🎶 Havin' a heat wave.... a tropical heat wave..... 🎶

Yep, with the high heat last week until today I mostly just got some projects taken care of. I had to align my headlights and replace my seat covers in the car. I put a onboard a noco genius battery maintainer on the truck that mounts under the hood to try and extend the life of my battery.... (I've been through 2 already.) And then for the big project that didn't turn out to be a big project, I replaced the taillights on my decoy trailer. 

The reason I said the "big project" is I didn't know how to change out the taillights so I watched a YouTube and he went in from the back of the light. Which meant taking out 7 screws that didn't want to come out. Then bending back the aluminum to expose the back of the light and pulling it and putting the new one in.... 

I put this project off for 2 years. My neighbor Bill came over to see what I was up to and told me all I have to do is pull the old seal and the old light will come out. Damn if that didn't work, we had both of them changed out in around 10 minutes. 

So now that I had that "big project" done I went for a ride with my buddy while he was discing a field. It was pretty fun but after and hour my ass got pretty sore from the little jump seat in the tractor. Anyway he invited my out this morning to sit in his blind with him. He was itching to put his new doe decoy to use and see what he could call in. We only had a fawn and a buck respond but he hung out for at least 15 minutes.

 If he would've been a year or 2 older he would've been given a ride in the back of my truck...

With wind hitting the low 30mph and rain moving in we only stayed until 9:30ish which was fine with me.

We really only went out to use the decoy and because it is Halloween, which has usually been the start of the rut around here.

So with that being said I will probably be deer hunting next week and on and off until gun season when I'll hit it hard again.

First two days of waterfowl season

Day one of waterfowl found me on a field I know all too well. I got set up way before daylight, with only 4 dozen decoys, 3 doz of them being silhouettes. With the first flock flying so low they passed only 10' overhead, and I missed all three shots. The next had 5 geese land just outside of my decoys. So, I had to change out choke tubes from Mod to Full. I snuck up on them best I could and when I was close enough I let 3 shots go. I hit one of the geese so I put the 2 back up shots into the gun. I walked up within range and fired the first miss, then the second. Then the race was on and here comes old guy after the goose. After 75 yards I dropped my gun, not needing the extra weight, and I knew it would be easy to find. After 100 yards of chasing this goose we were both really tired and slowed to a fast walk, I made one more push and was able to tackle, and dispatch him. Whew was I tired. So now all I had to do was find my gun in a cut corn field, laid cross-ways to the rows. I had geese flying over, around and landing in my decoys and all I could do was laugh and keep walking the 75 yards back and forth then moving West 5 yards and walking it again. After 21 minutes of looking for my shotgun I finally found it, (I'm a really good rattlecaner) I camoed it. I snuck around the back of where I was hunting, with the sun in the gooses eyes I reloaded waited for a flock and dropped 3. That is the start of the video.

The birds flew like crazy Monday, not as many on Wednesday but I should've had limit. There's always room for improvement.

Deer season on break

 Well, I hunted Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, Wednesday I didn't even see a deer, which was odd. I've seen deer on every hunt so far this season, which is awesome, but with the open of duck and Goose this weekend my deer season is on hold until the week of Halloween. When I will go back out and try and get a deer. 

Still beating myself up

 I went deer hunting yesterday and the deer were really moving. I was seeing alot of yearling bucks 

and a couple small does. At 9:13am I shot a really nice wide 8. When I watched him move off on the neighbors I text him and let him know. He text me back letting me know his son just shot one and asked if I would hold off. His son wanted to give the deer a little time, after checking, his arrow looked like liver partial lung hit. I agreed and thought it would be good to let mine also have some time. Well, long story short I got the green light after he found his. So I started down to my bolt which I could see from my stand. I found some belly hair and some blood that dried up after a short track, there was virtually no blood on the bolt. I just screwed up the nicest buck I've seen and the chance to be done this year. In hindsight I ranged him at 47 yards twice, so I used my 50 yard dot and just dropped it a little. I should've used my 50 and held on the heart. 

 

Crap

On the upside this guys been hangin out 20 yards behind my stand 2 of the 4 days I've hunted....

I've wind bumped him out both days when I get down and start back to the truck.

Answer from last week and what happened this week

 The answer to the question last week was...... Preying Mantis.

Corey texted me first then Reggie (from work) was the second to know. 

I was heading to work on Friday and this little guy wanted to go. Since I knew it would be too much red tape to have him work the day, I decided to give him the day off. I stopped on the roadside, helped him off the car and put him in some grass.

Good luck little buddy.

Monday was not deer opener so I did some bank fishing.....

And got my deer gear together and shot my X-bow...

Ready 👌👍

Tuesday was the opener, as per the opener and first couple weeks of season..... I was late to the stand.

I was just getting into my stand at about sunrise and had a deer blow 20 yards from me. I got to see him run away as I was getting situated. Counting him I saw 4 deer on the opener, him, a 7pt yearling a doe and a fawn. I could've shot the 7 but passed on him..... Why?  young deer and opener.

After he rubbed that tree he followed his doe and I thought they were gone.... 5 min later I heard something behind me. I turned to see the buck walking down the trail I walk in on and was within 15 yards. He looked right at me... and moved off to my left and stared at me for another 5 min before walking back up the way he came and disappeared in the brush.

Pretty good opener...

Day 2 found again late to the stand, I had to get different clothes on since it was 20 degrees cooler than the previous morning. All in all I had another stellar day. I saw 9 deer, 2 of which were small bucks, one Michigan 11 point (spike) and a six that I had inside of 20 yards. That little guy strolled up my hill, went in behind me and bedded down 20 yards in the brush.

He had me pinned down for 3- 3 1/2 hours, which put me past my leave time but I didn't want to just bust him out. So, I carefully and quietly gathered my gear and eased down the ladder and crept up the trail. I did end up wind bumping him but he didn't blow so I don't think he was too freaked out.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to do anything today (dentist appt) and getting ready for the week so I did a little bank fishing last night. The conditions were good but the wind was bad. The West wind had pushed and was continuing to push all the weeds from across the lake into shore, which made this fishing trip a cursing event..... I was able to catch one.

The one thing I've noticed about the bank fish.... they are all about the same size. 

Aah that's OK they were fun to catch.

The temps stay low for next week so maybe I'll be able to punch my tag. 👍