The Doug Pike Show 10-6-2024

In this episode Doug talks about rainbow trout, bass, blue marlin, and blue gill fish. Doug comments on FEMA and white bass fish. Do you know how to keep kids attention while fishing? Doug will tell you how in this episode. If you fish in Louisiana and cross back into Texas what are your fishing limits? 
How small are fly fish hooks? You'll be surprised, I couln't beleive my eyes. Dove updates from McAllen, Tx, water/wind updates on Galveston, and Hurricane updates on Florida.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the Doug Pike Show, brought to you by
American Shooting Centers Guns Shooting an instruction since nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now Here's Doug Pike. Sunday Morning.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Condition of the program starts right now. Thank you all
for listening. I certainly do appreciate it. We have got
a lot going on, not just around here, but all
around the Gulf of Mexico. And it's boy, I'm really
worried about my friends over in Florida right now. There
is yet another hurricane just still. They're still rocked from

(00:36):
what Helene did. And now we've gotten Milton. Tropical Storm
Milton has swirled up into the Gulf of Mexico and
is projected to make landfall on the west.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Coast of Florida. They're not really sure where.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
The cone at this point goes all the way from
the top of Florida to the bottom basically pretty much
from Pensacola to Key West.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
And somewhere along that way, all.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Of which has been got hammered. Just wasn't that long
ago by Helene. All of that that area is in
the is in the zone, is in the cone, if
you will, And someplace is going to take a hard hit.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I feel horrible for them.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
I feel thankful that it's not coming our way, not
gonna hit Louisiana, not gonna hit Mississippi, Alabama. But man,
what a mess that's gonna be of Florida. And if
you're if you're a prayerful person, I would highly recommend
that you you just tack on everybody in Florida, because
what it appears that it's gonna do is go straight

(01:44):
across Florida, use Florida as kind of a speed bump,
and then just barrel out into the Atlantic Ocean, and
who knows what it'll do from there. Hopefully it'll fall
apart as it goes across Florida. If it skips over
Florida and then starts running back north, there's no telling
them what might happen with that thing. Not trying to
be a doomsday advocate or anything. I'm just trying to

(02:05):
be Oh, I'm just worried about those people over there,
as what I am really.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
So here we are.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
This may be the last let's come back our way
for a little better news.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Probably the last day.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Well possibly, I won't say probably, because I'll jinx it
and I don't really believe in that. But I just
say it this today and tomorrow, maybe the last two
days we see with high temperatures in the nineties for
the whole year, we might be actually, we might be
actually turning into fall. There's no rain in the forecast

(02:42):
the whole week either, so ninety degrees degrees tomorrow, then
mid eighties for highs and equally welcome overnight lows in
the mid sixties all the way through next week. I
didn't look any farther out because I didn't want to
make it. I didn't want to find add news at
the end of that rainbow. I wanted to leave the

(03:03):
pot of gold right where it was. We'll see how
it works. The field on which Southeast Texas plays its games.
This may be a false start. Think about it. We've
had this before. We had the eighties, not what a
week and a half ago, but there we were right
back in the nineties for three, four, five, six days.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I don't know how many it was.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
This field that Southeast Texas plays its game of four
seasons on, which is kind of we have about we
either have two seasons or we have twenty seasons. Two
seasons would be just summer and winter, with varying degrees
of those two at any possible day of the year.
And then there's the one hundred season year where you

(03:47):
get three days of hot, three days of cool, then
maybe a day of warm or two or three or whatever.
There's just false start yellow flags all over the field.
You think it's fall, but it's not. You think it's summer,
but it's not. Well, mostly it is summer. The only
real we get November freezes we get I don't know

(04:07):
if we've had October freezes. I bet we have at
some point in history, recorded history. We get eighty five
ninety degrees on Christmas Day. I can remember a couple
of days. Yeah, Melvous nod In has head too. If
you've lived here long enough, you've been able to go
out in short pants, a T shirt and flip flops

(04:29):
or tennis shoes and go ride your new bicycle on
Christmas Day. Most consistent thing about this region, and pardon
the cliche, though, the consistent thing about this region's weather
is it's say it.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
With me inconsistency.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Inconsistency speaking of hurricanes with a side of golf. Saw
a story yesterday out of Augusta, Georgia, specifically, out of
Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, which took
a pretty good to hit it sell from Hurricane Helen.
There will be a ninetieth Masters. There's no worries about that.

(05:05):
The news release had nothing to do with the tournament.
That's a long ways out. That will be where is
it April seventh, twenty twenty five. But what they did
is announced from Augusta National Golf Club to the region
over there five million dollar donation to the Hurricane Helen
Relief Fund, which will greatly help those communities.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
And I tell you, if I'm really I'm really.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Worried about what's going on over there, and then we'll
get to local fishing, because I know that's what you
guys want to hear about. But I saw yet another
story yesterday about how the federal government has gone in
and there are all these supplies, there are all these
people over there wanting to help the victims of Helene.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
And they're being shut down.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
Their supplies are being stowed away by FEMA, by members
of the federal government. And I pray that that's not true,
but I've seen it from several sources now, So somebody
wants to look all that up. While I'm yapping in here.
I would be happy to look at emails or take

(06:15):
a phone call. But that what I saw, or what
I heard yesterday, what I heard and read, really disturbed
me about how that whole relief effort over there is
being handled. And if what I heard is true, it's
it's just disgusting. It absolutely is. There's no reason for it,
no reason for it whatsoever. Seven one three two one

(06:35):
two five seven ninety Email me Doug Pike at iHeartMedia Dot.
Come by the way, at nine o'clock, we are going
to make a phone call to Billy Brown, the guy
who owns Big Easy Ranch, and I'm going to talk
to him about well, about a couple of things.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
That place has just kind of come onto the map
in a very short time to be one of the
most I don't know, I don't know how to really
describe it. It is a combination of big game hunting
and golf and fine dining and just spectacular views and

(07:12):
all these things. It's very much it's a very mixed
very It's a mixed valure bag.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
No, it's not. What is it silk?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
It's a mixed silk bag because it's It's very everything
that Billy Brown touches, he doesn't let go of until
it's absolutely perfect and the best it can be. Are
those are his two standards. Is it perfect, well, he's
going to get as close as he can, certainly. And
is it tops in its class? Yeah, sure is so. Anyway,

(07:45):
he's very proud of something that's almost done. I posted
a picture yesterday last night, and the well, I'll let
him tell you when we talked to him at nine o'clock.
This was kind of a pet project of his. He'd
been thinking about it and wanting to do it for
a long long time. And it was probably close to
nine months or a year ago when construction even started

(08:06):
on this particular piece of that ranch.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
And it's almost done. It's almost done.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
And he had eight of us out there, well, two employees,
one golf architect who I got to drive around, which
was amazing. The man who has put together some of
the most beautiful golf courses in the entire country, Chet Williams.
I was driving him around while the two of us
played golf alongside two more good friends of mine from

(08:35):
the golf industry, and I got to pick his brain
a little bit and what I learned was I couldn't focus,
I couldn't listen as much as I wanted to. So
what I'm going to do is go back and at
some point in the near future I'll get Chet Williams
on the phone to talk about how he goes about
designing a golf course, because he has put together some
of the best, some of the best in the whole country. Frankly,

(08:57):
and anybody who knows his courses would know that I'm
not exaggerating in the least on that. So much going
on White Mass, I know faux pros got him still
where he is. Although the most recent trip he took
with a friend of mine, man Lane Rix.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
He and Lane Rix went out and.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
I want to say, he said something like we caught
forty seven but only a few keepers, And I thought, hey, man,
you got to quit whining about catching forty seven fish.
You gotta focus. You got to see the prize. You've
lost sight of the prize. You and Lane caught forty
seven white bass and probably some other stuff too. Forty

(09:41):
seven fish is not a bad day. I don't care
what they were, I don't care what size they were.
Forty seven fish, for the record, that's a really good
day of fishing, because a half of people who are
listening to this program, including myself and including you two,
have had days when you didn't catch for fish and
you wore. It's a lot harder to not catch four

