Welcome to the Pineywoods Buckskinners Web Page. Come on in and have a look around.
We are a family club; wives and kids are welcome. We have members all over the East
Texas area. We currently have forty-one members. We have five to six rendezvous a year
starting in October. Most from the members make it to the Southwestern each year.In the
warmer months we get together and work on our Mountainman skills. Some of our pass
activates are brain tanning deer hides and making gourd canteens. In July we have a BBQ
and swim party. If its not too hot maybe a shooting match or knife and hawk throw.
If you would like more information my e-mail address is at the bottom of the page.
Favorite Links
Upcoming Rendezvous
Other Skinner's
Pictures from Southwestern 2003
Traders
What's on the Spit?
Texas against the World SWRR 2003
A Note From the Prez!
FROM THE PREZIdental Easy Chair:
It gets so hot in East Texas in the summer (summer here is from Winter to Winter) that
we can't Rendezvous. That's when we go Tin Tipi camping. A special thanks to Linda for
this article about our last trip.
Well for those of you who missed the Beaver's Bend Weekend outing, WOW, what a weekend.
Bugs and I decided to leave early Friday, so that we could arrive at the camp ground in
plenty of time to find the "nice spots" for those arriving. We had reservations in
Smithville, OK at Beaver's Bend North. We had been told that all the campgrounds fill
up pretty fast on weekends. With threatening weather all around and the forecast
indicating rain for the whole weekend, we still went North, Gosh, we were ron-d-vooers,
and a little rain couldn't hurt!
We arrived at the campground about 4PM, we scoped out each of the sites (in order to get
the best ones). As we picked out the best sites we noticed a "huge" black cloud rolling
in from the west at about the same time that Yona found a sewer ditch to "roll" in. Yep,
you guessed it, he stank!!! So into the camper we crawl getting out shampoo and water
hose. We hooked up the water hose and gave him a quick bath, finishing just as the rain
began to POUR!!! We jumped into the camper and waited for the cloud to pass. About an
hour later the rain stopped and Bugs, Yona, and I went out to gather fire wood for the
night fire. Yes we are truly buckskinners; we had a fire going in about 30 minutes, wet
wood and all.
About the time we set down to enjoy the fire and wait on the others to arrive, the owner
of the campground came up and advised us that the low-water crossing coming into the
camp was flooded. No one could get out, no one could get in. Hmm. Kyle and his family had made it to the crossing, however they couldn't get across so they backed (with the trailer) about a ˝ mile in order to turn around and go look for another camp site. I managed to reach Debbie and Terry (on their cell) and advised them that they couldn't get in, so luckily they found another campsite and stopped before arriving in Smithville.
In the meantime, Kyle and Linda had traveled North over the mountain looking for a
campsite,only to learn that they were all full. They decided to turn around and go home
since there weren't any sites available. Back South over the mountain again. By this
time it was around 11pm. They took one last chance and happened to find a site about 30
miles south of Smithville.
This was just Friday night and we were scattered in three different camp grounds.
However, the plan was to meet at the café in Smithville the next morning at 9AM, if
everyone could get there. Well, we managed to get the message to everyone, with the
help of the campground owners and their telephone, since our cell phone didn't work up
there in the mountains.
At 9AM the next morning we all arrived at the cafe. It was misty rain and cool. We had
breakfast (the biggest pancakes I've ever seen). We had to wait on the "canoe man" to
call us. Around noon, after shuffling cars, campers, and people up and down the mountain,
(in order to all have a camp site together for Saturday night) we all crawled into the
van to head to the river.
The "canoe man" only took cash for the rental fees. Hmmm, Kyle's billfold
(with his money) was 30 miles down the mountain in his camper. So we began to pitch in
all our cash to come up with $120 for four canoes. After scrounging all of our pockets
and bags, we counted our pennies and were still 67 cents short. The nice canoe man said
that was fine.But nope, not for us buckskinners from Texas We didn't want the Okies
to talk about us, so we dug in the seats of the van (that belonged to the canoe man)
to find more change. Well actually we found it in another bag we had. We ended up
with $120.05. So, we gave him a 5 cent tip big spenders.
At 1pm, we joined hands, asked the Lord for a safe trip and ventured into the water.
Only about 30 yards from the worst white water we would encounter for the day. It was
called the "toilet bowl". We got wet right away and had to stop and empty the water
out of the canoes. Then the sun came out, and we had a great 4 hour trip down the
Mountain Fork River. No one turned over and we only had to back paddle once when two
of the canoes took the "left fork" which was a dead end and had to turn around. There
were several rapids (white water) and by the end of the day, we all thought we were
pros (ha). We arrived at the take out point right on time. We loaded into Kyle's
vehicle and headed for the campground.
When we arrived we found water running out the back door of Debbie and Terry's camper.
Terry opened the back door and about 4 inches of water was in the floor of their camper.
Rocky was on the upper bed wondering would he have to swim before he was rescued.
