Bottomless Underwear

These days I get to hunt a few places that look a lot more scenic than our old Texas ranch -- but aren't necessarily more fun!

My fishing misadventures on lake Texoma were every bit as fun as my recent salmon trip to Alaska -- the fish just got bigger.

Hi. I'm Tom Claycomb and this is my first article on RonSpomerOutdoors.com. Let’s go over a few ground rules before you start reading my blogs. If you want some slick, literary articles covering my latest African Safari, that’s not on the horizon. Bottomless underwear might be...I’ll tell you a little of my background so you’ll know where I’ll be coming from. When I first started shooting a shotgun I borrowed my older sister’s Fox double barrel. I couldn’t even reach the trigger. So I had to hold it under my arm to shoot. Dad would only let me load one barrel at a time.I bought my first boat in the 10th grade for $150. It was an old, wood cabin-cruiser. It looked more like a space ship than a boat. I had just enough money to buy an old 30-horse Evinrude which would barely push the old tub. Once while heading out to the islands on Lake Texoma, Murray Hatfield said “open it up!” I said “it is!” He shook his head and said “I can out-swim this junker.” He jumped overboard and did.   In high school Richard Jaco and I would go up to the lake nearly every Friday night. We’d spotlight coons and possums all night and then go duck hunting at dawn. Some nights we’d ride around with the Game Warden, Sammy Brown, and try to catch poachers. My sleeping bag had a broken zipper and we didn’t have a tent. We’d sleep right by the fire in our blue jeans and cowboy boots. Freezing on one side and about to catch fire on the other.  In fact I think Steve Wendt did catch his pants on fire one night.We’d only have $2.00 between us to buy gas. We’d take a coke and a piece of candy. That’s all we had to eat until we got home Saturday night. I'm still skinny.But still, I was totally blessed as a kid. In the second grade we bought a place that butted up to the Kay Kimball ranch. The ranch foreman, Clarence Skaggs, let me have the run of the place. I’d help dad build fence until midmorning and then grab my shotgun and explore the post oak forest for hours. It’s a wonder I ever found my way back home.Men of integrity set an example that I wanted to follow. Next to my dad, Mr. C.C. Teague was the coolest guy in the world. He took us dove and deer hunting on ranches in South Texas. He had a rule that when you walked out of the bunk room into the main cabin you had to be dressed. One time I walked out in my red long-handles. He told me to go get dressed. I muttered something and before I knew it he’d jumped over the couch and put me face down on the floor. He whipped out his knife and cut the rear-end out of my longhandles. I learned not to pop off to older people. Especially if they were 70 years old and tough enough to take me. I also never again walked out of the bunk room not fully dressed.Then there was the time Pat Teague’s cranky old uncle told us to turn off the rock music on the old box radio. So of course after the morning hunt we got back to camp and cranked it up. He came stomping in yelling at us that this was the last time he was going to warn us. He tried to change the channel and it didn’t work. Then he tried to turn it off. That didn’t work either. Then he unplugged it and it kept on blaring. He was so mad he picked it up above his head to slam it in the floor -- and that’s when our little transistor radio fell out. We all had a good laugh.I’ve got a real job now and can go on better hunts than I used to. Better gear, too. I’m tricking out a 10/22 this week and that is probably going to cost somewhere between $1,200 to $1,400. Quite a price jump from my sister’s old Fox double barrel. But I still use plenty of underpowered motors and battered old guns, knives, bows and fishing rods. I'm more about the fun than the stuff. In spite of 40-years as a professional meat cutter, I sill like to skin, bone, cut, cure, smoke and turn the game I shoot into delicious food. Must run in the family. My brother Eddy, who's also publishing on RSO, is a regular galloping outdoor gourmet. Between the two us us, we can take you from desire to delicious. If you want to hunt, shoot and eat anything from a morel to a moose, we'll show you how or die laughing as we try.So that’s sorta me and this is going to be a blue collar, outdoor huntin’ and fishin’ and pokin’ around the woods column. Something the hardworking dad on a shoestring budget can relate to. Or a kid with a newspaper route. Sure, if you want to take me on a safari I’ll go in a hot second, but I’m not going to forget where I came from. I’m not going to write in a manner that makes kids feel like second class outdoorsmen. I won’t trivialize squirrel hunting with a BB gun or pheasant hunting with a break-action single barrel. So let’s have some fun.Tom Claycomb is not just what he says he is. He’s more. Honest, straight-shooting, hard-working, friendly, helpful, good-old country boy who loves the outdoor life. Watch for his posts on RonSpomerOutdoors.com every other week, more often if we can twist his arm.