(10:02):
fish than you did to catch forty seven. If you're
catching forty seven fish, I don't care what species they are.
If you're catching forty seven, they're practically jumping in the boat.
That's a lot of fish, man, that's a whole lot
of fish. I don't care if they're little hand sized
blue gills and red ears. I don't care if they're

(10:24):
sailfish down off Cozamel and Cancun.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
I don't care what it boy. There were days when
you could do that too.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
I remember a few when it seemed like the sailfish
would just never stop. The little Atlantic sailfish down there
in the golf of Mexico and Caribbean. They're fun, they
really are. They're a lot of fun. You can catch
them on trout tackle. Basically, they don't weigh but a
handful of pounds. They're little, but they're fun, and they're
fast and they jump like crazy. A lot of fun

(10:53):
to catch any fish. I don't care blue marlin, blue gill,
everything from top to bottom. I saw a picture of
a guy in the boat with a blue marlin that
I want to say. I want to say the way
was nine something. I saw that picture two days ago
and I forgot to talk about it yesterday. But there
are to think that there are that fish that big,

(11:17):
swimming around in the ocean and chasing down. What amazes
me about blue marlin is that to get that size,
they have to chase down the things that they like
to eat. And the things they like to eat and
can chase down include tuna, include other billfish, and I'm
not talking about little ones.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
I'll one more time.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
I'll go back to that story I wrote years ago
for the paper about there were some stomach surveys done
on blue marlin what do they eat? And some biologists
got together and made the rounds to a lot of
big marlin tournaments and were granted access to those fish

(11:58):
after they were officially wade and whatnot, and the stomach contents.
For there was a blue marlin taken off I want
to say, the Bahamas that had a five foot long
white marlin hole in its stomach, and there was one
Pacific blue about the same size, about six hundred and
six fifty that had either it was either a seventy

(12:20):
or ninety I can't remember. Let's go with seventy because
that sounds more realistic. Kind of a seventy something pound
yellowfin tuna hole in its stomach and still ate a
lure like, Oh, okay, man, I just finished a bill
tomahawk steak. Let's have a pie. Let's just eat a

(12:41):
whole pie to put it on top of that. It's
fisher amazing. And then you go down to the other
end of the scale where if you're fishing for rainbow trout,
there are flies that imitate insects, and those little flies
that I fished with them before too.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
You could put a hundred of them in a thimble.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
They're tied on number twenty twenty two, twenty four hooks,
extremely small. I want your reaction to this, Melvin. During
the break, I want you to look up size twenty
two rainbow trout flies and I want you to do it,
and you'll see some perspective shots where they'll they'll put
some next to a dime or something like that, and

(13:24):
I want you to just look at those and tell
me what you think when we get back.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
On the way out. I remember that song so well
with oh my gosh, he developed poison ivy.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
It goes on and on and on through all these
things that are going on at camp and going wrong
at camp. Yeah, if you got three minutes to kill
at some point today, look it up online.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
I'm sure you could find it.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety Email
me Doug Pike atiheartmedia dot com.

Speaker 2 (13:55):
Did you ever go to summer camps?

Speaker 4 (13:57):
Melvin?

Speaker 2 (13:57):
I sure did it? Did you?

Speaker 5 (13:59):
Now?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Where'd you?

Speaker 6 (14:00):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (14:00):
I went to camp onward? Where's that? It was in Mississippi?

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Okay? And what did y'all do? Oh? My goodness. We
had so much fun.

Speaker 7 (14:11):
They would have us, since I was a great swimmer,
take a bunch of us and we would go and
grab the crab nets in the lake. Yes, we would
go out in the golf and the golf in the
golf and grab those crab nets. And of course they're
full of eels and all kinds of other sea urchins,

(14:33):
creatures and creatures and everything else. But when we came back,
we had a crawfish boil. Okay, well, yeah, boil crab
and we just had a whole bunch of fun. It
was all, you know, just different cabins and swimming. Sounds
like people were making you do their work for them.
That's what it sounds like to me. Of course, the
little child labor. You gotta spin it.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
You know, Hey, we're gonna let you have all the
fun that we usually have ourselves. Start swimming. You see
that big orange float out there, go get it dragged back.
It was at least a mile out. It's gonna be
a little heavy, right, Well, you know, off the Mississippi coast, though,
my goodness, you can wade out. You can wade out
a quarter mile and never get your belly button wet
on a calm day.

Speaker 7 (15:15):
And yeah, absolutely right, because as you're going out, there's
a little bit of sand dunes that show. Yeah, you
run into and then all of a sudden you standing
up tall, and then before you know it, you go
ten more feet in.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Boom, you drop down it down, you go between those bars.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
It's no different if you look at the sand dunes
and say, in the Middle East they get that wavy look, Oh,
that's exactly what and that's from wind blowing over them
when the tide washes over a sand bottom. It creates
the same peaks and valleys, and it's sandbars and troughs,
and that's all The fish kind of hang out in

(15:50):
the bottom of the in the bottom of those troughs
and just wait for something to skid her off the
edge of that top.

Speaker 8 (15:56):
M m m.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
That makes me want to go back down to Corpus
and do some more fishing.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
There you go. I saw a video yesterday.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
I'm pretty sure it was from Florida. I can't I
can't guarantee it. I'm pretty sure it was from Florida,
but it was of a guy standing right there on
the beach throwing a big spinning rod, which is one
reason that makes me think it was Florida, although there
are more of them down there now in around Corpus
than I would have expected. The bottom line was this
guy was bringing, just dragging onto the dry sand. Finally

(16:27):
a snook that probably weighed It wasn't a giant, but
it was probably twelve or fifteen pounds, and that is
a really good snook and during the right season, a
really good fish to eat, one of the best that
swims in the sea. I got to talking about that
with Billy Brown around a little or dervs we had

(16:48):
after our round of golf out there at Big Easy Ranch,
because he shares my passion for fishing.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Oh, I got to go back to you, Melvin. Did
you look up those little flies? I sure did? And
how big are they?

Speaker 3 (16:58):
How many could you put on the last little joint
of your index.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Finger A bunch, say about maybe three? Three? They were small?

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Yeah, they're smaller than you could put twenty on your
finger if you could ballot it, you could just have
to stick the hook in you.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 7 (17:17):
Yeah, they at least two fit on the head of
the dime of Eisenhower.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Oh easy, easy man. What sizes were those that you
were looking at? Twenty two's okay? Yeah, they're more than
two on ahead of a dime, and.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
It depends a lot. Well, the hook is what's so small?

Speaker 3 (17:33):
I'm not giving you credit for you were doing the
research and looking at the fly itself, which actually is
that size. You're right, you're exactly right. But the little
hooks they're tied on. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
Now.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
I'm I'm old enough that my eyes aren't what they
used to be. Up close, I would need a microscope
to try to tie those flies. It's just they're so
little and so frail that now the hooks themselves. I
guarantee you could put probe two hundred of them in
a thimble, would you agree?

Speaker 2 (18:02):
You?

Speaker 7 (18:02):
Yeah, yeah, I agree, Because not only that there was
smaller sizes.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
It went down to a twenty eight.

