Ups and Downs

Hunting season has been weird this year. The high moments have been great and the low moments haven’t really been that bad – just puzzling.

The season started off great with a nice big tom during the soggy spring turkey season. I then spent the sumer working my tail off on household projects to make sure that I could enjoy the hunting season.  Heading into fall I had a milestone dove shoot that I will remember forever.

Then my luck ran out…

I usually hunt squirrels a LOT during the early fall and always put a couple in the freezer. This year despite plenty of acorns on the ground and my hunting buddies all having luck I was striking out. This was the first puzzle because all the conditions were right for successful hunts. The only explanation I can come up with is that my favorite spot has been discovered by someone else and they’ve cleaned out the woods. Very possible and the price for hunting on public land.

Deer season was another disappointment and it ended with me resolving to find a new spot before next season. My uncle’s farm is just too unreliable and I miss having venison to eat. This was all compounded by the number of mind-numbing hours I spent in the stand determined to take a whitetail.

Goose season seemed to start on a good note. I killed a goose on opening day and there were plenty of birds in the area. But they refused to fly over the farm for most of December. We logged close to 40 hours in the field with nothing to show for it.

On NYE we tried for a mixed bag, hunting doves at dawn and rabbits afterwards. The doves wouldn’t cooperate and landed outside of gun range to feast on corn. The excellent rabbit spot we found on the WMA last year had been mowed (why, oh why would they do that?)  We went home skunked.

This past Saturday I’m hoping we finally headed back in a positive direction. The geese were finally flying and flying low at that. Two limits and we left the farm all smiles. Murphy posed with our haul. He earned his pay for the day by knocking down a crippled bird with a hard charge and then standing on it until we could finish it off.

As of this writing the 2011-2012 season ends in exactly 50 days. There’s a lot more hunting to do but I sure hope it’s more consistent. Either way, we’ll be out there doing what we do.

Goose Opener

Deer season started 2 1/2 weeks ago. I’ve done my best to be patient and to log some serious seat time in my stand. No dice so far. It’s frustrating but it also makes me more convinced than ever that I need to seek out a new spot for next year. The farm I hunt is fantastic for other game but has become increasingly frustrating for deer, especially when I hear from friends that they haven’t shot deer yet because they are waiting for just the right one. Me, I’d be thrilled with a doe for the freezer.

And so it was with that level of frustration that I drove out to the property this morning for the goose opener…and all is right with the world again. Everything that I hate about deer hunting, the boredom, the frozen toes from lack of movement, the lonliness…goose season is the opposite. I can move around. I can unwrap a granola bar without feeling like I just ruined my hunt. I almost always see birds. I can hang out with friends and the dog. It’s the hunting that makes my heart most happy in my mid-thirties.

The birds started flying at a predictable 7:30am. The first group landed on the lake next door and I made a mental note to be ready when they left in an hour or so. The geese weren’t very vocal today which threw me off my game a bit. I had two groups catch me off guard, one while I was adjusting the decoy spread and one while I was letting Murphy stretch his legs outside the blind.

At 8:30 Murphy’s ears perked up and he looked out towards the horizon. Four birds were about 1000 yards out and coming in our general direction. I hit the call a few times and flagged and then dropped to a knee to wait. The took a line straight towards us and came in for a fly-by.

Boom-boom-boom.

Usually for me the third shot is a frustration shot if the first two are misses. This time it was money. The big Canada goose crumpled and landed with an audible thud. For the first time ever I shot a goose on opening day. Pretty cool stuff.

The rest of the day was filled with a few random groups and none within shooting range but I didn’t care. I was thrilled to have a bird so early in the season when I’m used to coming home empty-handed.

Let’s hope this is a sign of a great season in store for us.

Tips for a Stress and Guilt-Free Hunting Season

Get your home in order

Shut down the yard for the winter. Lawn mowed, weeds trimmed, patio furniture and hoses put away. Winterize your home inside and out. Fix the things that need to be fixed. Buy salt for the driveway, make sure your generator and snow blower are working and cover your exterior faucets.

De-stress Your Work Life

If you can get caught up or ahead at work, do so now. Put in for those hunting-related vacation days if you haven’t already and have a list for the new year ready when Jan 1 rolls around. Dazzle your boss during the summer so he will get off your back during the winter. Clean out your email and make sure your Inbox is at zero every Friday when you go home.

Get plenty of sleep

Listen to your body. I only hunt afternoons and evenings on Sundays because that is my sleep-in day. If you’re hunting early on Saturday – it’s amazing how good a nap feels that afternoon.

