End of another Year

This hunting season ended with me chasing coyote and fox. Now to be honest our coyote season ends in March, but fox ended on the 28th of Feb. Since I didn't want to be in the position of letting a fox walk. I just hang up the guns and get ready for the fishing opener.

I hunted Mississinewa Reservoir last week and saw a fox, he busted me before I was even set up. I ended my season at Salamonie Reservoir hoping to get a fox and a coyote before the year ends. Well I didn't get a fox, but I did get a coyote on my second stand of the day.
I was set up on a field that to me looked "foxy". I almost didn't even finish this stand, when I first started the caller there was a dog at a house that was close to my calling spot that started barking. With the woodpecker distress screaming on my foxpro and 3 minutes into the stand I saw this yote charging the caller.  When he slowed I let him have it with a 50 grain V-Max, my shot was a little low so I put the crosshairs on him again and squeezed the trigger. With a solid "whump" the yote dropped, I switched to a coyote pup in distress and let it play for a couple minutes. When nothing else showed, I walked out to get my coyote.

 

2011 Hunting Season Breakdown

Species---Number of Critters Taken----Days Afield

Turkey----------1---------------- 5
Deer------------- 1 ----------------10
Dove-------------10------------- 1 1/2
Pheasant--------1 -------------- 1

Coon------------- 2---------------- 4

Coyote/Fox------ 1---------------- 2
Waterfowl-----11 ducks/29 geese-----35

Total-------------56-------------58 1/2

I even had a couple firsts this year:
First Northern Shoveler-AKA spoonbill

And my first lesser Goose that I shot at Weeds poo pond.

When you look at all stacked up, all in all I had another stellar year.  I can only hope that next year will stand up to the hopes and expectations.
 As the seasons change so does the quarry we chase. With the end of hunting season, the beginning of the fishing season is just around the corner. 

Woohooo bring on the fishing season.

Lets not forget Turkey season in April just a mid spring hunting fix.

Late Goose is over

Late goose ended last week on the 15th of Feb. Today I was going to go coyote hunting but the weather had other plans for me. So I thought I would catch up on my house work i.e.- put my decoys up for the year, and catch up on my blog.
Last week proved to be yet another tough hunt, I hunted the 14th and 15th. On the 14th I really had no good spot picked out to field hunt, and I didn't have any birds anyway, so I did some pass shooting. I was only out for a couple hours and got one goose. The bad thing was the goose landed on the snow covered ice. I had already thought ahead for this problem, and brought my fishing pole/ goose getter with me. What I didn't plan on was the weight of the goose and the drag across the snow breaking my line. So after a trip to the house to get a pole strung with 30# test braid I laid hands on my prize.

The lucky thing was that I didn't hook my goose with the second line. I actually hooked the weight from my first gang rig. Lucky I wasn't there all nite.
The last day of season I went to a field that I hadn't hunted all year. I checked it every week and the geese just never showed up so I never tried it.
With nothing to lose I got set up in the pre dawn hours, and stayed til' just after noon. That's when I started picking up my gear. I got home ate and hung out until 3:30, then I went to my pass shooting spot and waited.
Fortunately it didn't take that long for me to ground the first goose of the day, and not long after that I grounded my last goose of the year.

Even with all the warm weather and getting very few "new" geese I still topped my numbers from last year. I haven't totaled my numbers up yet but that isn't too far in the future. Only a couple weeks until the end of my coyote and fox season and Turkey in April, fishing is just around the corner.

Still Shootin' Geese

Last week I went back to the field that I shot the 3 geese at and pass shot it right before sunset. I only hunted for a couple hours and had a flock come by to roost for the night. I was able to get one goose out of the flock before they were out of range and time had expired. I didn't think that was too bad considering I was only out there for a couple hours with no decoys.

That hunt was on Wed and on Thurs I went West to a property I just got this year. Well when we got to the property Weed realized he had forgotten his blind so I sent him back to my house for my x-tra blind. As I was getting the gear unloaded, the house lights came on. So I went over to talk to the Joe the owner of the property. When I got closer I noticed it was the misses and not Joe at the door. She related to me that Joe had just been diagnosed with lung cancer and was not expected to last the week, and they had all kinds of family coming over to say their final goodbye's.
After hearing what was going on I told her that I won't stay and clog up their drive. She never even asked me not to hunt, as a matter of fact she kept apologizing, they are really nice people. I just found out yesterday that Joe passed on Sat.
So after moving on from the spot I was going to hunt, I moved down the road to another property I have. Tom's property has always been good to me, however with the wind coming in the way it was I knew I had alot of work ahead of me. I called Weed to let him know what was going on, and then started hauling gear the couple hundred yards to the end of the field. Well after seeing 12 geese in the morning, a couple doubles and a flock of 6, nothing flew until right before sunset.

So as you can see the action was fast and furious for a couple minutes. I got home around 9:30 that evening, threw my gear in the house, cleaned my goose and got to bed so I could get some sleep for work the next morning.

It would be sooo much easier on me if I didn't have to go to work the next morning.

Late season Goose has begun

 With Wednesday Feb 1st being the season opener and since my trolling motor got fried. I was forced to finish this years goose season on land.
       -late season like early season allows 5 geese a day-
With the weather staying warm our geese just haven't come down. So we're forced to hunt the same stale birds that have been around town all winter. Now that doesn't mean that you can't still get birds. It just means that you have to work a little harder to take some feathers home. 
Last week I hunted a field that I have hunted 3 other times without even firing a shot.
Well all that changed, I also learned that this particular field is a bad weather or afternoon field hunt only. Now the reason I say that is the only geese I could actually work came in afternoon. I shot 2 geese between 5 and 5:20pm, the only other goose I got was shot in the morning. Every flock that came over during the day just didn't want to play the way they did later in the day.
I left the house at 6ish and didn't get home until 8:30 pm, as a matter of fact I was informed I only had another half hour before Sarah called the cops to go look for me. It was worth it since I got to burn some powder and left the field with some geese.

Only 2 short