Speaker 9 (18:07):
Oh gosh, yeah, you can hardly even see though, So
I was like, oh my goodness, that'll be two dollars, right,
I have to put my glasses on top of my glasses,
no kidding, I have to line up three or four
pairs of glasses just to see a twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
I didn't even realize they went down that small. Yeah,
but that's what those rainbow trout when it's when it's
that time that when those certain insects are hatching, what
they're all the flies that are tied for rainbow trout
basically are mimicking either either some sort of insect or
maybe well grasshopper, same thing. But anyway, that's when it's

(18:42):
fun when they're up eating those big grasshoppers, because it's
going to be generally a little bit bigger fish, and
and you get to see them come up and slurp
them off the top.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's kind of cool.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
But the insect larvae and insect nymphs and all that.
These these guys will get in the river to determine
which flight to throw. They'll get in the river with
these little, very fine mesh nets and let some of
the water roll through that net and then pick it up,
and whatever little larva and things they see, they go

(19:15):
to their well tackle. It's a little envelope basically of flies.
You open up and you pick the one that looks
like whatever you found crawling around in your net when
you picked it up. Totally different fishing, totally different fishing
than around here, but man is it fun. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety Email me Doug

(19:35):
Pocket iHeartMedia dot com. I got to do quite a
bit of that back probably from about fifteen years ago
to eighteen years ago. I was going up to Colorado
quite a bit for combination trips of either fishing and
golf or fishing and snowboarding. Tried to get in the

(19:57):
fishing part either way. Sometimes it will was too winnery
for golf, and sometimes it was too summary for fishing
or for snowboarding, but there was always something to do
up there in the mountains. It's beautiful. I don't know
if you've ever been up there. If you haven't, you
owe it to yourself. If you have, you know exactly
what I'm talking about. Always something to do. I had

(20:19):
a former producer, Melvin who you don't have to listen
real closely to this, but one of my early producers
had never caught a fish, never caught a fish, never
caught a fish. He finally, yeah, and he finally he
conceded that when I kept pressing him about it. On
the way to we were going to go up and

(20:40):
do a live broadcast from somewhere up in Colorado, I
don't remember. And when we got there, the people who
were hosting us had set up a fishing trip for
us with a guide, and the guy said, Okay, where
do you want to go? I said, I don't care
where I go. I want you to take that guy
and I want you to make him. I want you
to help him catch a fish on a flyer. He said, okay, yeah,

(21:01):
I can do that, and so a brief casting lesson,
I took off up river. I just walked up on
my own, and I had a pretty good idea what
I was looking for, and I caught.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Some fish, okay, but it wasn't. Twenty minutes later.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Twenty minutes later, I hear somebody walking up upriver and
kind of crashing through the bushes and stuff whatever, whatever, And.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
It's the guide and I'm looking around.

Speaker 3 (21:26):
Kid's name was al Fhar but he was very young man,
and he's gone on to have a very successful career
up in Dallas in radio. By the way, he hosts
his own shows and does club dates. He's a very
well known and respected DJ. Up there, I said, where's out?
Oh he caught a trout? Said it's great, man.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Where is He's he down there fishing hill?

Speaker 6 (21:44):
No?

Speaker 3 (21:45):
He said he was going to go back and take
a nap. What like goal, Lie, check the box, take
a nap.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
I just could.

Speaker 3 (21:53):
I was up there in a place that I would
consider some of the best trout water ever in the country.
Here I am on this beautiful river. There's it's loaded
with fish. It really is. It's just gold metal water.
And I'm up there working hard, trying to catch more fish.
He checks the box and then he's gonna he told it.
Told the guy said, well, okay, I'm good. I'm gonna

(22:15):
go ahead and go back to the truck and take
a nap. That truck must have wore him out. Yeah,
that probably it about a foot long. No, that wasn't
a blue marlin trout. It was just it was just
a standard issue, run of the mill rainbow trout. Not
a giant, not a dink, but just a rainbow trout.
And he'd had all he wanted.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
And that's okay.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
You know, fishing's not for everybody, and that's really good
because if it were, we probably wouldn't have any fish.
We'd have caught them all, we'd have caught the last
one by now. If everybody fished, pressure is higher than
it's ever been on these resources.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Maybe I'll talk about that in the next segment.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
What a balance the Parks and walleyfe Department has to
try to keep between satisfying everybody's wants and needs and
enough so that they keep buying fishing licenses, because without
that revenue, there's no research, there's no law enforcement, there's
no nothing. But you also have to you also have

(23:16):
to make sure that you take care of the fish.
You have to take care of the people, and you
have to take care of the fish. We'll talk about
that when we get back ninety.

Speaker 10 (23:25):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety Houston Sports online at
sports seven ninety dot com.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Back to the Doug Fikes Show.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Hey thirty six on Sports Talk seven to nine, Doug
Pike Show, Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Cam's got weighed in.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Cam's got the smallest and I'd forgotten about something else
to send this email.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
I'll take you a minute.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
The smallest of the small of the small is a
size thirty two hook, and I'd forgotten about this way
to tell what the trout we're eating. But some of
these trout fanatics will bring turkey basters with them and
when they catch a fish, they use that baster in
reverse to extract the stomach contents from those little trout

(24:07):
and see exactly what they're eating, because what that trout
ate is what the rest of the trout are.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Eating, too, and that gives them a chance.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Got an email from Lisa to and Lisa, I appreciate
you you weighing in on this. There are, like I said,
you go look for yourself to see if it's true,
and I hope it's not. But there are stories also
about the hurricane relief effort that's say that the federal
government's doing a fine job over there, and that some
of these sources that are saying they're not are wrong.

(24:36):
And that's why all week long on fifty plus, what
I will do is I will give you some information
that I've seen from various sources, and I talk about
it both ways, and then I encourage you to go
do your own reading and your own thinking. So thank you, Lisa,
I appreciate that and duly noted and duly reported. Now
I get into things that I out myself and found

(25:01):
to be relatively credible, and then sometimes there's contradictory evidence,
and I'm happy to talk about that as well. I
don't have a problem with that. I know, at least
both my audiences. I know most of you are certainly
capable of forming your own decisions, and I encourage that.

(25:22):
I'm not nobody on this planet is so important that
their opinion about anything really matters more than your own.
To you, You're the one who's got to live with
decisions you make. You're the one who's got to has
got to wake up the next morning and go to work,
or go play with the grandkids or whatever you do,

(25:43):
or take the dog for a walk.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
So make your own decisions. Read your own stuff and
figure it out from there.

Speaker 3 (25:49):
Seven one three, Thank you, Lisa, two one two five
seven ninety Email me Doug pick at iHeartMedia dot com
thirty two. I had forgotten about those. They are and
I'll send you to pick your Melbourne of one of
those little flies sitting on the pad of a finger,
and there's room.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Let's see, this.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Is kind of a little like a little nim for something.
There is room on that finger for probably I don't know,
two or three dozen flies that size. Get out of here.
I'll pop this over. Hold on, I'm gonna send it
right to you right now. That melt then come on this.
For some reason, this thing, it makes me click it

(26:29):
twice to set something up like that, and I don't
know why. Oh boy, now I'm under pressure. I feel
like everybody's watching me try to type. And every time
somebody's trying to watch me type, I always make mistakes.
I could sit there, I could write a book, well
that ever looking up from the keyboard or looking down
to the keyboard, I mean, and it would be fine,

(26:52):
no problems otherwise. Well, oh, we've got breaking news there,
and I think there's a oh, Melvin next dirt next break,
Come in here and fix the screen, will you? Because
right where whoever you're talking to should I should see
a phone call.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
All I see is your smiling face.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Seven one three, two one two five seven ninety Ooh, Mercy.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
I'm tempted.

Speaker 6 (27:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
I want to get a little bit of head so
I don't get behind before we get to Billy Brown
later on. So what I want to do, if it's
okay with Melvin, and I think it is, is go
to this break early, the forty three break. It normally
would be, but I want to step into it early
so I have more room at the end of this
segment to talk unless I can get a phone call
in Melvin, you got a phone call I can take.

(27:36):
I can't see the screen, I sure do. Hold on,
who is it? Oh he's working so diligently, so feverishly.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Who is it?

Speaker 5 (27:46):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Bring him on?

Speaker 4 (27:47):
Hit it?

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I can't see it.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
Hit it.

Speaker 11 (27:50):
Aaron, Hey, mister Pike, I do this morning.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm good. I saw yeah, I saw you. Where are
you in Florida? I saw you over.

Speaker 11 (27:56):
There about to be in Saint Petersburg. I'm in line behind,
so you must be four or five six cart supply
woods people getting ready again.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
I'm sure.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, I know, here we go again, just when they
got the screws and boards off the windows and.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Threw them into the dumpster, thinking they never need them again.

Speaker 11 (28:17):
Man, we're supposed to be in Saint Petersburg tomorrow actually tonight.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, so I'll be dodging another one.

Speaker 11 (28:23):
But our assessment was it was mostly just the coastal
areas of the that suffered down there. Now up there
and tollahassee, there's a lot of blow down trees. But yeah,
that's that's where we're at.