 Take care of your gear

Clean your gun. Wash your hunting clothes. Wipe the mud off of your calls. Take care of your gear and it will take care of you.

Get your auto in good shape

Make sure all maintenance is current. Put on new wiper blades. Put on snow tires (if necessary). Keep a tow strap in the trunk. Put a $2 painter’s drop cloth in the trunk. Spread it out when the dog is extra muddy or you’re about to put a dead deer in the same place that the wife puts her groceries.

Keep your gear organized

This is a big one for me because I hunt several different animals during the winter. I like to know all of my upland gear (including shells) is together and likewise for my deer accessories, waterfowl equipment, etc. I accomplish this with simple 5-gallon buckets. I label each bucket for what goes in it and then the gear all gets stowed away for the next time. Items that I use for multiple game animals go in a separate ‘General’ bucket.

Respect the ‘honey-do’ list

One of the most important tips. If you keep up with your chores around the house (including changing diapers and handling bath time for those of you with younger kids) it’s amazing what your spouse will tolerate. Fall behind and you might be spending a prime weekend painting your guest room.

Variety is the spice of life

Hunting fatigue will sneak up on you. I fight it off by switching gears frequently and trying new stuff. A late-season dove hunt and squirrel hunting in the snow helped break up the goose hunting grind last year.

Have a Weekly Routine

Usually Sunday nights are when I’m getting ready for the work week so during hunting season I usually designate an hour every Monday evening to get my gear squared away. I dump the stuff that needs to be washed in the dirty clothes pile and re-organize my equipment for the next weekend.

Take Care of Your Pooch

Dogs get worn out during hunting season too, especially in cold weather or when covering a lot of ground. Feed them high-quality food as much as possible (fresh meat, vegetables and high-end dog food). Also, don’t feel bad about leaving them home once in a while. They will be upset for about 5 minutes and then they will go back to bed. Keep them warm in cold weather and cut your hunt short when they start to show signs of too much cold exposure.

Don’t forget your family

We’ve all heard the term ‘hunting widow’. This phenomenon is a symptom of a hunter who doesn’t have his priorities straight. Let’s remember folks – your spouse or significant other is like your rear echelon. They often do your laundry and keep the kids quiet while dad naps after a cold day afield. It’s your job to show your appreciation. Make sure you give them at least 50% of your weekend most of the time and if you need more, you owe them a good dinner or a movie (or both). Our simple rule at home is pretty much whenever I am not hunting or sleeping on the weekends during hunting season – I am at my wife’s disposal. That means errands and the dreaded trips to Target if need be – but in the return I get all the time in the field I need. It’s win-win.

Boys at the Farm

When we get away from our wives we all turn into teenagers again…and we still like loud noises and explosions.

Something Special with Dad’s Gun

I’ve been wing-shooting for 20 years now. Even with all that experience I don’t consider myself to be all that good.  At best I am an average shooter and on some days I still shoot like a rookie. So it was always a sore spot with me that despite many years in the dove field and hundreds of rounds put through my Mossberg, I had still never gotten a limit of birds. My best performance was a baker’s dozen of 13 last year. This year I wanted desperately to finally make that milestone. But I also had another goal for the year. I wanted to bag a few birds with my dad’s gun.

The gun my dad carried in the field (pictured above) was a J.C Higgins pump 12-gauge made by Sears and Roebuck. As the trained eye will notice it came with a factory-installed poly-choke and a ported barrel. I had always thought the gun a bit clunky though I have to admit it has the smoothest action I’ve ever come across. My dad chased rabbits with it for years, having bought it used in the late 1960s. When he passed away it ended up in the gun safe and sat there unused for the past decade.

This year I decided I would give it a chance in the dove field and if it could bring down a few birds it could stay. If not it was going up for sale. I dialed the choke to Improved Cylinder and decided I would try to get five before I put it down. My first shot of the day was a hit. My third shot and my fourth shots were too. What was even better is that all the birds were hitting the ground dead (last year I was plagued with cripples).

I quickly passed the five-bird mark and decided that I was shooting so well I would keep at it. Fast forward about two hours and I had my first ever limit on doves. This felt just as good as getting my first turkey and first deer. To do it with my dad’s gun (and a gun I had written off as sub par) was extra special. The old poly-choke has earned a place in the gun safe and a place in my heart.

Back Home

Last week the family and I headed north to one of our favorite places in the world, Three Mile Island Camp on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.  I’ve written about the camp before here. Great fun was had by all. We brought some ‘rookies’ with us this time as my wife’s brother and his family decided to see what all the fuss was about.

