High Plains Outdoors

This week, Luke talks about his favorite lake for catching striper, Lake Texoma situated on the Texas/Oklahoma border.

Winter is one of the best times for consistently catching stripers on artificial baits, such as soft plastic shad imitations on jig heads. Large flocks of gulls are present now on Texoma, pointing the way to feeding fish.

For more information on fishing Texoma, visit Luke's friends at Striper Express.

In this week’s High Plains Outdoors, Luke divulges a couple of his favorite recipes for cooking rabbit.

Fried rabbit is one of the tastiest of small game dishes. But add some mushroom gravy and Jasmine rice, and you have a meal that will feed the whole camp. Add a big platter of homemade biscuits and you have a meal fit for a king!

Remember, you can contact Luke via his website www.catfishradio.org  

Cold weather and venison chili go hand and hand. Nothing is tastier than a bowl of well-seasoned, well SMOKED wild game chili.

In this week's High Plains Outdoors, Luke tells us how he used wood smoke to make venison chili even tastier!

Alan Cain whitetail deer program leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). Alan and Ellis Powell, also with TPWD, recently used big bore air rifles to do a bit of research into the effectiveness of big bore air rifles for harvesting game.

Cain recently spoke at the TPWD Commissioners meeting in Lufkin and gave his opinion of the power and effectiveness of big bore air rifles in cleanly and humanely dispatching deer-sized game. 

For many years, season hunting leases were the norm. Hunters would lease a tract of land, set up feeders, campers, food plots, etc. and "work" the lease throughout the year, putting corn in feeders, fixing up the camp, etc. But, in today's busy world, folks have less time to devote to the year around upkeep of a season lease.

So far, this has been an awesome year in Texas for harvesting trophy class whitetail bucks. Today, a buck that makes the Boone and Crockett book with the minimum score of 170 BC has become almost commonplace, especially on well-managed ranches, many of which are high fenced, all across the state. 

This week, Luke discusses the Honey Locust Tree. If you are a deer hunter, this is a tree you need to familiarize yourself with.

Deer absolutely love eating the honey-sweet beans, especially this time of year when they are ripe and flavorful.  Contact Luke via his website www.catfishradio.org 

In this week's High Plains Outdoors, Luke discusses the importance of learning to properly use a compass and GPS units.

Tune in this week and get Luke's take on the changes he has seen in deer hunting during his lifetime.

Deer hunting is way more than the net Boone and Crockett sum of a buck's antlers inches; much more! It's time spent with family and friends and if everything goes just right some great tasting venison for the freezer and possibly antlers for the den wall.

Take Texoma is a world class striper fishery and a fishing destination for many High Plains Public Radio listeners.

Luke devotes this week’s show to giving us a Lake Texoma update and introduces us to STRIPER EXPRESS www.striperexpress.com, one of the oldest guide services on the lake.

To see more pictures of recent catches, follow STRIPER EXPRESS on Facebook. 

Luke loves to experiment with different methods of cooking fish and game. He recently 'stumbled' onto a great new way to fry fish, using grits instead of cornmeal. 

Luke simply mixed stone ground yellow grits with flour, 50-50 for the batter. He then marinated the fillets for an hour or so in hot sauce, rolled in the grits/flour mixture and fried until crispy.

If you enjoy really crispy fried fish, this recipe using grits is for you!

For more of what Luke does, visit www.catfishradio.org.

In today's show, Luke tells of an accurate method of determining the weight of wild hogs without the use of scales.

It’s often unhandy or impossible to weigh wild hogs harvest in the field. Luke gives an accurate formula that he learned from his friend, Larry Weishuhn. All that is needed is a tape measure.

Tune in and after listening to this week's show, you will never again have to wonder as to the weight of the hogs you harvest. Want more "Luke"? Check out www.catfishradio.org

Fall is definitely in the air and Luke comes to us this week from the porch of his hunting cabin.

He is reminiscing a bit about past hunts and giving some tips for the upcoming bow season for deer.

On a recent scouting trip, Luke noted that there is an abundant acorn crop this season and he is looking forward to a banner season. 

Luke discovered a new way to prepare dove that differs from the traditional dove breast with a sliver of jalapeno wrapped in bacon! Why not stuff an entire Hatch chili pepper with cheese, onion and boned out pieces of dove breast?

He used strips of wild pork loin marinated in lime juice. 

Luke tested his new recipe at dove camp the day before the opener - BEFORE he had the opportunity to shoot any dove. 

What is tastier than a big breakfast of eggs, hash browns, biscuits and SUGAR-CURED, SMOKED HOMEMADE HAM?

In this week's High Plains Outdoors, Luke explains how easy it is to make cured, smoked ham at home. We're not talking about whole, bone-in ham here, but rather chunks of ham a couple of inches thick, weighing a pound or two each.