Speaker 3 (28:40):
Oh, well, all you can do, man, just try to
stay safe over there, dude.

Speaker 11 (28:44):
Yeah, yeah, I think we have to jog up to
Alabama and dodge it and do some work up there.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, just go north and go around it and then
come back to this one.

Speaker 4 (28:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
You know, you don't want to get stuck there, man,
And it's so hard.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
So and I can't think of a crew better, better
capable to help in the aftermath of something like that
than yours. But you got to take care of your
people and keep them safe, don't you.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (29:08):
Yeah, that's those kind of one of the things we
talked about, you know, just finding lodging and hotels.

Speaker 4 (29:13):
That might be a little tough.

Speaker 11 (29:14):
But my sister's down there at the Palla Beach and said, well,
let's let's help help you put on the storm shutters.
And she says, well, I don't want you to have
to climb twelve feet up there to get.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Standing on your tiptoes.

Speaker 11 (29:30):
Hey, you guys, have a great rest of your Sunday.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
All right, man, it's great to hear a few of you.
Stay safe over there.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
Man, Oh.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, audios. He's a busy man right now. Yeah, I
can't see the screen, Melvin, You're gonna have to come
in here. That's so, it's not a big deal. It's
just a deal. You know how that works.

Speaker 10 (29:50):
We are Sports Talk seven ninety. Listen online at Sports
seven ninety dot com. Now more Doug Bike.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
We're going back a little ways. This is even before
my time. Okay, this is like what maybe mid fifties,
early fifties.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Even that's about right. I would think you.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Got that horn section in there, and there's a the
horns were every band had horns in the forties and
into the fifties, and then they kind of went away
for a while, and then they came back with with
Chicago and Earth Wind and Fire and those cruise Man.
The big band sound, yeah, really big band sound. All right,

(30:34):
let me go get to Skeeter Broun. I didn't talked
to him in a while.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Skeeter Braun. What's going on?

Speaker 6 (30:39):
Man?

Speaker 2 (30:39):
Why aren't you on somebody's root, Doug? Huh? Why aren't
you on somebody's roof this morning?

Speaker 5 (30:44):
Man, Doug, i'd be clean the roofers and the farmers.
We need some rain, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Oh gosh, man, only now, what's up?

Speaker 5 (30:54):
My son's down and analyis chased down there? An analysis.
They must have shot five hundred dogs over the couple
of weekends. God don't. I guess I'm gonna have to,
you know, clean them, give them to my roofers or something,
you know, to eat anyway. But yeah, it's really I said,
it's fantastic down there.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (31:12):
I think they've had maybe a little bit more rain
than we have up here because some of those storms.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
But they're shut up pretty good. They're set up pretty
good for a good quail season. I think have you
heard anything from down there?

Speaker 2 (31:23):
No, I haven't.

Speaker 5 (31:24):
I was gonna go quail hunting out in Columbus this
past weekend, but I couldn't. I couldn't make it. But
I heard that's that's supposed to be really really good
this season too, So you know, I know rain is important.
I don't know the you know, the the uh you know,
the the the aspects of of how much rain per

(31:45):
dryness these generals need and so on and so forth.
But one of those things. But hey, another thing, you know,
I have three laboratory retrievers. Yeah, and I go up
to Belleville meat Market about once a month, and they
seen these big beef bone and anyway, and by not
cooking them, by steaming them, they don't splinter and crack. Yeah,

(32:06):
So anybody that needs a good dog bone, go up
to bell Bill meat Market. It's a really good play.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
When I charge you for those big old bones.

Speaker 12 (32:16):
Not cheap.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
Okay, yeah, for a long time, won't they They do,
and and they're good and they're healthy and once again,
they don't splinter and cause problems. So anyways, but did
you see all the in the college upsets yesterday?

Speaker 3 (32:31):
I saw, well, I heard that Alabama got beat but
that's the only one I saw.

Speaker 5 (32:35):
Vanderbilt and then s m you beat like Louisville or
something wow Man and uh, Michigan got beat by Washington. Yeah,
there were several other ones on there that was very,
very impressive.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Everybody's fantasy football stuff.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
I agree for college as there is something else, but
that's about it. We need some rain and everything's good.
So y'all appreciate listening to you there on Saturday and
Sunday morning.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
Always a pleasure, my friend. I like that tip about
the dogs too. That gives you another excuse to go
to Bellville meat Market. You buy a couple of bones
for them, and then you buy a bunch of dry
stick for yourself. That's what I'm going to do. I
see man audios all right, skewter Braun. That's a good
dude right there. He really is, and he, like I've

(33:25):
talked about on fifty plus for a long time now.
He has taken care of my house's roofs for a
long time.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
And I've been in that house thirty two years.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
I think he's put on at least I think this
was the second one he put on for us, and
he was out there pretty regular. I'll get him out
there to take a look around. He does those free inspections.
It's very very easy all you gotta do is call him,
and usually within especially with the weather as good as
it's been, usually it'll be there within a day. He'll

(33:54):
send somebody out there to walk that roof for you,
and if you're lucky, they come down and they say
everything's fine, we'll see later. If you have an issue,
they'll show you pictures and tell you what it's gonna
cost and how they're gonna fix it. And as I
talked about on fifty plus for a long time, now,
your best advice is just to go ahead and say start,
just get Do you have the stuff you need? Yeah,

(34:16):
get started, get it done. You're not gonna find better
work at a better price. It's just not gonna happen.
They're good people. Skeeter made a thirty something years of
doing it right, and he's gonna keep on doing it.
When he's not chasing doves and ducks and deer and
all that good stuff.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
He is a hunter. He is a hunting man.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety Email
me Dougpick at iHeartMedia dot com. We have got so
much going on, and let me check it. Hold on,
I want to go look at a website that I
was looking at earlier. I'm hoping that the wind will
have settled, just a tad, as we call it. I
don't want to see what the water looks like down

(34:56):
there at that ninety street pier.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
D living up. Let's go image, come on.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
Ooh, yeah, that's what I was afraid of I saw
earlier today.

Speaker 2 (35:07):
And I'll give you the official report now. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Unfortunately, all that pretty beautiful, lovely blue green water that
was off Galveston for the for several days in a row, actually,
and it ended up resulting in some really good tarpin
fishing up and down the coast too.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
That's gone.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
We've got almost a dead northeast wind which goes straight
down the beach here along the upper coast, and it
has done exactly what you would expect that it's just
trashed the surf. It's not super rough, and I don't
even know that it would be a decent day to
try to surf, even on a long board. They're not
that many, they're not big waves, but it's all eleven, twelve, thirteen,

(35:50):
fourteen miles an hour. Let me see if it bumps
up anymore down the coast. Yeah, there's a sixteen coming
on to the screen. Now, that's not good. Sixteen yeah,
sixteen fifteen down a little farther down the coast. There's
another sixteen right up back down in Matta Gorda, and
then twelve and fourteen thirteen up here. So it's blowing

(36:14):
and it's not out of a favorable, favorable direction, and
there's not much we can do about it. We just
have to roll on and be ready for the next one.
Let's take a little break here, shall we will do that?

Speaker 6 (36:26):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
You want me to take that car? Real quicker? No, Melvin,
we need to wait.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
Let's oh hit him, Let's go because I got to
talk to Billy Brown in the next segment.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
TikTok tic tkkkk dam oh day, what's up? Man? I
got a couple of minutes for you, buddy.

Speaker 12 (36:40):
I'm still uh man. I started at three yesterday in
the morning, and then the movers came. It only took
them an hour and a half or so to load
everything up. I know it took us three hours, you
know to drive from the Victoria to Willis. Okay, Now
they put alls Archer back in here where she wont
She only made a move the one bedroom back into

(37:03):
the other room. One time, you know what was derogative.
But anyway, yeah, we got everything. Now, we got all
the boxers to unpack, you know, boy, I know, well,
I mean I got all my fishing equipment out there
right now.

Speaker 13 (37:19):
I'm ready to go.

