This week in a nutshell..... fog

 With only a week left of duck season Monday I was in Fort Wayne, hoping to put a couple more ducks in the freezer. Not the case... it started out pretty foggy and only got worse.

 I was able to put a couple geese down and only had to chase the one 75 yards before I caught him.

After the high of success on Monday I decided to keep the ball rolling and head back to Fort Wayne on Tues. My landowners soon to be son in law was visiting from ND and asked if he could go with. I didn't have a problem with that the only thing was I wasn't going to be getting any sleep in the blind. The other problem was I think Josh was bad luck. The ducks and geese that were in the air wanted nothing to do with us. The only thing I can really blame it on is him being bad luck. 

Wednesday I worked and did my shopping for the week. 

This morning I took the boat to a lake close to me to try for some more ducks. They all left out before shooting time, they must've known I was there. I only had 2 geese come by the first one had some other place in mind to be. The second showed up 5 minutes after I decided to pack it in. He came in just a honkin' and lookin' for some friends to hang out with. When he noticed the dude in the water standing next to the boat in the middle of the spread he just kept going. Oh yeah and did I mention it was still kinda foggy?

Only got one more day for duck season and that's Monday, I even double checked the regs. I'll probably find myself back in Fort Wayne trying for a limit or sleep which ever comes first.

Newsflash

 When your looking up when any certain season ends make sure your looking it up in this years regs.

After seeing the error in my ways looks like it's goose season next week.

windy, warm, and rainy

 That's been the weather report here for the last couple days. I had an invite today to go out to my buddy's and try for a deer but the weather is warm and super windy. Hopefully I can get a raincheck and head out on Monday.  Yesterday I was in my magic 5 and watched squirrels all day. I only have one more day left and that day is Monday, for whatever reason the muzzleloader season ends at the start of the week, good for me.

Now the other thing that was "good for me" was Monday.

She's a 95# doe so she's not huge and I would really like to put another one with her to get put me in meat for the next year. 

Monday's my last day.... I am sick and tired of deer hunting and it makes me sick to think of all the duck and goose hunting I have missed. 

Lesson learned this year... I AM NOT A TROPHY HUNTER.. I am a meat hunter and will not pass a decent buck again any time of the year in the hopes for a bigger one later. 

You might need to remind me of that before next Oct. 😉

only 1 week left

 I spent all week and most of this fall/winter trying to shoot a deer. I have yet to put a tag on one, I spent the whole week in a tree watching squirrels and coons. All I can think about is all the waterfowl I could've been hunting. More on what I learned on this year's deer hunt, next week.

Dammit, I'm sick

 But before I got sick, Cliff and I pushed Mongo for some pheasant on Monday, and I worked for them on Tuesday until midday to no avail. 

Monday I had already seen 3 pheasant, 2 on the road and 1 that I bumped and still cannot believe I whiffed on. But that's hunting I guess, Cliff got to Mongo by 10:30ish in the am after he got his kids on buses and dropped off homework for one. 

With the knowledge of where I saw the 2 birds by the road we set up a slow push that should at least let us see a bird. So we dropped off Cliffs vehicle at the pick up spot and I drove us down to the start spot in my pos. Well, before we started the drive he put his key on the dash, I don't like leaving stuff people might want to steal on the dash so I put it in the glove box, and off we went. We didn't see either of those wiley pheasant but we did manage to walk 1.5 miles through the thick stuff looking for them before we made it to Cliff's car. As we were getting closer to the car we both came to the same realization at about the same time. 

Yep you guessed it, his key was back in my car, I didn't even think about it when I was putting it in the glove box. I have always put my guests keys in the glove box. Since we were both there we decided to not place any blame and just start walking the .75mi back to my car to move on to the next spot. 

But we really know it was Cliff's fault, what was he thinking leaving his key in my car. 

Anyway I'm over it.

So we really only had enough time to make a very small push on 1 more spot. There was another spot that I had been seeing a pheasant on the road so we were going to walk for about 15 minutes to the west then pop out on the road and get back to the cars, so he could get home in time to get his kids from school. He's a pretty involved dad which I think is pretty impressive in this time and age. I've told him numerous times to just leave a trail of food from the bus stop to the house and everything will take care of itself. 👍

Anyway we got to the spot and I gave a brief outline of what we were going to do.... when I looked in the direction of which we were going to travel and saw 2 hunters coming our way. After we chatted them up very briefly we changed our course and headed North to the back fields to try our luck. I wanted to see what Cliff had learned through the day and let him pick where we were going to push and walk, since we have very limited time. He started by straight up gar holin' me, the brush he took to walk through looked really pheasanty and the brush he gave to me looked... well, kinda anemic. So, I choked down my criticism of the unfolding events and watched as he weaved through the the brush stopping at the best clumps of grass and trees and waited for the flush, all the while I stood in the barren wasteland that he gave me to push. By the way this little chunk of property couldn't hide a quail let alone a pheasant. After 20 yards or so of walking through the pheasant desert I looked up and all of a sudden my side started looking good. As my attitude and eyes started looking up and forward I saw our quarry. A lone ringneck pheasant staring back at me, well, as we are well aware of I take pride in ground pounding my birds, with no dog they can't get away that way. This one was especially tough I had to shoot twice to get the desired effect, which was a bird for the game bag.

Cliff took this pic with his phone and since our time was pretty much done we called it a day. He said he had a really good time and liked that kind of hunting because he was always moving. I couldn't work him too hard because of the limited time but I'm sure given one whole day I could send him home tired and sore.

Muzzleloader season opens next week, I need to get a deer.