Like most folks from my generation, I was dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era of fast speed internet, phones that do way more than allowing me to hold a conversation. I can now actually request a ride by typing my destination on my phone and watch the device plot the route of my driver as he comes to get me!

Tune in this week and listen to Luke tell how he got his start as an outdoors writer 29 years ago.

Luke has been penning an outdoors newspaper column that now appears in 41 newspapers. He also freelances for several hunting and fishing magazines.

To learn more about Luke and all that he does, visit his website www.catfishradio.org.

In today's show, Luke tells of a recent hog hunt that required a bit of paddling of a small boat to get the fresh pork out of the woods.

A trail camera picture of wet wild hogs helped Luke decipher the whereabouts of the hogs and ultimately led to a successful hunt.

Take a listen! If you are a hunter, chances are pretty good you will be able to relate! 

More states are adopting hunting regulations that include the use of air-powered rifles and shotguns.

In today's show, Luke gives us a look at a double barrel air-powered gun that shoots both shot and bullets as well as arrows.

Pork loin is one of the tastiest of cuts and Luke likes to slice the loin lengthwise and season it with cream cheese, jalapeno, garlic, cilantro and then wrap it in bacon. Then the loin is exposed to some heavy hickory or plum wood smoke and 225 degrees in Luke's Smokin’ Tex electric Smoker www.smokinTex.com.

In about 4 hours, the loin will be cooked through and through.

Luke prefers allowing the loin to "rest" about 15 minutes and then he cuts the loin crosswise into "wheels" about one-inch thick.

Serve with some long grain/wild rice and a good toss salad. 

Sometimes it’s tough for older outdoor folks to not too adept to newer technology. Some of us have been kicking around the outdoors so long that we have abandoned tried and true products of past years for items we “thought” were advanced and more useful, only to find the older products really better served our purposes all along.

TIME TO BEGIN PREPPING FOR BOW SEASON   

It’s amazing just how quickly seasons and, to an old hunter, HUNTING seasons, roll around. Whitetail archery season is less than three months away and now is the time to make sure all your equipment is in top-notch working order and that you can place that arrow where it needs to be when the moment of truth comes and that bruiser buck is within bow range. 

As my fishing buddy Phil Zimmerman and I rounded the point and entered a small secluded cove on Iskwatikan Lake in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, we were both thinking BIG PIKE. Shallow shoreline water with standing vegetation dropping quickly into deeper water; this area had everything a big northern pike could want.

As a young boy growing up in northeast Texas, I would read the outdoor magazines and dream of one day fishing in the remote, pristine waters of Canada. There was something about this wild country that has always drawn me like a magnet. The cry of the loon on a still evening while casting for pike, walleye and lake trout in waters where the fish have never seen a hook or,  enjoying a noon meal of very fresh fried walleye or pike cooked over a campfire on an island surrounded by pristine water is something every angler should experience.

Regular readers might remember an article I wrote about hunting eastern turkey up in Oklahoma at the vast 45,000 acres “Choctaw Hunting Lodge, located less than an hour west of Hugo, OK.  This past week, I made my second trip to this outdoor wonderland, this time with several great friends including Larry Weishuhn, aka “Mr. Whitetail”.

Lake Fork- Round up a foursome of still very active old guys, all a few months away from their 68th birthday and chances are pretty good they have some “stories”. After all, there is just under 300 combined years of living amongst this group, plenty of time to amass untold life experiences, many of which are just down right funny!

Options, that’s what this week’s column is all about. We fishermen have several options when it comes to wetting a line for sport or, in many cases, a fresh fish dinner! We can own our boat which comes with some “built in” costs in the form of initial cost, fuel, registration, etc. etc. Or, we can hire the services of a fishing guide to enjoy a day on the water at our favorite lake. A few lucky anglers either own or have access to property with a fishing pond. We can fish public reservoirs “from the bank”.

A hunt this past week with some great friends fortified my belief that the great outdoors is the perfect place for like-minded folks to bond friendships that last a lifetime. I first met Jeff Rice and his lovely wife Demi a couple years ago at, of all things, the Wild Hog Festival in Ben Wheeler Texas. I was there with my book, Kill to Grill, the Ultimate Guide to Hunting and Cooking Wild Hogs and serving as one of the judges of the wild hog cooking contest. Jeff and Demi stopped by my booth and an instant friendship was formed.

Luke's guest on today's show is Larry Weishuhn, aka. Mr. Whitetail.

Larry is host of Dallas Safari Club's TV show, "Trailing the Hunter's Moon" and a long-time authority on whitetail deer.

In today's show, Larry and Luke talk about whitetail fawn survival and the importance of leaving what appear to be abandoned fawns alone.

Luke's guest for today's show is fishing guide Seth Vanover.  Seth guides on Lake Fork and Lake Of The Pines in eastern Texas for crappie, catfish and trophy largemouth bass. 

In today's show, Seth goes into detail explaining the subtleties of summer fishing for crappie using a jig and light tackle.