Speaker 12 (37:20):
I brought everything that's in the garage in the corner
over there, so I got to sort through all that
and then I'll be fishing, probably receiving and something kind
of boy, and yeah, I'm gonna keep at it, you know.
And it's it's uh, it's really nice house. She shouldn't
have to cost Keeter Bond who much.

Speaker 5 (37:36):
I think the.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Roof's only a year old.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Oh yeah, you're good to go.

Speaker 12 (37:40):
Yeah, yeah, unless we have something come through, you know,
I mean you got here around Lake Conrod. But you
know the other thing, you know, doing sheet rocking finishing.
She rocked for thirty years.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Man.

Speaker 12 (37:53):
I can't tell you how many water damage things we've
had over the years, you know, everywhere, and it's and
it's well, you know, like in the medical center over there,
we had the Red Cross feeding us. We were working
like twenty four hours a day almost I was sleeping. God,
would go sleep in my truck for two or three hours,
get up, go clean up a little bit, and then

(38:15):
go back at it again because we were we were
having to get take care of everybody, you know, because
people in the medical center.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
You know, that's a good thing about this country is
even you know when when when the going gets tough,
everybody still rallies around. You know, you put your yard
signs aside, you put your your differences aside, and you
just help people.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
And I wish this country would get back to doing
a whole lot more of that, and a whole lot.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Less of picking on each other from just back and forth.
I'm ready for that.

Speaker 12 (38:47):
You know when when nine one one hit, you know,
we had all that damage, we had all that water
damage in the flood and the medical center. Oh yeah,
what's really funny those office the office people, I love
them to dip, but the office people, they really didn't
like you getting on the elevator with him. But when
they've seen us, they're helping them. Yeah, they were smiling

(39:09):
at this, shaking our hands and there you know, now
we need you.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Yeah, all of a sudden, Yeah, it's okay to ride
the record. You don't have to take the freight elevator today.
You can come on up to help us with us.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
All right, man, Hey, I gotta run, it's time, thanks Dave.

Speaker 12 (39:23):
All right, I'm listening.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
Yeah, don't hurt your back man. All right, buddy, audios.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
This is the Doug Pike Show, brought to you by
American Shooting Centers, Guns, Shooting and Instruction since nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Now here's Doug Pike.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
All right, Third hour, no second hour, second final hours
starts right now. And as promised, I told you I
was going to talk to Billy Brown in the final
segment of the show, and I am if I can
figure out where this cursor is there it is. Hey,
Billy Brown, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Man?

Speaker 7 (39:56):
Hey, Doug?

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Are you doing this morning?

Speaker 2 (39:58):
I'm doing fine. I got question for you.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Are you in Veil or are you in Texas?

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (40:06):
Okay, because it pops up, man Melvine said, is he
in Vail, Colorado?

Speaker 2 (40:10):
That's what his phone says.

Speaker 4 (40:12):
Okay, oh wow.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah, yeah, don't we both wish? Huh?

Speaker 3 (40:17):
Standing standing next to a little river just got just
enough flow to get those fish STAPs snapping. All right,
So look first, first of all, Billy Brown, by the way,
owner of Big Easy Ranch and the covey there and
and all that goes with that play. So thank you
for your time, and I want to thank you again
for letting come up and join that little group for
golf on Friday. I got to tell you, I was

(40:38):
a little starstruck having to drive Chet Williams around in
a golf cart. And the first ball he hit off
the first tee, he absolutely striped.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
It down the middle. I said, oh my god, not
only not.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Only the design but also the player, Like a holy cow,
what a what a great man he is?

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Huh Yeah, I love Chad.

Speaker 6 (40:57):
He's he's a genius when it comes to architect year
and he's a he's a good man.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Besides that, give me, let's let's go a little farther back,
even Billy give just give this audience a little backstory
on Big Easy Ranch.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Well, Big Easy Ranch was, I guess. I purchased at
Land in twenty.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
Eleven to entertain my clients and all and gas service
business and the place for my family to go.

Speaker 4 (41:25):
And I you.

Speaker 6 (41:27):
Know, continue to hunt there for probably about three or
four years, with a couple additions along the way. Not
much construction other than you know, a house or two.
And when I decided to retire from all field service job,
sort of thinking about all the things that I wanted
to do in retirement, and what I loved the most

(41:50):
was hunting, fishing, golf and sharing it with family and friends.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
And that's what I decided to do.

Speaker 6 (41:56):
So I started building the big Easy Ranch as we
know it today, little by little and added a poor
three golf course by Chet Williams Design, Yeah, and a
lodge and some cabins to go, and added bird hunting.
So I had a combination of bird deer hunting, exotics,
great fishing, and the great place is to stay and

(42:19):
come and enjoy a championship poor three golf course with
the average hole probably average one seventy five, with big
green just like you see on.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
A championship golf course.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
One of the things I thought about this last night
when I was kind of thinking about what I would
ask you about, and you had the option when when
your clients were coming up there and doing their hunting.
I remember you telling me something about how they said, okay,
well what could we do between the morning hunt and
the evening hunt? And I am just so glad, Billy
that you didn't opt instead for a bowling alley or
a tennis court, you know, like, holy cow, I think

(42:53):
a bowling alley'd look really good up.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Here at Big Easy. That's funny, oh man.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
So yeah, go ahead, No, okay, let me ask you
a question, And how did you pick Chet Williams.

Speaker 4 (43:08):
Well, I was a member at Wishburn Pines.

Speaker 6 (43:10):
Taught me about six or seven years in the early
two thousands, and I.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
Really enjoyed that part three, the Kneedler.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
It's just oh yeah, tracked and one of the you know,
probably a top ten in the country as far as
the part three.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
And I told Chet.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
You know, when I found out, I didn't know who
he was, but I found out who did it and
called him and asked him to come down and see us,
and said, look, if you can build me a par
three golf course with the same caliber as.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
A kneeler, you got the job. And he came and
saw the land.

Speaker 6 (43:42):
And saw there was some pretty good elevation changes where
we were doing it, along with some ice creeks and
big lakes, and he went ahead and started doing it.
And it was in twenty sixteen that we opened up
the club as we call it today, the Big Easy Ranch,
and it was, you know, very successful right from the start.

(44:03):
It was something different an hour and fifteen minutes outside
of Houston, Tabella. Have a place where you could hunt birds,
hunt deer, play a little golf in between the rounds,
just like you said, between the hunts, and have a
great place to eat and real comfortable, you know type
bedrooms to enjoy you eatning.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Let's look at the covey for a minute. What did
you absolutely want for the covey and what did Was
there anything you told chev that you just did not
want for the covey?

Speaker 6 (44:35):
Well, I told him again, being a fan of Whishburne Pine, yes,
that I love the green complexes, and having played Augusta
at one time in Pine Valley, I wanted a combination
of Augusta in Pine Valley all in one well with
the great greens, but the native rough to go along
with it like Pine Valley has. And I just wanted

(44:57):
to course that was challenging but fair. So I wanted
big fairways and you know, just.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Make make the course.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
You know, my goal was to be number one in
the state in time, and that's what we continued to
work on. We had, you know, eighty foot of elevation changes,
you know, in this track that we picked, which used
to be my best.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Deer hunting area and was real, real.

Speaker 6 (45:21):
Thick, And I'll never forget when Chet was, you know,
going through you know the lines that he made out
the track, and he would come back and he was
all stretched up because it was so thick. He found
things in there that I didn't even know existed, including
you know, the double fareway that he made on the
whole number eight with the waterfalls running right through the middle.

(45:44):
It was just break taking and we didn't even know
that was there. So just by looking at a topo
map and then going to discover it himself, you know,
the hard way, he came up with that particular hole
in which.

Speaker 4 (45:59):
One of our faithabird Hole was along with number fourteen.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
It's just hard to believe that that that course has
only been around for a couple of years too, because
it looks like and Chet told me this as we
were riding around. He said, I wanted to put something
here that looked like it had always been here, even
though it hadn't certainly, and it does. It just blends
so naturally and so smoothly. The native areas are just

(46:22):
just where they need to be to make it look like, oh,
somebody just mowed this once and stuck a flag in
the groundway down there, and it's just beautiful. Golf course emerged.
It really is fantastic, it is. You got some big
championships coming up too, don't you.

