It's here, It's here, It's finally here

Duck and goose have officially opened for me, and yes I triple checked the date. I started the season on one of my fields in "town".

this glorious morning starts my season

 The birds I saw the day prior really didn't make an appearance, however, we did manage to drop some geese. My buddies J and Scott took a couple birds each and decided to head for the house around 1 p.m. I wanted to hang out for the evening flight and promptly fell asleep. I woke up around 2ish to the sight and sound of a tractor starting to disc the field I was hunting in/next to.

So as soon as he started, I got busy with getting my crap out of the corn, even though he was discing the bean field. When I got home I got busy with finding a place to hunt Tues. and I found it in Big Turkey Lake. I hung out 'til around noon then picked up my dekes took the hero pic

with the single goose that fell in love with my spread. This was more of a scouting trip than anything else, the goose was a bonus.
So when I got home I made supper...

SAD SAD DAY- 1 down 1 to go

 and started getting ready for the next day's hunt, I decided to hunt a pond a ways away when the phone rang.
 My buddy J was asking what my plans for Wed. were, I told him about my planned water hunt. He said that he just got done watching 500 or so mallards and a couple hundred geese drop into a field he can hunt, then asked if I would like to go. I thought about for about 1/8th of a second and asked what time to meet at his house. Well, we hammered out a time and I changed all gear to hunt a field. I got to J's house right about on time and chatted with the Scott and Andy until J came out to greet the day. Well, we made the 10-minute drive to the field and promptly deployed his 7 doz goose decoys and a doz mallard decoys set the blinds, hid the truck and trailer and got ready for the skies to turn dark with birds. Since it's called hunting and not killing, the birds had other ideas about how the day will go. We did work a couple flocks of geese, we just weren't able to drop them in the kill hole. I'm not sure why they didn't commit, but they all lived another day. The mallards... well, the mallards never made it off the water wherever they roosted that night. So after a beautiful morning and working the couple flocks of geese we packed 'er in and headed to the house.
I got home and fixed a roast with taters, carrots, and onions, sprinkled with a pouch of Lipton mushroom onion soup mix. MMMMmmm good, when it was done cooking I hooked up the boat and headed to Loon lake which is 5 minutes from the house. This was really just another scouting trip for me, I really hate evening hunts. This one, however, was pretty cool, the lake was made for duck hunting and the bottom was all sand and gravel which makes it super easy to walk.
So to recap- 2 geese taken, 2 lakes added to my duck lakes, and a couple days in a field with friends, not too shabby.

Next....

Fall turkey season is officially closed (for me). I hunted yesterday morning and heard a couple of birds in the trees around me. I never saw them when they hit the ground, so I went home and mowed the lawn. Took a shower and was back in the field by 4 p.m. by 5:14 my tag was filled. I didn't get any video because this little girl came in silent. She peeked down the trail turned to walk away so I put the red dot on her and put her in the dirt.
 Season over.

Next week: duck and goose opener....YEAH

Own your mistakes.... face the consequences

Yesterday morning I woke early to get some chores around the house done because I was meeting up with Sean for the turkey opener. Well, I got a call around 6:26 a.m. letting me know that Sean just got up and was going to be late. No worries don't rush just get here when you can. Well, we finally got to our hunting spot around 7:40ish a little late but not terrible. As we sat there we could hear the turkeys talking back and forth, still roosted a little to our east. I'm guessing around 8:15 we had our first fly down, a hen dropped in no more than 10 yards from us. Sean couldn't see her because of a couple of trees in the way. He also had a hard time because he wasn't turned enough so he had to contort to get on her. Anyway, she saw him move when he was turning for the shot, so she ducked her head and briskly walked away.
I really wasn't worried at this point because we could still hear turkey's in the trees talking. As we waited I had Sean turn a little and I kept chatting with the turkeys in the trees. After a couple of minutes, we had some more fly downs but they went to the North out of sight. Then we had another flydown in the same spot the first hen was. Right behind her were a couple turkeys coming in from behind us.
Well, I wanted the birds to keep walking by us to get in front so we both could get on a bird. However, at 10 yards you just can't get away with any movement, and they were seeing stuff they just didn't like. So they started walking away, I started prodding Sean to pick one and shoot, shoot, can you see one? shoooooooot.
Finally, he was able to get on a bird and squeeze the trigger. When he did an explosion of turkeys ensued, all the birds to our right took off, the birds in front of us took flight and took off, even the birds that set down to our North were coming in to see what was going on jumped in the air a couple feet then set down and took off. We were covered up in turkeys and I couldn't get on any of them to double up. So we decided since Sean's bird was flopping in front of us that we would just sit for an hour to see if we could get one to come back for me to shoot.
Well, when the hour was up we got up, walked over to my deer stand and I showed him where I was when I shot my deer last week. Then we walked back picked up his bird gathered our stuff and headed out to the car to get the hero pic.

