Ready for the upcoming hunting season..... almost

 I spent this entire week getting hunting gear pulled out, dusted off and fixed and still didn't have enough time. I got the boat winterized and put away along with my fishing poles, my tackle bags are a whole other deal. I got my decoy trailer pulled out and organized as is a Sept. custom also got the wheeler in it. Rigged up a dozen and a half new decoys now just waiting on the decoy bag. Garage is kinda workable but it still needs some stuff moved around. Looks like I'll have more time next week to work on the garage cause I have the internet company showing up at 11:30 am. 

I know looking at what I had to do to get ready for the season doesn't look like much but I assure you I was pretty busy this week.

Deer opens on the first and it looks like I won't get out until at least Tues, which is OK cause I haven't even shot my crossbow yet. 

So much to do and so little time to do it in.

Twofer

 Well another fishing season has come to an end, but before I put the boat away for the year I had to scout a lake I want to hunt. This is a lake I had scouted once before and deemed it unhuntable, but since it is so close I decided to take another look. I fished cast around the whole lake looking for a spot to set up and finally was able to find a couple spots for Eastish winds, so kind of a win there. I didn't stay long only a couple hours and didn't catch anything.... at all.... nothing.

It wouldn't be a twofer if I didn't go out again.... so I made the longest pilgrimage of the year to Lorain, Ohio to fish Erie one last time.

First let me say the launch at Lorain was the worst I have seen on Erie. 

The sign at the entrance said it was 4$ to launch and the sign where you put the money in said 5$, I erred on the side of caution. The actual launch was not very wide and the dock was in much need of repair. The bathrooms had a push button lock on the door and the code was posted (why even have it locked) but the deadbolt above the push button lock was locked. 😲😡 

As my Dad would say,"I just made two trips in one, first and last"

The best part was the..... na there wasn't really a best part the whole launch process kinda sucked. Anyway enough about the launch, let's talk about the fishing.... I chose this launch because I could get to deep water quicker and try to catch some deep eye's. I started at 30' on the North side of the breakwall and caught my first and biggest eye of the trip by 9:39am. 

Then I trolled around FOR HOURS caught 3 shorts from 30 to 37' and a cat at 46'

Sorry bout the pic but the camera died after this one. Again pics just don't do this beast justice, I didn't weigh it because I had it out of the water for a while but I did measure it at 28 1/2". It fought hard I thought it was a goo but when I first caught sight of it, it started to look like an eye. Only when I was ready to land it did I see it was a cat. 

So to recap 1nice keeper, 3 shorts and a cat, after 10 hours of fishing.... If there's ever a reason to end a year, that would be it. 

LET THE HUNTING SEASON COMMENCE......

Oh wait...... the best part... I put off getting gas in Ohio because the cheapest I found it was 3.59$ and I left Angola with the price of 3.42$ so since my truck can make the round trip I held out getting gas. I looked there and back for a decent price on gas. Since I didn't see any I had faith that when I got home I could fill up cheaper.

WRONG...... 

apparently in the 10 hours I was fishing gas became more valuable than gold, and I HAD to put a half tank in for 3.89$ a gallon.😨😱😲😡😭😬😭😭

 

If it comes down to 3.85$ I'll fill it up. 😂

doubled up

 The weather was kinda cool

and the forecast was more of the same, so it's time for another dove hunt. I got to the field at daybreak with plans of staying all day. The day was beautiful 

and the doves were flying... kinda, after a couple moves on the field I was able to get under the flight path. I had 1 in the cooler when a flock of geese flew right over me. It was all I could muster not to try a shot @ 20 yards. I put my second dove in the cooler then the weather moved in

The first bit of rain almost missed me it rained like you were shaking out a colander, big drops no wet. This next front looked a bit meaner so I did what any hardcore dove master would do.... I picked up my crap and got the flock out of the field. I was home by 6ish with only 2 dove to show for a day in the field.... MMMMmmm dove poppers (next week).

Super Lazy

 Yep believe it or not the only reason I didn't get a post in last week was I was being lazy. On top of that it wouldn't have been a very good post. 

Well here I'll let you be the judge.....

Last week I made my weekly pilgrimage to Erie in the hopes of adding another 6 walleye to the freezer stash. I FISHED ALL DAY from 6:30A- 7:30P and from 25' to 50' and only managed 1 short, 1 small cat and 1 keeper. The only good news was they all came on a dipsy and mini spoon that I just rigged up specifically for this time of year and depth. The bad news is I still have to rig up 2 reels with a 5 color of lead to get my other 2 lines deeper. The worse news is the reels I bought were too small and I had to order 2 more 1 size bigger, like I'm made of money.....

See bad post....

This week started the hunting season with dove opening on the first. Since I didn't get drawn I had to wait, and made a plan to go out with a buddy on Wednesday. So I scouted the fields up here on Tues. and boy where they bad, not many sunflowers and a whole lot of weeds. To top that off the birds were really scarce, so I made the executive decision to run to Huntington in the hopes their sunflowers fared better. 

Wow did they ever, the down side was they were still pretty green.

 This time of year they should be brown and dropping sunflowers but most of these were still green. So it was kinda a good news bad news thing. It just seemed like the birds either haven't shown up yet because of the crops, the weather, because of the shooting the last couple days, or some other factor I am not privy to. We saw less than a limit of birds and out of them, only 5 swung close enough for a shot, and of those 5 only 1 came home. 

Rough first outing, but we had as good of a time as you can have just wasting a day in a field. On a day that if it was 2 degrees warmer the field would've caught on fire. Shooting up 7 rounds apiece from noon til' 8:07 then picking up and driving the hour home with ONLY 1 BIRD TO SHOW FOR IT...😡

yep, pretty good day.👍😊

not sure what next week will bring would like to hit the dove fields again but I know I've got one more fishing trip in me before I put the boat away for the year.