Speaker 6 (46:38):
We do we have Before the course even opened, the
State came out and awarded us the min amateur in
twenty twenty six, and the state amated twenty twenty nine.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
After they saw the track. They knew Chet's you know, you.

Speaker 6 (46:54):
Know, his design criterias and stuff, and they saw the
whole thing and loved what they did Whishbourne Pines and
they saw this one and they said, okay, mister.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
Brown, we want you if you want, this is what
we'd like to do. And of course I accepted right away.

Speaker 6 (47:09):
It's what I designed the course for to try to have,
you know, really great state amateurs and amateur tournaments here
and again testament to kind of architect chat is to
see the vision of this land and make it to
what it is today. You know, a good sign of
an architect is when you don't move a lot of dirt.

(47:30):
And the core CRN Short group is in that type
of design criteria. And we only moved one hundred and
fifty thousand cubic yards, which is nothing. People today move
over a million cubic yards or and he did that
because he put the golf course to the land and
fit it perfectly.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Boy, I'll say, I'll say, yeah, there's a couple of things.
There's a couple of trees. I could have lived without Friday.
But other than that, yeah, and I had one testy
bunker shop, but I actually pulled it off to the
point where they just kicked it back to me. I
wish you'd have seen that. That was my highlight reel. Hey,
I'm betting, Oh my goodness, it's Billy Brown from Big

(48:12):
Easy Ranch here at Home with the covey and the
beautiful eighteen whole course by Chut Williams.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
Who was my cart partner.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
By the way, it was, I really was kind of starstruck.
And I'm betting you were starting to think I wouldn't
ask you about the eagles nest, weren't you, Because we're
so that little oasis has been on your mind for
a long time, hadn't.

Speaker 5 (48:29):
It It has?

Speaker 6 (48:31):
You know what gave me the inspiration is, you know,
playing out at Blue Jack before I decided to do this,
and I loved their Number twelve where you can have
that barbecue shack, and it was just, you know, a
really highlight to go to Number twelve and Debella do
that and eat some good food.

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Sure, And when we came up with.

Speaker 6 (48:52):
The design at Number nine had stopped there, but I
had this huge shell right on top of it. Yeah,
we built Number nine and it was sixty five foot
above everything. It was one of the highest points, you know,
my property, and I wanted to have something special up there,
and we decided to, you know, do something nobody's ever
done in the country as far as I know, and

(49:13):
build a three story you know, turnhouse. Sure, and it's
it's spectacular. We've been building it for about a year
and a half. It's four thousand square feet. It's almost,
you know, like another club in itself, and our members
with a ten thousand square foot putting green are going
to enjoy that immensely, especially after the round.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
They'll go back there.

Speaker 6 (49:37):
It's got a three thousand square foot patio with fire pits,
so late.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
In the afternoon after the round, they can go there,
or they.

Speaker 6 (49:45):
Can stop and get you know, some really good sandwiches
since we have stag out here and our hunting we
als have stag burgers, and you know, just a sortid
type hot foods that you can always get at the.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Turn you have if nothing else, Billy Brown, you have
always been a bigger, go bigger, go home guy, haven't you.

Speaker 6 (50:07):
Well, that's my philosophy in my whole career. Yeah, is
to try to do the very best and everything we
do and you don't have to, you know, look back
when you do it that way.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
That's a good point. Yeah, you do it right the
first time. You don't have to. No regrets, no nothing.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
I'm really thrilled for you in that eagles nest boy,
sitting up there and having those ore nerves and looking out,
it felt like if I stood on tiptoes, I could
probably see my house from up there. It's such a
beautiful view. And who was it?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Was it you or it might have been Casey, your
director of golf.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Talk about how it'll be really interesting and fun to
sit up there and watch as thunderstorms kind of work
their way toward you because it's a really it's a
bird's eye view, isn't it.

Speaker 6 (50:50):
Yes, it's your one hundred feet in the air when
you're out there with the sixty five foot hill and
thirty five feet in the air.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
So I'm looking forward to doing that.

Speaker 6 (50:59):
I've always been amazed by thunderstorms coming through and seeing it.
Now you'll be up there pretty good distance, just like
you are in a downtown building, and it's totally different
when you see it, you know, over a golf course.

Speaker 4 (51:11):
So I'm looking forward to that day.

Speaker 6 (51:13):
And you know, also making a lot of sunsets as well.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
You bet on the sunshiny days too.

Speaker 3 (51:20):
I can see, I can see guys coming in there
and and after playing nine holes, let's just pop in
there and grab something to drink, and then if one
of them sits down, they're gonna be there for an hour,
you know they are.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
And that's okay because you can just let the next
group go yeah and continue to play.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
It's a no rush type of atmosphere out here. Just
enjoy the day and do it. Do it, you enjoy
doing well.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
I am.

Speaker 3 (51:45):
I am absolutely thrilled that I was able to enjoy
enjoy that round on Friday and join you guys, because
it was it was another peak inside and boy, what
you do you do very well, Billy Brown, hats off
to you. Do you mind if I give out Coll's
number a couple of times during the show to get
people kind of excited? Go ahead ahead to eight one

(52:05):
eight four twenty two, and I'll do that a little
slower when we get back, and make sure anybody who
wants to find out more about your place at Big
Easy Ranch dot Com is as easy as anything.

Speaker 4 (52:17):
Huh, that's exactly right.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
So keep me keep me posted on those fish man.
They continue to elude me. Billy, I don't know what
the dealer is with those beasts. I've been up there
a couple of times now, and I'm I'm still waiting
for when I'm to bite, and I don't give them
a lot of time because I'm always I'm always trying
to get over to the golf course with you. And

(52:40):
I appreciate that tremendously. Believe me, weank.

Speaker 6 (52:43):
You have a new professional fisherman and got a scholarship
to go to Texas and em and fishing, and he's here.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
He can help you anytime.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Oh man, where was he when I needed him?

Speaker 4 (52:55):
He was off?

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Oh yeah, of course that's my luck.

Speaker 8 (52:58):
Now.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
It's such a great day Friday Billy, and so good
to see you again, and thank you for your time
this morning. Talk about that Eagles nest man. I'll keep
talking about it. It's cool.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Thank you, Billy. All right, yes, sir, thank you.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
Yeah, tell everybody hello, great day.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
All right, my boy, all right, let me let him go.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
And uh, I'm telling you, that's one of the nicest
guys I've ever met.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
He really truly is. And that's it's a short list.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
It's a very short list, but it's a special piece
of ground up there.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
It really is.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
There's no question about it, no question about it. Seven
one three, seven ninety. Email me Doug Pike at iHeartMedia
dot com.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Your Rockets and Astros live here. We are Sports Talk
seven ninety. The conversation continues this as the Doug Pike Show.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
By Welcome back Doug Blake Show on Sports Talk seven ninety.
Thanks again to Billy Brown. He's one of the nicest
guys I've ever met. He really is, and and so
so just determined to take care of his guests at
that place and is really good at it, and that's
why he was so successful in business.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
It makes perfect.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
Sense if you know him and you recognize how successful
he was. You realize why that success came for him
when you get to know him. If you wanted some
information about Big Easy Ranch, you can go to Big
Easyranch dot com. I talked about that a second ago,
and his membership director up there is Nicole Scarborough and

(54:27):
she is fantastic as well. I ran into her actually
Friday after our round. We were sitting up there in
the eagles desk. I've got a Facebook post about that
if you want to get a little look at what
the view looks like from up there. And she brought
a young couple in there who were considering membership and
got to visit with her very briefly, all too briefly. Actually,

(54:48):
anyway you can, you can call her directly at two
eight one eight four four thirty four to twenty two.
Absolutely positively a very special place if you like the
outdoor sports and all of them. Basically, Billy was telling
me he's during the wintertime he's going to bring in
again some really big rainbow trout and stalk them in

(55:10):
the the running water that he's got on that place,
and there's lots of it. It'll be it'll be pretty cool.
I would say, seven one three he's on. It's a
few thousand, I want to say, And and it's very well,
it's very well put together where there is well. For example,

(55:30):
the little lake, I got up there early enough that
I could do a little bit of fishing. And so
the little lake that I fished, I'm pulled up to
the edge of it, and there were there were deer
running around. And this is on a golf course. This
is on that little par three course, and they're deer
running around. And I'm not talking about just whitetail deer either.

