Finally getting some weather

Last week we saw a little change in the mild winter.... RAIN or threats of rain all week. The warm weather continued but we did get out and bring the goose count down by 5.

This is the third time we have hit this field, and the first time we took anything off of it. It was an all day set but we finally were able to put some meat on the ground. By the way for those of you math wizards out there, we got 1 more after the pick was taken.
Next was my Christmas goose, on Christmas of course.

That pretty much summed it up for last week.
This week it rained all day Mon. and I was feeling a little sick so I stayed home. Tues I hit the water for geese with no luck, as a matter of fact I only saw one goose all day.
Wednesday I went to a property that has been holding a dozen geese or so and set up in the wee hours hoping to get 1 or 2. Well the morning flight came and went rather uneventfully so now I was in it for the long haul. As the day went on I had walked to the treeline to shall I say, "relieve myself" and stretch my legs. After the business was done I heard some geese, I looked out at my spread and in came 2 honkers that landed 5 feet from my layout blind. So after some deliberation I decided to make a slow walk to the geese and see how close I could get before they flew.

Apparently I could get close enough to put both of them in the dirt. So now all I have left is one goose so I was more determined to stay and try for the third. I put the 2 geese in the woods where I had just been and since I hadn't prepared to stay all day, I had to call Sarah to find out when sunset was. After she told me, I started walking out to get some more sleep ready for some geese. I noticed a flock of 6 geese starting out onto the far side of the field. I was close enough to get to my blind and get it closed before the geese were within the kill ring. I popped up and dropped my last goose for my limit of 3. I didn't have to call, I didn't get any video and everything was muddy, I didn't even get another band, but I did get my geese.
From zero to Hero in 17 minutes.

 Thursday I went and sat in a tree for 5 hours only to watch the squirrels, and woodpeckers. The good news is the October weather has finally arrived.  : )

warm--- non-eventful--- sad week

I had a pretty rough week this week....
For starters it was really warm only going into the upper 30's lower 40's at night. Went out and sat for some deer on Tues. evening. Didn't see any deer but did enjoy watching all the squirrels. Went out for some duck hunting this morning and didn't see a duck.
The caper for the week was I finally got a freezer full of fur, so I packed all the bodies in the car and headed to the furrier, only to arrive and see a "Closed- No Russian market" sign on the door. Now, this guy has been in business since he was a teenager and he's around my age now. So I gave him a call to find out what happened. Apparently he had to close because the Russians aren't buying furs; he still has all the pelts from last year and most of the pelts from 2 years ago. He also said this will probably be the way it is for the next couple of years to five years.
So today I pulled all my traps for the year and will not reset next week. I did find a buyer in the area but will probably only make pennies on the dollar for the coon and muskrat I have. It's really sad and has me pretty tore up over the whole deal, even though there's nothing I can do about it.
This was going to be the year my trapping broke even, even though I invested another $200 in it. Now I have all my traps pulled and drying in the shed waiting to be packed away until the fur market makes a come back.... if it ever does.

Last week was pretty dry

Well I've been putting off writing this entry because it's so very depressing.
Monday Sean and I went to Huntington for the pheasant clean up. I have never seen so much orange on property that I did on Monday. That being said they mostly had dogs and were all working the gravy cover leaving us to push the bare bones of the property. You know.... the kinda crap that while your pushing it your singin' to yourself... "and they ran through the briars and they ran through the brambles and they ran through the bushes where the rabbits wouldn't go." It's a song you can google it.
Anyway, we made it to midday and only kicked out 2 bunnies when my com padre yells out, "I see one" I yell back, "Shoot it". The only thing I didn't realize was he was only 3 feet from this poor hen. Enough said or should I finish???? Ok, he pureed that pheasant with the only recognizable part being the part that should've been gone.... the head.
Tues. hit the water for ducks. Zippo
Wednesday I got permission for a field that had at least a hundred ducks dumping in it around and after shooting time. Well we set up in the wee hours of the morning and we were greeted with a fog that hung on until at least after noon. Strike one. When it finally cleared up we had some (2) ducks fly by and a flock of geese land a couple hundred yards from us in the same field that we Sean had to go scare away. Strike two. And finally into the magic half hour before sunset..... nothing. We did get a great show of ducks while we were picking up though. Strike three. They came in right on time like they had watches and knew what time we had to be done.