Over too soon...

Not waterfowl as a whole but duck season...The state gives us a week around Christmas for the last hoorah of duck season 2018. The bad news is everything around here has been froze for the past couple weeks. So, the best I could do was hope for birds around Ft. Wayne.
I went down and checked my properties on Sunday evening, and the report was kinda not great. I finally got ahold of Jake, Sunday after I got home. I was really hoping on being able to shoot his farm pond Monday then scout my other properties for Tuesday. More bad news, the farm pond was froze so we formulated a game plan for Monday. Which entailed going to one of my spots I hadn't even scouted, fortunately, there were usually geese and some ducks out there.
We set up early and waited for the sun and fun, one of them showed. The sun came out and the geese set the whole time we were there. Jake had to be home around 12 so we started packing up at 10:45 to get him home in time. While we were packing up the landowner came out and we started talking, apparently, the geese were where my spread was the night prior. So after we finished packing and I got Jake home, I packed a small spread in the truck and pointed it South back to the same spot I was at in the am. I got there around 2pm and waited for the geese to get up to feed. With 18 minutes before I had to pack it in the geese got up. I started working a flock that came in from my right to left, and when they were close enough I took 2. I missed my third shot.

No ducks....
Tuesday I had a buddy from work invite me over to spend a casual afternoon with his family. I got there around 2 his wife fixed me a plate of food and we just hung out. By the way, the food and service were second to none, 5 stars on Yelp. Thank you very much, I really enjoyed myself.
Wednesday was going to go to my river spot with Jimmy, his plans changed so I headed down with the boat because the river was supposed to be open. Well, it wasn't and that turned into a 2-hour truck ride towing my duck boat. When I got home I called Jimmy to see if he wanted to do an evening hunt. He was game so back to the Fort I went with the car loaded down with decoys. We went to the same place I shot the above geese, the bad news was it was warmer (46 degrees) and the geese didn't fly 'til late.
No ducks....
Today, yes Thursday Jimmy and I went to the place we were going to go on Wednesday. We got there and got set up early and waited for the sun and fun. Today just to be different neither showed. We had a flock of divers that came in albeit high and not looking to stop. In hindsight, we should have given them what for, they were right on the edge of being close enough. Those were the only fowl that were even somewhat close enough. The ducks and geese weren't even really around like they should've been. We didn't see that much flying today, so we packed up around noon and I headed home... empty-handed again.... I blame Jimmy-bad juju.
No ducks....

Thank God goose is still open, I'll take it out on them next week. 😈

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and please if you're going to be out, have a safe New Year.

I'll be out trying to cancel the flight plans of some geese. 😎

Whew....

Well, it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for me. Last week Sean and I hunted all three days. We started the day usually with an hour sit then I would start a slow drive to him. I spent the rest of the day making drives to him, then the last hour or two we would find a stand to sit in 'til dark. This week was more of the same, we did see quite a few deer the last couple weeks. We were seeing the South end of Northbound deer, the drives didn't really work but I did move deer. Yesterday was the last day of our muzzleloading season, I had actually set down and looked at google maps and marked all my drives for the day. The first drive was uneventful.... for deer, geese, on the other hand, I had a hundred or so fly over at treetops at 10:30 am.
I'll be back for them.
We were walking out and Sean busted out a pheasant... he pooped. We got to the trucks and I formulated the plan. Which entailed Sean going down to stand up by a lake and I would drive to him. When I was on the way to park the truck I realized I left my gun in his car, so I turned around and met up with him at his parking spot. I grabbed my gun and the rest of my gear I had left in his car and headed back to my parking spot.
I got out of the truck and started getting ready to make the drive when I heard a shot from where Sean would be, so I grabbed my phone and called him. When Sean answered I said, "did you shoot?" he said he did and the deer is down, I told him to reload and stay there watch the deer, he said he already did and the deer is not moving. I threw my gear back in the truck and headed over to where Sean was. When I got there I grabbed my gear and started to go to where I thought he would be. I rounded a corner to see Sean standing there looking at a deer looking back at us from down the trail. I thought he said the deer was dead? Sean moved and the deer bolted and I said, "I thought you said he was dead?" Sean said, "he is he's in the trail up there."
So we walked up to see a deer dead in the trail, the other deer must have either been Mom or a sister cause she didn't want to leave even with us there.
I asked him what happened and Sean said," I was coming around the corner and saw a deer in the sorghum and then another in the trail, I slowly put my chair down and put the crosshairs on the bigger of the two and squeezed the trigger. After I congratulated him I got to work and dressed the deer, we got it back and loaded him in the truck. Filled out all the paperwork and headed off to the processor. It wasn't the biggest deer ever taken but boy will he be tender.