(55:50):
There are a lot of exotics on the ranch, and
they are hunted regularly and seasonally, and up to and
including a different part of the ranch some really really
big red stag from halfway around the world. So it's
it's a pretty cool place, and it's a pretty special
place if you like the outdoors. And what I like

(56:13):
most about something like that is, yeah, you do see exotics,
but you also see a lot of native animals, a
lot of just good old fashioned Texas stuff. I can
I can get as excited about just seeing a cool
spider web in a tree or something like that as
I can see in a red stag from halfway around
the world. It's just it's all nature and it's all beautiful,
and he's he's done a fantastic job with that place.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
He's even he's got lots.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
For sale up there, and people are building homes up,
their second homes, some of them probably third homes there.
It's it's a pretty amazing bunch of people who are
members up there, but they all share that passion for
the outdoors, and it's He's he's done a very special
job of that kind of blend all that stuff in
seven one three two one two five seven ninety email
on me Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot com. I thought about

(57:01):
going with the Texas temperature game today because there is
a little bit of variation in the temperatures. We've got
this front coming down, the same front by the way
that Rudy points out, and I would say, correctly, this
norther that's coming down the pike is gonna it's part
and parcel. What's gonna keep that hurricane out of Texas?

(57:23):
Does these little things that pop up in the Bay
of Campeachee have a way of just kind of meandering
and idling northward and winding up somewhere in our backyard.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
But it's that that front.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
I think that's gonna help push that thing over that way.
I heard Mark over in Georgia. Yeah, he's gonna have
to take off running. So driving south to clear Water,
Florida to help protect my dad and our house from Milton.
Pick up full of gas, chainsaw generator, driving south right now,
listening on my phone. iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Boy.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah, take some of that, boy.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
How about these knuckleheads around here who were hoarding toilet
paper because of the port strike?

Speaker 2 (58:10):
Did I talk about that yesterday?

Speaker 3 (58:13):
You brushed upon it a little bit about how Actually
probably I think it's ninety percent, maybe a little bit
more of the toilet paper used in this country comes
from North America. Most of it's from right here or
Mexico or Canada. None of it comes in on it,
well ten percent of it comes in on a ship,
and I guess that's probably just what's left over by

(58:34):
the ship crew.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
They just sell that when they offload here. Yeah, here's
a million.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Tons of bananas and six rolls of Charman and that's
that's what we got in our ship. No, you don't
need to hoard that ever, No way, not paper towels,
not toilet paper, none of that stuff. So next time
this happens, don't go in there and fill three shopping
cars full of toilet paper. Those people who bought that stuff,

(58:59):
all they do, I guess maybe is protected themselves from
future inflation, possibly for a little while, but they didn't
need to make anybody else do with that.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
I couldn't believe it when.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
I saw an empty, empty, empty shelf of paper products
at a store I went into the other day. It's stupid.
It makes no sense at all. Anyway, an e way
back to where do all want to go back to?

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Mark?

Speaker 3 (59:27):
I want to go back to his email because he
and he is not the only person on that road.
I guarantee you he's not the only person on that
highway driving south to help somebody in Florida who's about
to get hammered by a second hurricane. I don't know
how much damage his father's property may have had from Helene,
but whatever it was, those folks don't deserve a second

(59:50):
round of this, so and I don't. I'm not suggesting
that everybody in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama take off
Ryde and East and go get in there early and
start boarding up again. But because and honestly, I think
it's because those people, most of those people over there

(01:00:13):
know how to prepare for a hurricane. They they just
went through one way too recently, and the supply chain
should be should be focused on that area already, the
screws and the plywood and all the all the things
you need to button up and bundle up and get
the heck out of there. Hopefully it's all in place now.

(01:00:35):
It should be, and they'll get through it. Those folks
are pretty good at doing what they do over there.
I could see retiring still to Florida. This is an anomaly.
It's not going to be and this is I think
we're all gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
That s see what did allen?

Speaker 5 (01:00:55):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
And then I got to go to a break. S
That new storm of the Gulf was too storms bouncing
around Acapulco. Yeah, I remember that two became one and
rolled across Mexico into the back Campeachee. I'm not sure,
but I don't think that has happened before. I'd be
willing to bet it has. There's not a whole lot
of things going on in weather that haven't happened before.

(01:01:19):
If all you have to do is look back far
and if I saw one very interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Yeah, Mojo summed it up. People are lemmings. That's kind
of true. That's kind of true. I'll leave it at that.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
On the way out.

Speaker 14 (01:01:34):
Our Sportstock seven nineties, Houston, the Sports where you go
with iHeartRadio Now now get more, Doug Man, I remember
all this is disco day stuff here, man, no doubt
about it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Kind of a slower song too.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
I would say that's maybe like not even not even
one hundred beasts a minute.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
That's pretty slow.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Seven one three, two, one two five seven ninety. Email
on me, Doug pack at iHeartMedia dot com. Let's go
talk to brand and see what's on his mind this morning.
Hey Brandon, what's up, buddy?

Speaker 13 (01:02:07):
Good morning, Doug? How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I'm good? How are you?

Speaker 13 (01:02:10):
I got you a good time for you to before
you get off today?

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Yeah, thank you. You've got plenty of time here. What's
what are you looking at? Are you going to watch
the Texans today?

Speaker 13 (01:02:24):
Yeah? We're gonna win.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
What time do they start?

Speaker 13 (01:02:28):
Hold on one?

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
Okay? Are they a noon game or three o'clock game?

Speaker 15 (01:02:34):
I don't know, I believe hold on, let me check too, Yeah,
go ahead and check while you're While he's checking, I
think he walked off to get a schedule or maybe
grab his phone or something like that.

Speaker 13 (01:02:47):
My time is the Texans game.

Speaker 3 (01:02:52):
Oh he's checking his Alexa or something whatever it is.
Oh straight up noon? Okay, good?

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
And who are we playing today? So yeah, that sounds
like we could beat them.

Speaker 3 (01:03:08):
I would think, huh, knock them over and go on
to the next one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Doing pretty well this year. Let's see Jay Stroud kids.
A real deal, isn't he He's a great quarterback.

Speaker 13 (01:03:21):
Okay, fishing all right?

Speaker 8 (01:03:29):
So you know what time should I go to catch
a fish?

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Or here here's the way I look at fishing, Brandon,
I look at fishing where the best time to go
fishing is any time I can go fishing, Because if
you're sitting at the house watching a football game, can't
catch fish. But if you're out there fishing, you always
have a chance. Out there are better times than others.
Typically early morning and late afternoon are a little bit better,

(01:03:58):
but under so and circumstances, the middle of the day
might be the best time to be out there fishing.
It just kind of all depends on what you're fishing
for and what the conditions are. But honestly, if you
can go, just go ahead and go, you'll get something.

Speaker 13 (01:04:15):
I'll do it.

Speaker 8 (01:04:15):
And that's no, I can't do it, And that's wen
because we're doing dinner with some friends.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Well that sounds good.

Speaker 13 (01:04:23):
I might just might do it Sunday morning.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
I could.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
I could give up fishing for dinner with friends. That's
that seems a reasonable exchange.

Speaker 13 (01:04:32):
Yeah, I would do it Sunday morning.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Do it Sunday morning, and then call during the show
and let me know where you're fishing and how you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Okay, be awesome, everything going.

Speaker 13 (01:04:41):
Okay, yep, we're doing Okay. We're not ready to set
up move move yet.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
So okay, it's coming though. Huh.

