Can't take our guns, so they take our ammunition? Read this, what does it sound like to you?

EPA Considering Ban on Traditional Ammunition: ACT NOW!!

All Gun Owners, Hunters and Shooters:

With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) - a leading anti-hunting organization - to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.

Today, the EPA has opened to public comment the CBD petition. The comment period ends on October 31, 2010.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) -- the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry -- urges you to submit comment to the EPA opposing any ban on traditional ammunition. Remember, your right to choose the ammunition you hunt and shoot with is at stake.

The EPA has published the petition and relevant supplemental information as Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPPT-2010-0681. If you would like to read the original petition and see the contents of this docket folder, please click here. In order to go directly to the 'submit a comment' page for this docket number, please click here.

NSSF urges you to stress the following in your opposition:

There is no scientific evidence that the use of traditional ammunition is having an adverse impact on wildlife populations.
Wildlife management is the proper jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and the 50 state wildlife agencies.
A 2008 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on blood lead levels of North Dakota hunters confirmed that consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition does not pose a human health risk.
A ban on traditional ammunition would have a negative impact on wildlife conservation. The federal excise tax that manufacturers pay on the sale of the ammunition (11 percent) is a primary source of wildlife conservation funding. The bald eagle's recovery, considered to be a great conservation success story, was made possible and funded by hunters using traditional ammunition - the very ammunition organizations like the CBD are now demonizing.
Recent statistics from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service show that from 1981 to 2006 the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles in the United States increased 724 percent. And much like the bald eagle, raptor populations throughout the United States are soaring.
Steps to take:

Submit comment online to the EPA.
Contact Lisa Jackson directly to voice your opposition to the ban:

Lisa P. Jackson
Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460
(202) 564-4700
Fax: (202) 501-1450
Email: jackson.lisa@epa.gov

Contact your congressman and senators and urge them to stop the EPA from banning ammunition. To view a sample letter, click here.

Rip Josie Girl

Our Young Josie Girl came to us from Texas last year with her sister. Both were doing awesome on their way to being top Bay Hounds with our young pack. Sadly, Josie was slammed hard by a good size boar in the pen Friday. He caught her against a tree as she was dodging him and she died early Saturday Morning from insurmountable internal injuries. She was really coming on and she loved hunting hogs. Rest In Peace Young Lady.

Dogs are just a different kind of people to me. Some I get attached to more than others and just like people some never get the chance to do what they were born to do. I love to watch a good dog work no matter what it is he or she was born to do, and I have only on a few occasions owned a dog that was fantastic at doing what he was meant to. I had a few Liver Spot Pointers and two English Setters that were jam up and one Black Lab that was, well, I will never have another Lab in my lifetime that had his kind of heart and ability, he was a man. Josie was a Plott Hound bred from the ancestors of the Plotts from up around the the area where they originated in N. Carolina. Like any good working dog she had it, and the more she worked the better she got.

The two magazines below are dedicated to the Hound. One is a bit more turned to Big Game, "Bayed Solid" and the other is more about Treeing hounds,"Full Cry". They are not the big budget glossy color type magazines, but more importantly they are published by true Houndsmen. These are men that have made hunting with hounds a major part of their and their families lives. Most of the articles are written by average people that love their sport and their hounds. I subscribe to both not just for the info about Hounds and Hunting but because these people are the down to earth work with your hands type that speak from their heart and have something to say besides a lot of Bull Shit. Helps keep me humble and keeps life in perspective.

My Young Friend Dylan is Rolling Like He Should!