 Now with the first one out of the way next, we'll go for quality. : )
As for those geese, I went back out this morning to get an easy pass shooting limit, or so I thought. I got to the spot around 9 am found a nice tree to lean against and waited for the fun. The first dozen left out at what I think was 10-10:30 (I didn't bring a watch) they flew over the water so I didn't shoot. I waited for the rest to get off to go eat.... and I waited.... and waited. I got stood up!!! the mass of geese that left out of there yesterday either left early (not likely) or didn't come back last night. I figure they just didn't come back to roost last night, so I packed out and headed home.
That's why I don't leave the house on Thursdays. : (

Good times

Monday found us back at Jakes farm pond. Since the thaw from last weekend, there have been some birds using it. So we adjusted the A-frame and settled in for a half day hunt. We did have some luck with birds wanting to work, but it seemed they all wanted to land on the right side of the blind. So needless to say Jake shot 3 and Scott and I left out with nothing but the knowledge that the only bird we had a shot at is still flying. 

When you watch the vid open it full screen.

After the hunt on Monday, we jumped in the truck and headed out to do some scouting. We found a cornfield that had some water in a low spot and the ducks were there. Scott was able to get permission on the field for Tuesday.
We got to the field in good time and started hauling the gear out, then we had to break some thin ice to set the floaters. We just got the full bodies and layouts set up and the air filled with the sound of whistling wings. These ducks came by the hundreds ready to do battle over the leftover corn that we were guarding. When the shot was called and the smoke settled there were 5 ducks on the ground and we were all on our way to limitsville.
After the first light flight, we worked 4-6 packs until our limits were filled. We all shot pretty well, Jake went out first, then me, and Scott dropped his last bird around 9-9:15 am. After we had the gear picked up and the hero pic taken I think we were out of the field by 10.
Super fast, Super fun day, Thanks to Jake and Scott.

      Scott                                                                                                           Jake

Wednesday I hooked up the duck boat and headed to Big Turkey still high from the awesome hunt on Tuesday. After 6 hours the high wore off and the cold had set in. I had a couple flocks that came by to give my spread a look, but then it was off to eat... or at least they didn't want to be by me. There were 150 or so geese that left off the lake around 10 a.m. since season is out I could only watch them. After I was sure nothing was going to fly I packed it up around noon and headed to the house.
All in all, I had a pretty great week. Next week .... deer and maybe even sneak out for another pheasant hunt. 😎

Duck, Pheasant, swing and a miss

Monday the weather dude called for rain and snow in that order. When the rain hit Sunday evening I thought it would keep going into Monday however, the weatherman had it right for a change and I awoke to 3 inches of snow with a side of slop below that. I got to the ramp well before sunrise, motored out to the spot of the day and set up my decoys. I heard the sounds of restless waterfowl through the snowstorm across the lake from me. I thought this should be a good day the birds should be moving in and out all day with this snow. Well, the birds I heard moved out in the snow like a thief in the night. I never saw them which at this point of the day I was beginning to realize seeing birds was going to be the hard part. The snow was falling in huge flakes and I had to clean decoys every 15 minutes or so.

 I took this pic after I got back from knocking all the snow off them, I would get up and tip the top of the boat open and the snow was so thick it didn't fall off.
Until....
The snow stopped and the clouds parted long enough for this lonesome guy to come in. I did have a shot at another mallard but after the shot, I swung to get on the hen. She was quickly retreating and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the drake get up and make a clean getaway.