Speaker 13 (01:04:54):
I would take some pictures, all right, Senda to face.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you appreciate that, Brandon.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
All right, partner, Well, I want you to go fishing
next Sunday and catch a fish. Okay, have a good week,
all right, buddy, Audios. I'm gonna get he's gonna get
out there and go fishing at some point.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
I know he is.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
I know he is, and I know he's sincere about
wanting to go, So we gotta gotta find a way
to make that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Happen for him.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
I got so many kids to get back into the
fishing gear, and this is a good time to get
him out too. It's not super hot, they're not gonna
get overheated, they're not gonna get bored. And like I've
said before, when you're taking little kids fishing for the
first time or even for the tenth time, it doesn't matter.
You have roughly ten minutes per year of age of

(01:05:45):
attention span before they're gonna need a distraction or they're
gonna want to leave. And what I used to do
with my son when I was bringing him up and
taking him to a little lake over in Missouri or
not in Missouri City, but in Meadows Place lake over
there that's loaded with sunfish, at least it was if
they haven't been casting it out of there illegally. I

(01:06:07):
may go over there and just sample it just to
see if they're still there. I pray that they are
because it's such a good lake for kids. It's small,
and there's open field around it where you can you
go over there and you fish for a little while
and then just as soon as either he or one
of his little friends look the least little bit bored.
I'd say, hey man, go throw this football for a

(01:06:28):
little whall, or hey man, go kick this soccer ball
for a little while, and I'd just sit there and
let them do their thing and check emails or whatever
for a few minutes, and then eventually i'd start fishing again,
and because there were so many fish in that little lake,
i'd start catching fish again, and they would see that,
and then they'd come running back.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
To do it some more. The small bites.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
If you got eight year olds out there, you might
get an hour and a half out of them. If
you've got six year olds out there, you might get
an hour. As long as you're bringing some snacks and
you're bringing a distraction, and you can keep them out
there for a good part of an afternoon. They just
they're just not gonna want to sit and look at
that cork all day long.

Speaker 4 (01:07:13):
I was that way. That was me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
I didn't need a football, I didn't need a baseball,
I didn't need buddies.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
Didn't matter to me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
If I was fishing, I was fishing, and I'd stay
there until somebody dragged me away. Sat I can't tell
you how many hours I sat on the sea wall
behind my grandparents' house down in Florida over summers.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
It just that's just what I did. When I woke up.
I walked up when I was little.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
When I woke up, I got up, I ate breakfast,
and I went fishing in the backyard, and then at
about seven thirty or so, my dad would drive me
to the pier and we would stay there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
And fish for a little while.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
As I got older, I finally got old enough and
they trusted me enough and understood that I wasn't gonna
just wander off. They would drop me off at that
pier and let me stay out there all day, just
all day. I'd have money for bait, and i'd have
money for lunch, and I never bought lunch. I just
doubled down on my bait money, as I wasn't going
to miss out on the opportunity to catch fish. That

(01:08:12):
was back when you bought at least over there, you
bought shrimp by the piece, not by the pint or quart.
You bought live shrimp by the piece, And I want
to say they were only maybe a few cents apiece
back then. That was a long time ago. I can
remember them being a dime or a quarter at some
point much longer after that, and being like, holy cow,

(01:08:34):
where can this go?

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
And who knows what they cost? Now? All right, let's
take this last little break through.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
This is Sports Talk seven ninety on the go with
iHeartRadio Friends.

Speaker 4 (01:08:46):
You've got to try the conversation continues. This as the
Doug Pipe Show.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
We're back nine to fifty two on Sports Talk seven
ninety The Doug Pike Show. Thank you for listening, road
to appreciate it. He's got a couple of emails. I
need to go double check and see what's up with.
Let me see if I got the right mouse in
my hand? Where the heck is my cursor?

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
There? It is old very border waters. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
Larry's asking the question. Sabine Lake, Texas and Louisiana have
reciprocal agreements to fish border waters. I'm sixty five with
a Texas license. I've launched with my friends at the
causeway on the Louisiana side. Are we eligible to keep
a Louisiana size and limit or only a Texas side

(01:09:35):
or Texas size and limit. I'm pretty sure I'm about
ninety percent that if you launch over there, you are
fishing Louisiana waters, or you're fishing under Louisiana law, because
I remember that used to irk the but jeepers out
of chuck uzzle to see so many boats with trucks

(01:09:56):
with Texas tags over on the other side of lake
where they could go and catch a whole lot of
flounder and a whole lot of trout, a whole lot
of redfish and then just drive on back across the
bridge and go home in Texas. I wish that there
was some way to level the playing field completely, But yes,

(01:10:16):
I do believe that that is the law in Louisiana
in recent years has finally finally come over to a
little more sensible long term strategy to manage its speckle
trout and it's redfish, and it's flounder, and it's gonna work.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
Wonders over there.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
They already have a fantastic nursery area in that entire
Mississippi River delta. There's plenty of room to grow lots
more speckled trout, and they do every year. It's amazing
to me that they've been able to sustain the limits
they have for as long as they have, but they do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
But they do.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
There's an old joke about duck hunters over in Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
And the same joke could be applied.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
It's kind of like an aggie joke or any joke
about a particular bunch of people. But it was funny
only in that it kind of it exposed a little
bit of illegal hunting and fishing and wherever it's happening,
you know, And I think East Texas has cleaned up
a good bit. It used to used to have a

(01:11:23):
pretty rough reputation for having some pretty sketchy things going
on with hunting and fishing. Anyway, the joke went that
a group of hunters from wherever it was and fill
in the blank, wherever you want to put them, went
into court and asked the judge to let them hunt

(01:11:45):
ducks for one more month of the year, to which
the judge replied, what are you going to name it?
You're already hunting them in the twelve months we have,
which is pretty funny, Pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
All right, I've checked that box. I've checked that box.

Speaker 3 (01:12:03):
Mark safe travels, my friend, if you're still listing over
there on iHeartRadio in Georgia, headed for Florida to help
your Dad. That's some boy. To have another hurricane headed
for the Sunshine State is a really that. I can't
imagine how frustrated and frightened those people must be. They

(01:12:23):
know what Helene did to them, and there's potential for
this one to make landfall, as I think it shows
it building up to a Cat three in the Gulf
of Mexico. But the latest look I had was that
it would be coming ashore as a Category two storm,
which is no slouch. That's a lot of wind and

(01:12:45):
a lot of rain. A lot of wind and a
lot of rain. That's a good point. That's a good point, Scott.
Thank you kept Scott Wade in. You might want to
mention that they're gonna need a Louisiana license to launch
on that side, and yes, they can keep a Louisiana limit.
So all you got to do is drive across the bridge,

(01:13:05):
buy yourself a license over there, and fish away and
you can bring the fish back in here.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
I think that's a little.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Bit of it's almost petty and it's selfish a little
bit that you would drive.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
It's not a long drive. It's not like the bridge.
It's thirty miles.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
It's not like the Lake Poncha train bridge between New
Orleans and what's on the other side of that darn thing.
I can't remember exactly, No, I don't remember. In any event,
it's not like that bridge. It's just a relatively short bridge,
and once you get over there, you are in Louisiana,
and as long as you've got the proper license and

(01:13:42):
proper paperwork, you can go catch them up, or you
can just leave from the Texas side, which is where
you live. Anyway, obey Texas limits, which still allow you
to take home a bunch of fish, by the way,
and have your fun there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
I don't care what side of the river launch from.
I don't care where you fish.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
I don't care where you're hunting, as long as you're
getting outside, where you're playing your golf. Just get outside,
have a little fun with your family. I've got my
fingers crossed for some golf with my son this afternoon,
and I'm hoping we can arrange that. He's been running
around like a headless chicken and hanging out with his
buddies and doing baseball tournaments, and I'm almost kind of

(01:14:26):
feeling unhappy that he's out there now, riding around in
his own car instead of having to ride with me.
Because I'm looking back on that time and realized I
enjoyed it all right.

Speaker 2 (01:14:36):
I'll be back here Monday morning tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
On nine point fifty for KPRC, and then right back
in this seat next Saturday morning at seven on Sports
Talk seven to ninety. Thanks for listening, Stay safe, have
some fun outdoors with that family.

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
Audios