I first met Dylan when he was somewhere around 9 or 10. I had met his dad James through a mutual friend and one day I ran into James with Dylan at his side. James was living here in the Shoals and writing for Rodney Hall at Fame Recording Studios. James is a great writer with hits like Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde in his Catalog. James had come up from Shreveport with Jimmy Nutt and a few others and decided to stay. Later Dylan and his sister arrived and would spend summers and time here with their Dad. Dylan was always a bit shy and quiet but his bright eyes were constantly taking in every move you made. The more I was around him the more I felt that warm heart of his beating away maintaining and directing the growth of his character. Very much like his dad he evokes the perfect attitude to become a great musician and performer in that he sings his soul right out and into yours. So much more I could say but for now I reccomend a listen. Congratulations Dylan, and keep it between the ridges.



This is the list of songs from the new album, "Paupers Field" which goes on sale today!

1. LOW
2. If Time Was For Wasting
3. If The Creek Don't Rise
4. Tuesday Night Rain
5. Emma Hartley
6. Ain't Too Good At Losing
7. Changing Of The Seasons
8. 5th Avenue Bar
9. On With The Night
10. Coyote Creek
11. Death Of Outlaw Billy John
12. No Kind Of Forgiveness

"If you live to be 100, I hope I live to be 100 minus a day so I never have to live without you." — Winnie the Pooh.

Not a Boy Forever: Marking Christopher Robin's 90th Birthday
BY KATHY EHRICH DOWD | FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2010 5:45 AM ET
Winnie the Pooh's loyal pal grew up to become a humanitarian.

In literature, characters are frozen in time. Children in beloved children's classics remain young forever, their innocence unspoiled by real life. But Christopher Robin — AKA Winnie the Pooh's BFF — was not only a real person who outgrew his Hundred Acre Wood persona, but he would be a 90 year old man this Saturday if he had not passed away in 1996.

Although Christopher Robin the literary character led a simple existence, albeit one that included conversing with talking bears, piglets, owls and the like, Christopher Robin Milne the man led a considerably more complicated life, although in later years he notably used his unintended fame to become a force of good.

A. A. Milne penned the classic Pooh books and named the main human character after his only child. According to Just-Pooh.com, for years the real Christopher Robin resented the unwanted fame. As an adult, his relationship with his father deteriorated and after sustaining an injury in World War II, he retreated to a small English village and opened a bookshop with his wife.

For years, he endured people treating him a bit like a tourist attraction, pestering him for a photo with their kids. But eventually CR appeared to make peace with his fictional doppleganger, and when anyone asked him for a pic he would charge 10 pounds, which he would promptly donate to Save the Children.

In later years, he capitalized on his fame to front a campaign to save Ashdown Forest outside London, the inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood, from oil prospectors.

And it was not until he was a mature 52 years old that he truly channeled his literary roots, penning several autobiographical books.

It's not easy to imagine Christopher Robin as a grown man with daddy issues. For most of us, he will forever be a sweet little boy enthralled by his tubby friend who loved honey. But it's comforting to know that despite the more complicated real person, he used his notoriety to help others.

Inyama, Ramadan, No Problem

Humback Calf Strands on the wrong beach! VIA PEMBA DIVE CAMP
Hopefully we can find solutions for the Humpback calves beaching themselves during the Equinox or Spring Tides. A Humpback Whale Calf has been lost, due to the extreme Equinox or Spring Tides we have. Our reefs are so close to the shore as in 1st photo. We assume in high tide the calf came in and when the tide turned going out very fast, leaving the calf beached on the reef. Sadly, this is the second loss this year discovered at the Old Clay Pigeon Shooting range next to Pemba Beach Hotel.
All photos and text from Rudy and Brenda Franck, Pemba Dive Camp, Pemba Mozambique











Mozambique, got to love it!

Check out Pemba Dive Camp here.

One of those I'm Glad I knew!

My Uncle, Ralph Harley White, I will miss him!

