Today I play

Gotta go to work tomorrow so I made a three day sweep of my days off. I went to a spot close to home and had some luck. I had quite a few divers flying by and had 15 or so geese give me a the hairy eyeball. I only had a shot at one of the geese so I felt pretty good when I was able to put my hands on him.

2 day total

Weed called last week and said he had hundreds of geese up on the poo pond. He invited me up for a goose hunt on Tues. The only thing we had working against us was the absence of the sun and with an East wind that would have made all the difference.
As it turned out he had the geese, but they easily picked us out, and choose to go to another spot for the day. We had plenty of calling, but only a few chances to bring some slobs down. When the smoke cleared and the gear was put up, we had a bird apiece to show for our day.
Better than getting skunked.

This morning I was greeted with thick fog and a little rain. As I was going to the ramp I actually missed the turn and had to go back. I got to my spot and set up late, but with the fog it really didn't matter.
I had a couple divers come by early when it was still all fogged up. Then it started to rain, happy day, I hate hunting in the rain. The good news was with the rain came some clearing of the fog. As soon as the fog started to clear I heard a honk, game on.
I had 10 birds coming in and they were not going to change their minds. In fact even after I shot, I had geese landing just outside of my decoys. Anyway, I shot my limit and started packing it in by 9:13 am, as my wife said," it took you longer to set out and pick up you decoys than it did to shoot your limit".
I had to agree.

Always a week behind

So as the title says this is for last weeks adventures.
I got an invite up to a property that Weed has permission to hunt. He said there were hundreds of ducks on a couple small ponds in the middle of a field.
As it is the waterfowlers' curse the ducks wanted to be on the pond that we were not set up on. We did have a flock work really good, we didn't shoot hoping for another pass, of course there was not another pass. So we missed out on them, we did get another flock to come close enough for a shot. Eddie (a friend of ours) and myself dropped 3 mallards (Weed shot holes in the sky).

Sorry about the pic, we had to drudge through 2 blocks of mud with our gear to hunt where we hunted and everyone was too whooped to think about taking pics.
Wednesday I went to hunt some water hoping for ducks. I got a chance to take some geese, thankfully I didn't miss because it was the only chance I had.

goose limit, 0 ducks

Thursday I spent the first half of the day in a field that usually holds ducks and geese all season. It didn't however have so much as one flock pass over on the day that I hunt it. That's ok I needed the exercise anyway.
This week, I mean yesterday I went up to a public property for a walk around looking for deer. I saw 3, not one offered me a shot so I went to Tom's today. At 10am I saw my first deer, she came out of the fence row about 200 yards away. I was hoping she would come closer but she decided to go back into the fence row at 150 yards.
Last day Hail Mary, I let loose and hit the ground about 10 feet from her. I am sighted in at 100 yards so I put it on her back and let'er fly. Oh well at least I have one deer in the freezer, I'll have to wait til next year to get another deer.
Tomorrow is goose hunting I'll let'cha know how it goes.

Wind and Rain no Ducks and a Pheasant

Last Tues started out with flooding everywhere. I hooked up the boat and headed out to one of my favorite late season lakes. When I got there I was soooo unimpressed with the wind and rain I just turned around and headed home.
Wed found me on a field that I have been seeing ducks and geese on. However this would be the second time I have hunted this field and the second time I have scored a big goose egg.
Thurs I went down to Huntington and got in on the Pheasant clean-up. I met a guy with a dog down there and I hunted with them most of the day. The Brittany pointed a hen that he got and flushed another that we didn't have a shot at. Rusty was getting sooo bored by 1 pm that he started pointing mice. I thought that was pretty amusing, Brian however didn't think it was soo funny. Anyway after they were done I went to a couple of my spots and was able to find a nice bird. It was the only one I got but he'll taste just fine.

MMMmmm crockpot pheasant

Mon afternoon-Fri

That's how long I was off this week and I only hunted 2 of them. Mon I worked until noon so I took the rest of the day off to recoup my back I did the same on Tues. Now Tues I did go out scouting to find out where I was going to hunt on Wed. I found a field that had ducks and geese on it, that was the good news. The bad news was I didn't have permission to hunt it, so I ran home and looked up who owned it. I ran back out and secured permission to hunt the next day.
I woke up at 1:30 a.m. not because of the alarm, but I woke up cause I was dreaming of the flocks of ducks and geese we were going to have coming into the field. I got up and went downstairs and wasted the time until I could start getting ready to go. Well I met up with Weed and we went out to the field got set up just in time and settled in waiting for the flights to start.
Well long story short we had 3 ducks and 4 geese fly by, we got blanked. We didn't even get to fire a shot, we did however get some much needed sleep after 10 a.m. or so.
Well the next day was of course Thanksgiving so I decided not to go out, I figured everyone would be out. I did go out and check my fields to see which fields were being used.
Guess what I saw ...... yep, the field we hunted the day before was holding about 40 geese and 30 ducks IN THE EXACT SPOT WE WERE SET UP.
All I could do was laugh and drive on with the knowledge that I will smack 'em there this year.
So I spent the rest of the day at home with the wife, cooking the Jake I shot this spring. We had a great day together and the Turkey turned out pretty good too.
I will mention that out of all the Turkey's I've shot, the Jake's have been the toughest. So if you get a chance, try to shoot the Tom's, I don't know why they are better but they are.
Well that just leaves today, I went out this morning to hunt some water and after putting up with the 15-20 mph gusts I finally put a duck down. I saw some geese but they were quite a ways away and I really didn't have a chance of getting them to come in.
Now about the duck I shot, it was the first shoveler that I've ever got. I had seen them on TV but never shot one until today. She was a really cool looking duck, and to my surprise she was only about as big as a wood duck.
I thought they were bigger.
Well nuff said here's the pic.

 (no band)