
to look at. They're a decentlooking bird, but they're doing the same
thing the fisheries, just in smallernumbers. I'm not sure what the population
is of them, but I canalmost without hesitation, say that there are
fewer of them than there are thosenasty old birds that I don't like.

(01:24:55):
Get me out of here. Igot to go find something else that to
talk about, For heaven's sakes,I don't want that. I'll talk about
golf for a second. I'll goback to golf. Because I was listening
on the way in, as Ialmost always do on a Sunday morning,
to the PGA Tour Network. Thesetwo older instructors talking about this, that
and the other, and occasionally talkingabout. One of them talks a lot

(01:25:15):
about his old playing days and howhe's not as good as he used to
be, but he's still pretty good, and on and on and on.
But one of the things they weretalking about this morning is clubhead speed and
ball speed, and how so manyplayers these days are just in love with
hitting it farther and farther and fartherand farther, and how frustrating that can

(01:25:40):
be for a lot of people whoare have always in their lives as young
people, been athletic. They mayhave played baseball, they may have played
football or golf or tennis or someother game, basketball, whatever, run
track. They're athletic. But whenthey start swinging a golf club, it
doesn't come nearly so easily as theirfavorite sport had been for them to conquer,

(01:26:03):
And in their frustration, they startmaking adjustments, because that's how a
lot of athletes try to do.They try to train themselves up a little
bit rather than go take lessons,which you might not be able to do,
either because the money's too much,or you just your pride's in the
way, or for whatever reason.You don't go take a lesson. You

(01:26:24):
just try to fix it yourself,and consequently just make adjustment after adjustment after
adjustment until you look like one ofthose one of those air powered weirdo things
out in front of an insurance companywhen they're trying to attract your attention when
you're driving down the street, thosebig, tall, fifteen to twenty foot
tall moving crazy things. That's I'veseen golf swings that look like that.

(01:26:48):
What they emphasize that I will emphasizeas well at some point even And here's
the beauty of the internet. Oneof the good things about the Internet.
There's a lot of bad things aboutit, but the good things is there
actually are on the internet some legitimateswing helping tips from legitimate instructors. Now,

(01:27:09):
if you're going to some site that'syou've never heard of this person and
and they don't have really any credentialsthat they want to talk about on their
website, but they want to giveyou golf tips, double check before you
start doing what they're telling you todo, and vet them out a little

(01:27:30):
bit. But if you can findand they're on there, even some of
the best instructors in the country aregiving out in online some really good advice
basic advice. Now they're not goingto tell all their secrets, and they're
not gonna they're not going to tellyou that any instructor who tells you if
you just do this, you whoeveryou are, will hit a perfect t

(01:27:56):
shot every time, or you willstart to draw the ball. You'll you'll
be able to fade the ball,or you'll be able to hit your iron
shots higher and farther and straighter,and all of this with a one size
fits all swing run it's not possible. You can't do that, but if
you can find a few things that'llhelp you and start. Rather than rather
than trying to get your help onlinewith a driver swing, for example,

(01:28:21):
or for any full swing, maybego for more help with putting and chipping
online because those things are going tobe a little easier for you to mimic
than trying to see, even inslow motion, the subtle things that are
going on with a full swing ingolf that you might want to say,

(01:28:44):
for a couple of real lessons,with real live instructors two feet away from
you, who can reach out andtouch your shoulders and say no, turn
them this way. All kinds ofways to skin that cat. And golf
and most of them will fail youif you give them long enough. I've
man when I was at the paper. Every time I would go to a
charity tournament, the head probe comeout and want to talk to me and

(01:29:06):
say hi. And I love visitingwith all of them, but they couldn't
help themselves because they're teachers by nature, and so they would say, hey,
let me see you make a fewswings. See what I see.
And I just cringed because there's onlyone guy I trusted back then, and
one guy really ultimately that I wouldtrub well too. Now I could think
of maybe a third. But backin that part of my life, Jim

(01:29:29):
Murphy, who is still at SugarCreek Country Club. Still, I was
going over there and practicing a goodbit. I had access to the tea
range or the tea line there atleast to go practice and the practice tea.
And Jim, I don't know thathe ever gave me a formal lesson.
We never stood there and talked foran hour and made swings. But

(01:29:49):
he had seen me. He justwatched me hit enough golf balls and every
now and they'd come by and say, hey, you got to do this.
Okay, I'll do that and itworked out great. I could actually
call him and say, hey,Jim, the ball's doing this, and
he would be able to tell mewhat was wrong with my swinning. And
it worked good. Instructions worth sweightand gold. And I still hate cormorants.

(01:30:11):
All right, that's gonna wrap itup for today. Another beautiful day.
Get outside, Go take some picturesof birds other than cormorants. Take
the family out, Go play somegolf, Go catch a fish, go
do something in the outdoors. Butwatch out for those spiders and wasp and
snakes and whatever else. We've hada lot of tarantulas yesterday. Huh.

(01:30:33):
That'll do it for me. I'llbe back Tuesday on KPRC at noon for
fifty plus. Back in here atseven am next Saturday. Join me if
you can bring some friends. Thanksfor listening. Be safe, audios.