I've had lots of thoughts that I've wanted to share over the past few months, they come and go, some bright and shinny others not so much. It seems lately that just bout the time I get a good groove mellowing in my head, the music up and changes. Monday I was on my way to Memphis to celebrate the birthday of a friend with friends at the restaurant above BB King's place. Bear Horne had invited me to the Gulf to fish for a few days and after dinner we gathered at Bear's on Mud Island so to leave early from there, but back at home life was deteriorating for a very beloved Uncle of mine.
My Uncle Ralph Harley White had helped raise me, he was one of those that took me to the woods at a very young age and taught me what he knew. Our families lived almost side by side for 16 years, his son, my first cousin Rowland is the same as my brother, his daughter Cynthia the same, my sister. Uncle Ralph was raised down a dirt road near Savannah Tennessee, a little poor but that makes a good southerner even better. He served in Germany during the War, pure army, and married my mother's sister "Mary Sue" when he came home. About 6:30am Tuesday I spoke to Cynthia my "sister cousin" while I was loading my gear up, up in Memphis. Cynthia said her Dad's condition was up and down and to go on and go fishing she would keep me updated. I hung up the phone, the dark sky began a mist of rain, a gentle rolling thunder seemed to announce what was coming while we waited there in the dawn for another fishing partner that was headed to the Gulf with us. Standing there in the street I began to recognize something in my soul I had felt only once before. It was many years ago when it woke me up in bed in the young hours of the morning at about the same time my Dad was breathing his last down in Mexico and it was knocking on my door again. It was Uncle Ralph that had got the call from my Dad's lawyer down in Costa Rica and it was a very shaken Uncle Ralph that called me that morning to tell me what news the lawyer spoke. I told Bear I had to go and left for home. Two hours later I stopped briefly at our house in Tuscumbia to get Sandi. I walked in, Sandi's phone rang, she looked at me and I new the news. My Uncle had crossed the river. I didn't know, but my phone had died shortly after I left Memphis, Uncle Ralph had died at 6:45am.

I had just spent the afternoon before with him. I held his hand, told him I loved and appreciated everything he ever did for me, kissed him many times and told him he would feel better tomorrow. I rubbed his forehead and eyebrows cause he couldn't but tried, and I knew it was from the itch that the Morphine gave. I brushed his hair, massaged his dieing legs now almost void of circulation and saw the tell tale splotches of death around his knees as we bathed him for what would turn out to be the last time. I sat there calming him when ever something passed his memory that gave him concern in his thoughts. I thought of my Dad, I wished I could have been there when he walked out of this world. Our families are all very close and as it goes when relatives pass we sit around talking about days past, the better times and good memories. I know so far all this has been a little dark but for me a little darkness makes me try harder to see what's there. In this case seeing what was there involved hearing a few choice stories from the archives of some of the family's over eighty crowd. Uncle Ralph's sister Olpha Dee (83) told me how She was in charge of her brother Ralph, how they used to sneak into the smoke house and she'd pull up a plank in the floor which revealed the secret hiding place of their Dad's big jug of Moonshine. We laughed as she told how she would shake and roll the jug around, "being too heavy for her to pick up," then pull the corn cob cork out and let Ralph suck it, put it back and shake it again and take a lick herself. She was six at the time and Ralph was four. I asked her if she remembered feeling a little high? Yes, she said we were high, we had to be, there were twelve of us children, all wild, and me and Ralph, well that was just our little secret, we just thought we were grown ups.

