Dudleys Diary

Robert Randall Bragan "Bobby Bragan" passed away at 92 years of age last night at his home in West Fort Worth. He will be missed.

to the Minnesota Vikings. Well there is always next year. Had a good lunch today, fried catfish, steak and some grilled Sika tenderloins. Frank went fishing yesterday morning in his kayak on the Brazos River. He launched at the Stone Bridge at daybreak and paddled his kayak up near the dam. He was trying to catch a large Striped Bass, there are some monsters in the river. This time of the year they feed on the hatchery Rainbow Trout that they put in the river for fisherman to catch. Frank was matching the hatch with his Abu Garcia Baitcasting Reel and his Big Ugly Stick rod throwing a six inch Bomber 16J Saltwater Jointed Minnow in a Rainbow Trout pattern. He paddled and fished several miles up and down from the Stone Arch Bridge but did not get one strike. When you are trophy fishing that is the way it is most of the time. You fish hoping for that one big strike. Frank said he jumped a lot of ducks off the water and watched them fly and saw several get shot down by duck hunters hidden off to the side of the river. He quit going up river when he rounded a bend and watched an unseen hunter drop a duck that fell about 90 feet up river from his kayak. He will have to go back after duck season if he wants to go up river to the cable just below the dam. On the way back to the bridge and down river a lot of the purist fly fisherman were out in full force up and down the riverbank trying to catch the small hatchery trout. Frank said most of them were pretty friendly though he did run into one asshole that was perturbed that Frank floated by in his kayak and he voiced his opinion that Frank had messed up his fishing for the day. I guess the idiot thought he was on a private trout stream in Montana fishing for wild trout and not on a public river in Texas catching eight inch long hatchery trout released a few days earlier that have never eaten anything other than floating fish food out of a paper bag.

on Saturday. He and his buddy Hunter who lives in Dallas went out to Hunter's families ranch Thursday evening. They stopped in Weatherford and ate dinner and watched the BCS National Championship Football Game and then went out to the ranch located in Palo Pinto county north of Possum Kingdom Reservoir and the Brazos River. They spent the night in the camp house and got up early the next morning and went duck hunting on one of the many tanks on the ranch. The temperature was only about 12 degrees above zero. Frank said they froze their butts off but there were a few ducks flying in the bitter cold. They put a few decoys out the night before and by daybreak the were frozen in place with a layer of ice over most of the lake. Frank said the first duck he bagged was a Mallard Drake. Later in the morning he bagged a Mallard Hen. Both ducks fell out in the middle of the lake in the icy water. They decided to wait until the afternoon for it to warm up into the twenties before Hunter would brave trying to chop through the ice and wade out in his chest waders to retrieve Frank's ducks. They went back to the camp house after hunting for a couple of hours to try and thaw out. When they went back out Hunter used a log to chop through the ice and waded out to the ducks. He retrieved the Mallard Hen first and when he got to the Drake, he discovered a hawk or other predator had beat him to the duck. There were only feathers left. That night they went out driving around the ranch with a spotlight hoping to get a shot at a coyote or pasture poodle or a fox or bobcat. They did not see any varmints but did see a bunch of deer that were all bedded down in the brush. They went hunting Saturday morning but the lake was frozen over completely and Frank said they saw a lot of ducks but none of them got in range for a shot as they could tell the lake was frozen over and their were no good place for them to land. That afternoon they went out to the rifle range and shot Hunter's new Bushmaster AR-15. Frank had a great time duck hunting and riding around on the 2000 acre ranch. Hopefully Frank will get invited to go back and go duck hunting again or perhaps go deer hunting. When Frank got back home, he grilled his duck and some whitetail and fallow back strap wrapped in bacon out on the grill and we watched the Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles. Man it does not get much better than that!