Well once we got the gear stashed in the car we started filling out the transport tag.
Sean asked me if it was the 10th or 11th?
I looked at him and said,"what?? it's the 17th"
He said no it's the 10th.
I said no it's not..... and I grabbed my phone and stared at the date in disbelief..... we shot this bird a week early.
Now the holy shits set in, after the initial shock wore off, the first call I made was to a Conservation officer to turn ourselves in and see what he wanted us to do.
I explained what had happened and how I honestly thought it was Oct. the 17th. After some more discussion, the C.O. asked where we could meet up, by that time I was already at home so I gave him my home address and he said he would meet us there. We unpacked the car I cleaned the bird and awaited the C.O. and our punishment. Even though Sean squeezed the trigger and took the bird, I was the reason he was there and I felt ultimately responsible.
I told Sean that no matter what happens I'll make it right, whether he gets fined or his gun taken away I will reimburse him.
After a half hour of sitting on needles the C.O. finally shows up at the house, and we tell the story again.
After hearing it again he says, "mistakes happen, and since you called and turned yourself in I'm just going to give you a warning."
In amazement and relief, I just stood there for a couple seconds and let what just happened sink in. I gratefully shook his hand and I think recounted the mixup a couple more times, not really sure, I was just kinda babbling and not paying attention to what I was saying.
He wrote up Sean's warning and we all chatted about hunting and the opportunities up North here. After all was said and done we shook hands again and we parted ways.
All in all, it was a good experience that I never want to have again, and trust me I will be checking dates twice before going out hunting again.

Not to minimize it but you see turkey is in season right now for archery, not firearms. So really we just used the wrong method to take this turkey. Firearms opens on the 17th of Oct.
I'll be out opening morning trying to get my bird.

well.... back to work

At least until next week, when fall turkey season opens. Last week, I did quite a bit but it feels like I really didn't accomplish much.
I forgot about this but this finally happened.

LOOK AT THAT INSIDE TEMP 59.4 YEAH!!!!

 I worked on the boat mostly,

I got the whole deck in and only have to drill and rivet it down before I lay the vinyl.
...yeah trying to remember what else I did last week. Sorry but just drawing a blank, however, I did work on the boat again this week. I got the whole front deck tore off, and am trying to decide whether or not to invest a couple hundred bucks in aluminum to raise the casting deck another 6" or just redeck it as it is.... I'm leaning toward the investment.
Anyway here's the pics

It would make it easier to fish out of and I would be that much higher so I could see into the water easier. Really leaning towards the investment.

Well, I went out deer hunting yesterday, I forgot my thermacell so I only lasted a couple hours before the skeeters drove me nuts.

I also got out this morning for all of an hour, this is what I saw.

pretty young buck, but I'll have deer meat this year

 I went out to my private prop. again this morning and knew with the direction of the wind I would be able to sit below my tree stand, (didn't want to be tempted to shoot too far) and my scent would be blowing away from where I thought the deer would come from. I was only sitting for 45 minutes before this guy started walking in from upwind and right of me. He kept walking from my right to my left and I grunt stopped him at 14 yards directly in front of me. He never knew I was there, I was tucked back in some brush and behind a tree. When he stopped, I was already safety off and ready to shoot. I loosed the arrow and from the way he took off, I knew I got a good hit on him. I gathered my gear and walked down to check the arrow. Nice clean red blood on it, it was only a matter of time. So I packed out took the car home and got the truck. When I found him he was only 20 yards from where I shot him and when I gutted him, I saw why he only went a couple yards.

Total heart shot

 MMMmmm heart... it's what's for dinner.

This is the first deer I've shot in a while, he wasn't huge but he got to ride in the Titan.