I remember the day Ralph drove up in his black sedan, maybe a forty something Chevrolet, I must have been 7 or 8. We had an old widower uncle from Mississippi that came and stayed with my Grand Pa and Grand Ma in the summers. We called him Uncle Make. Make, ( Malcolm McNeily Christian) and a few other neighbors gathered around the trunk of the old car to see the dead Bobcat my Uncle had found lying on the side of the road freshly run over. When Ralph raised the lid of the trunk there was a sudden mirage of fur that came alive and proceeded in one long jump to clear the trunk and about six feet of vacant air to land all four feet at once on the chest of Make. Along with the measured flight of fangs, teeth, and claws there was a very errie sound that I could only describe at this time as the sound of some sort of gurgling gargling siren, undulating it's way through that short space on its destined intersection with a well dressed ninety year old gentleman that had a very unique look of horror on his old leather face. It was over in seconds, but I can still remember the seemingly long minutes it took that creature to reach its destination. Slowly and with almost a look of glee coming from the curved back lips and barred teeth that exposed the streams of saliva dripping off the bloody tongue and hairy chin, the Wild Cat closed the distance again as if in slow motion and upon arrival it furiously unleashed what must have been the ultimate pent up rage of pure revenge derived from the 2 hours of dark imprisonment bumping and swerving down the road in the hot, dusty, dark, and very gas fume rich prison. Not to mention the horror of waking up there from a, 40 mph, steel bumper induced coma. For all that Cat knew he had woke up in Hell. My Uncle Make never knew what hit him. Scratched from the top of his now, (fedora-less) head down to his chin, and on down his neck the Cat had turned that skinny Black Tie into Ribbons, he even eliminated the top button and shredded the tips of the collar points. The white shirt was button less except for the one tucked into his pants his old withered stomach and the bones of his ribs all raked raw. As the Cat was gone as fast as he arrived, we all could only move at a snails pace, still in disbelief. Looking down starring at Uncle Make lying at my feet and looking very dead, the last drops of his blood spattered across his frayed but heavily starched white shirt, his old black suit wet with his perspiration and the saliva of the foaming at the mouth, "deeply" I say, emotionally scarred Wild Cat that come all the way from lying in a dirt road off Highway 20 near mile marker 29, east of (Savannah), "Savanner", as Uncle Ralph and the family called it to here and just up and killed my Uncle Make. Well he wasn't dead, no not by a very long shot. He told me later he was just making sure that thing, whatever it was was gone before he let on that he was still kickin.

One more about Make, My Mothers Mother Ethel liked to shake her head and tell this story about Make. It seems that someone had died back when I was still very young. I know this cause they didn't pave the road in front of the house till I was 9 or 10 I think, so I must have been around 5-6. Anyway, Maw maw said that they were sittin up with the body, something they did back then. They'd take turns sittin up all night with the body lying in state in the living room, all the furniture removed of course and folks could come and go as they pleased, I guess 24-7. Make and a few men were at the dinning table drinkin coffee and talkin very low and quite like. Make could remember the Indians in the area. He had lived and traveled to the Oklahoma Territories, some of his and our relatives had went there in covered wagons. Well Maw Maw told how there was a quart mason jar of pepper sauce sitting on the table, along with the salt pepper shaker and the sugar bowl. The talk had died down and Make decided he was bored I guess or just needed a little something to help wake him up. He asked Maw Maw for a fork and proceeded to rummage around in the pepper sauce jar till he found a nice long pepper and plopped the whole thing in his mouth. More coffee was served, a little talking began and Make seemed to be enjoying his pepper. Maw maw said as she giggled her way through it that Male wallered and chewed that pepper around in his mouth for some time and finally he looked a lot bewildered as he spit the thing out of his mouth into he palm of his hand and then slapped the table with hit so hard it turned the salt shaker over. keeping his hand spread flat holding the chewed pepper between it and the table top, he slowly lifted one side of his hand, head bent over as if to peer under his hand and at with a hop he lifted hjs hand and yelled, "Now Blaze Damn Ya!"

Old and New Friends-Visa Championships, Hartford. A good time was had by all!

Morning with the Hounds and Hogs video

A Good Morning out with the Youngsters

My buddy Tommy Butler and I took the youngsters to the Bay Pen Saturday morning. about 50 acres. They bayed two hogs in about 30 minutes and held one, about 150 lbs. three times after he broke bay totaling about about 45 minutes. All are young not yet 2 years old, Plotts and the Bluetick. Took the Jagds to start acclimating them to the process, they are 3 months this Sunday showing good grit!

Latest Project, remodel/overhaul

A few before-after shots of the outside, I'll show the inside later.