  So day one ended with a wet crotch,(I think my waders are leaking more than previously assessed) and one mallard, which is still better than a shutout with a wet crotch.
At the end of day 1 with no word from Jake, I decided to take a day off of waterfowl and get into some cleanup pheasant. I got to the check station around 8am and got the lowdown on how they were running the clean up now, it has been a long time since I was at Mongo for clean up. Anyway, while I was talking to the DNR guy another hunter walked in and signed up and asked about a youth hunt. I was already outside going to my car when I noticed a dog box in the other hunters truck and no one in the passenger seat. So I turned around and asked him if he was hunting alone, he said, "yes". I said, "do you have a dog?" he said, "yes," I asked him if he wanted some company while assuring him he didn't have to feel obligated to say yes. He said, "sure" so he filled out his check-in card, I filled out mine, I told him I would follow him and thanked him profusely for allowing me to tag along.
So we get to his spot and he lets the dog out and as I'm getting ready I introduce myself and thank him again for allowing me to hunt with them. Well, it wasn't too long and we found ourselves following a super little English Setter named "Sonny" but he didn't answer to that while he was working. I didn't find out his name until the day was almost over because through the course of the day that dog had many names and none of them were Sonny or derogatory. He worked his butt off all day to get us our limits of pheasant. Just a super well behaved little pheasant finding machine. The first 2 came out my side I hit both but couldn't find either. We moved on and it didn't take too long and Sonny had a point. The bird flushed and fell to earth after a couple of shots, and as pheasants do started running. I caught up to it in a fence row and while I was waiting for Robert to get into position the bird just fell over dead. We got another point and flush that bird just dropped. So we decided to push the row that I shot the first 2 birds out of. Well, as we were walking down the row I spotted the first pheasant I shot. So I let Robert know, I picked it up and we moved on to another spot thankful to have found 1 of 2.
So now we only needed one more bird for Robert and we would be done. As we started the sorghum field I was noticing all the pheasant tracks and it wasn't too far in when we got a point. Robert went in for the flush but the dog didn't hold and slowly crept forward. I said, "that birds running", sure enough, a couple feet from the first point came another. Robert moved in again and this time the bird flushed with Sonny nipping at his tail feathers. Robert gave the bird a couple milliseconds then let the lead loose, then came the feathers. After checking the bird and seeing that he wasn't gutted, we high fived, walked back to the vehicles took the hero pic and agreed we should do this again. I told him I will for sure give him a call next year.

Thanks again to Robert and Sonny I had a great time

 

 

 I finally called Jake to see if he was still alive, he said he was beat up pretty bad from work last week. He offered the farm pond shoot for Wednesday, I accepted and we decided on a time to meet at his house at 6am. Well, he said the birds were there Monday and if it's open should be there today. We pulled into the field and saw hard water where the pond was, so the work started. We got out and started busting ice to open a hole. Now instead of a slam dunk duck hunt, it went to holy crap I hope they come back today. The pluses were that they were there Monday and there was duck crap on the ice. So they have been there since there was ice but it had probably closed since then. We stayed 'til 11:30 or so but never fired a shot, we picked up the decoys and headed for the barn to warm up.
All in all, still had a super week, brought home some birds and had a good time with friends.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just taking it easy today, got up at 4 am and got the turkey cookin', washed the dishes and fixin' to make my lunches for the week.
This week's hunting pretty much went the same way, just got everything done. Monday I went to Eagle and didn't shoot the geese that flew by, they were just a little out of range for the #2's I had loaded. So I passed on them and after the day was done I cut a bunch of grass for my buddies A-frame blind.
Tuesday went to one of Jake's spots and shot a couple ducks, I know I know I gotta start getting pics from those hunts.
Wednesday I found geese.... a lot of geese at one of my properties, I called my buddies but nobody could make it, so off to the Fort in the am for me. I got down there and set my decoys,

 brushed up my blind,

and got ready for the action.
This is the first time I have used this blind and let me tell ya it was pretty nice, it kept a lot of the wind off and it was really easy to shoot out of.

The first flock came in from behind me, by the time they made a noise they were practically on top of me. Well, since they were so close it was like trying to hit them with something the size of a golf ball. Anyway, I did drop one of them and the others flew 300 yards out into the field and set down. Well as anyone that hunts geese knows you don't want any competition in the field from live geese. So I started out to kick them off property, on the way I saw another flock land with the 4 that I just shot at. After the long walk, I went over and picked up my goose, made a sleeper decoy out of him and sat back down in my blind. 

Well, this happened soon after sun up and I was kickin' myself for not shooting my limit on the first flock all day. I was out stretching my legs when I heard a honk, I looked up and saw 5 geese headed my way. I only had enough time to make it to the side of the blind so I hunkered down and started calling. 

 I anchored the second goose with one shot, the first goose needed a couple follow up shots.
As it turns out this was the first goose limit of the year for me. I was also super happy I didn't shoot my limit on the first flock because both of these birds were banded.

 Yesterday was the last day I could hunt before the first half of the goose season ended.
Wow, what a way to end this part of the season, by the way, these birds were banded in Peawanuck which is up by Hudson Bay in Ontario. What a way to end the first stretch of the season.
Next week duck is still open and the pheasant clean up will be in full swing, so I'll try to get out for some pheasant also.
OOOOoooo my turkey's done, have a happy Thanksgiving.