The usual routine of eating, swimming, reading and napping was quickly embraced and as an added bonus we left a 100+ heat index in Louisville for the low 80s of New England. I lost count of how many times we remarked about the wonderful weather.  I also slept more in one week than I can ever recall.

As usual I returned home to a full plate of work, projects around the house, interesting world news and dozens of blogging topics dancing around my head. Before readers think I am complaining, I am not. After a restful week I am filled with energy and anxious to be busy. These days I find that I function best with a full plate.

I also had a wonderful conversation about environmentalism with my fellow campers during the camp-sponsored book talk. I was told they appreciated my viewpoint as a Southerner and a hunter which differed a lot from the mostly New England crowd. Hearing that reinvigorated me to think some more about a writing project I have been toying with for some time. More to come on that…

In the meantime I will one again share the philosophy of Three Mile set out by its founder in 1900. These words ring true today and I am happy to report that the island community still embraces this philosophy with gusto.

The Camp

But not only should the natural beauties of the island be protected and no work of man be allowed to mar: the campers also should live as close to nature as the rules of hygiene will allow.

Golf and fine clothes should be tabooed; early hours, camp costumes and simple fare should be the rule. Canoeing and swimming, fishing and sailing, tramping and climbing, resting and communing with nature should be in order every day.

Briefly, the Island Camp should never become a hotel, but remain a camp, pure and simple, where Club members may find rest and live as close to nature as possible.

- Robert B. Lawrence, October 10, 1900

The Golden Trowel

From The Golden Marshalltown: A Parable for the Archeology of the 1980s by Ken Flannery

“This was my first Marshalltown trowel,” he said. “You know what an archeologist’s first Marshalltown is like? Like a major leaguer’s first Wilson glove. I dug at Pecos with this trowel, under A. V. Kidder. And at Aztec Ruin with Earl Morris. And at Kincaid with Fay-Cooper Cole. And at Lindenmeier with Frank Roberts. Son, this trowel’s been at Snaketown, and Angel Mound, and at the Dalles of the Columbia with Luther Cressman.”

I stumbled across this essay the other day while looking for something else. It made me think of my brief stint as a real-life paid archaeologist. My own Marshalltown has been to some interesting sites as well. Historic homes, plantations and battlefields across Kentucky. It now lives in a faded green field bag, tucked away in my basement. Memories of those digs will stay with me forever. I used to spend a lot of time second-guessing my career choice, abandoning dirty excavations and minimal pay for an office and financial comfort. I think I probably chose correctly but who can say? I lived my dream and it turned out to be both exactly what I hoped for and disappointing in ways I never expected. Life is funny that way.

Success!

Despite the non-stop rain that has kept the Bluegrass State at flood stage for the last two weeks, we didn’t let that keep us from hitting the woods on Saturday for some turkey hunting. We were lucky enough to be hunting a friend’s farm that had already produced three nice longbeards the previous weekend and several more birds had been sighted. I was pumped.

A 6am wake-up call put us in the blind right at shooting light. I’ll spare readers all the details but suffice to say my friend had his first turkey taken with a bow by 7:45am. With more gobbling all around us we thought it might be a quick day. It turned out to be a long morning that turned into afternoon. We had plenty of activity with a hen and then four jakes visiting our spot. No toms though.

At around 1:15pm, just as we were discussing Plan B for my bird a tom in full strut appeared to my left. The shot was long at about 45 yards so I asked my friend to call a couple of times to bring him closer. We were able to get about another 5 yards of movement and then he hung up. Chances are we could have worked him closer with some patience but when he turned away from us I got nervous. Saying a quick prayer to the hunting gods I lined up the beads on my shotgun and squeezed the trigger. Two toms down!

This was my second turkey and it was a monster. I’m very happy with the results and it was a fantastic day afield. Special thanks to the landowner for managing such a fantastic piece of property to perfection and being nice enough to invite me down. We were heartened to see more birds on the way back to the house which brought our total for the day to 4 toms, 3 hens and 5 jakes. That leaves plenty of birds for next year.

With turkey season behind me I’m going to quickly shift focus to gardening…if the rain ever stops. In the meantime, enjoy the picture.

Fishing Ethics from a Hunting Perspective

Holly at NorCal Cazadora put a post up yesterday detailing her own personal hunting ethics and it’s a great read. Her positions very closely mirror my own with a couple minor exceptions (I am a bit harder on high-fence hunters than she is).  One point she makes that I really liked was her position on ‘catch & release’ fishing.

I’m very uneasy about it – hooking an animal’s mouth and wrestling him out of the water for my entertainment alone isn’t my cup of tea. If I’m going to put a fish through that, it’s going to be for good reason: so I can eat him.

