It took 6

 Today was the 6th day that I made the no-show draw drawing. That in and of itself is a feat, I never would've guessed that I could make all my no-show draws. The weather has been crappy rainy all week until yesterday when with a small glimmer of a nice day had the birds finally start talking. I heard no less than 5 different gobbles in the morning. Once they flew down they all dispersed to different areas of the section.... none tword me. 

Once I knew their game plan all I had to do was get in their way, and call them in. That was the easy part, first I had to get drawn again, then had to get to my spot and be the only one there. Well I was able to get drawn much to my surprise, now all I had to do was go to my spot and ... crap there's a car there. So I reverted to my backup plan. This section has 2 parking spots and is big enough for 2 people, I just won't be able to get in front of the birds if they do the same thing as yesterday. 

Knowing that I grabbed my gear and headed to the same spot I was in yesterday hoping to coax a bird my direction. Of the 7 different gobbles I heard the only one I had a shot with had a hen with him. When I called back to her she got scared slapped him across the face for gobbling at me and promptly lead him the other direction. 

So, that was my morning, once all the hoopla was over around 7am I decided I would stay put until 9:30 before I changed locations and went after a double dinger I saw yesterday when I was on the way home. When 9:30 rolled around I started picking up my gear and decoys and started the walk to the car. The whole way I make sure and check down every field and path for turkey's. I was about 100yards from the car when I saw some turkeys 50 yards down a path, with the sun to my back and a small bush between myself and them I looked through my monocular to see if they had seen me. When I was relatively sure they hadn't, I started backtracking looking for a decent tree to lean against.

I saw the turkeys at the star.

 When I was set I gave a couple soft yelps and moved the leaves to imitate turkey's scratching. Not knowing if they were coming was the worst part but it only took them 10 minutes or so to make it to the path. When they hit the edge of the path let me tell you they were looking for the hen. I was looking for a beard before I busted one. The grass was so long I couldn't get a good look to see if they were Jake's or Tom's so I waited. As I was watching the first one I saw the second and then a third and there might have even been a fourth.. Beard beard on the first bird... head up.... shoot... dead bird, 410 at 32 yards.

Even though he is a 2 year old he was kinda of a small bird at 18 pounds with 1" spurs and only an 8 1/2" beard.

Aghh he'll eat good.

Wish she was a Tom

 Wednesday was turkey opener so I went to try to get in as a no show draw. With only 9 spots I was able to secure one, so I got to hunt. Long day short I heard 4 gobbles and called in 3 hens, one at each of the 3 spots I tried. Today there were only 8 spots, I found that out after I had changed a flat tire on my car, and made it to the draw in time. After the draw I was again selected to go out, with my newly acquired Intel from yesterday I knew where to go. I got to the parking lot and was the only car so I sherpa'd it up and packed my gear into the field. That's where the good times stopped. I owl hooted that field 4 times trying to make him gobble. When he didn't I thought I was safe to get a spot and set up. Come to find out he was watching me as soon as I hit the field, and when I got too close off he went. Well that effectively shut down an easy almost for sure hunt. I hunted the rest of the day and didn't move a bird. Hopefully I'll have better luck next week.

The wind blew....

 I had a small window to get up to the big pond this week and that window was Wednesday. As usual I got a late start and finally got lines is at 9 or 10 and finished at 2 or 3. I had to work for them and there was really no rhyme or reason as to where they were. I hit 2 in front of the mouth, caught and missed one East of the mouth in 19 fow, and hit in 16 fow. They were all in 44-50 degree water and all in or really close to the plume. Oh yeah the wind was GUSTY the wind speed was pretty low but the gusts were 27 and up and pretty much were sustained most of the day, it made boat speed and direction a real chore. 

4 coho and 1 steelhead, this time of year all the coho should be the size of the steely. Not sure why but they coho are staying pretty small so far this year.

finally a good day

 Made it out really late (for me) and apparently everyone else had the same idea. When I got to the landing, it looked like a slow weekend, with many boats already out. I took my time getting ready and launched. I agreed with myself to.... WOW, the whole armada was right at the mouth. OK, I'll get ready and fish for an hour, and if no luck I scoot over to Gary Light. Well, it didn't take too long and I had one in the box after I caught my second I had fine-tuned my troll to 24-29 fow at 2.3-2.5 sog running 2 flat and 1 rigger, I had a d/f on the main line and a spoon for the slider, the ball was 19 down. I can't remember how many I lost and I had 2-3 shorts but all of the losses were coming off the slider, I never had a hit on the d/f. I did catch on the slider but I had to be quick, so after the umpteeth miss I put the spoon on the main line and dropped it 9 down, which fixed the missing problem. It also fixed the fish caught problem, I didn't get another hit on that spoon. Fortunately, my flat lines were still hitting. From what I could tell the fish were shallow and in the main mud flowing out of the river, that's where I caught most of my fish.

these are  the lures that took fish

I was the only one that could make it today and let me tell you it was a beautiful day to be on the water.

Another super Lazy week

 I gotta have post hunting depression or something. I did get the boat out for a couple hours on Monday. No fish caught but it ran pretty good for the first outing. I need to pick up my basement and put away all my hunting clothes but just can't find the energy yet. I've been hearing that's called "low E" in the commercials, I don't know. I do know once we get some decent weather without the threat of a Tornado I'm going to get up to the big pond for some Coho before they get past the South end and head for deeper water. In the mean time I got my 410 rattle canned and it looks OK, I mainly did it to just protect it. With a cheap gun comes cheap gun problems, if it was humid out I would get surface rust on it. 

So like I said I still need to clean up my basement, and move some smaller stuff around in the garage. So looks like if I can raise my jumbo can out of my chair next week I know what needs to be done. 

I'll keep you in the loop....