Holly’s words are nearly verbatum what I have said myself to fellow outdoorsmen over the years. Catch & release for fun just rubs my morals the wrong way. My own hunting ethics dictate total respect for the animals I hunt and eliminating any undue suffering is the foundation of that approach. I cannot reconcile that goal with catch & release. Additionally, the point of hunting for me is to ultimately consume the animal. Catch & release undermines that goal.

Interestingly though my turn away from catch & release also coincided with my turn away from fishing in general. I was never a very good fisherman when I was growing up although prior to when I started hunting I was a very entusiastic fisherman. For close to 10 years I chose fishing as my birthday activity with my family and looked forward to getting out with my dad and wetting a line. I still think that fried bluegill is one of the greatest foods I’ve ever had. Somewhere along the way I just started to lose interest. Maybe it was the heat of summer fishing. Maybe it was the bugs and the marching through fireweed. Maybe it was the fact that I over-complicated things by switching to spinner baits when a hook and bobber worked just fine.

All I can say right now is that I respect fishermen immensely and since it is the sister sport of hunting I certainly bear no ill will. I think though that it could use a small dose of humility and that might giving the fish the respect a living creature deserves.

New Gun for Next Season

I recently bought a new (used) gun and I’m pretty excited about breaking it in this year. This is an Ithaca Model 37 Featherlight. I bought the gun so I would have a lighter gun for upland game and for dove season. I also want to give my poor Mossberg 500 a break because it’s been getting a real workout over the last two years.

This is the last pre-WWII pump shotgun still being made. I haven’t gotten an exact age on this one yet but I think it’s around 20 years old. The previous owner bought it new and I know it’s been taken care of. The gun may require a slight modification down the road as I am considering having the barrel cut down from 28 to 26 inches and threaded for choke tubes. The reason for this is that it will make the gun that much lighter and also make it shoulder faster for rabbits and quail.

As for my beloved Mossberg, it will still be out with me during turkey season and take plenty of abuse during goose season. I imagine I will occasionally still break it out for other game from time to time but it’s earned a bit of a rest.

I’m hoping to shoot some skeet this summer so I don’t have to waste the dove opener getting used to this gun. More to come on how that goes.

From One Obsession to Another

So hunting season isn’t technically over yet in Kentucky. As proof I spent several hours in the woods last Saturday morning trying to bag a few squirrels. That season comes to an end on February 28th and then I start a 46-day sabbatical enforced by the Department of Fish & Wildlife. The reward on the back-end is spring weather and turkey season. By early April I will be dreaming of loud gobbles booming through the hollows and scouring maps for just the right spot for opening day.

In the meantime we have had unseasonably warm weather this week, with temps flirting with the 60s. To contrast this with a normal Kentucky winter, one year ago today we had six inches of snow on the ground. The weather has given me a chance to catch up on neglected yard chores like trimming back bushes and trees and prepping  that yard for gardening season. And my other obsession is starting to creep over me.

As an outdoorsman I have two primary interests, hunting and gardening.  While the former is a more serious addiction in terms of time and craziness the latter probably gets more of my energy and obsessive planning compulsion. With the warm weather this is getting kicked into high gear. As an added incentive this will also be our first year for a vegetable garden at the new house since last year we simply didn’t have the time to put one in after we closed on the house.

The best part about my revolving obsessions is a wife that supports/tolerates them. I suspect she does so because it keeps me out of mischief but also because she knows they make me so happy. As long as I am outside this is always the case.

Goose Season Ends on a High Note

Our Kentucky goose season came to an end this past Sunday. It’s always bittersweet to pull our decoys out of the field for the last time with mixed emotions for the drive home. I’m sad that I won’t be doing anymore waterfowling until next fall but a little thankful to turn the corner and rest up. I’m very proud of the time I’ve spent in the field this year. I logged around 20 days hunting Canada geese (for a full-season review readers will have to wait until March). We braved three mornings with single-digit temps. Other days with snow, ice and wind. At the same time the weekly grind of prepping gear, loading and unloading the truck, keeping hunting clothes washed, gun in working order, dog healthy – it wears a hunter out.

Over the last two nights I’ve slept nearly 20 hours and will probably continue to log some epic slumber until my batteries are back on full.  I need to get back in the groove at the gym, starting eating better and catch up on all those winter chores I’ve been neglecting.

So – the details. Saturday we finally caught a weather break. Temps had been mild for the last few days, approaching 40 degrees with a bit of rain. All the snow cover was completely melted and we had high hopes. The goose gods did not disappoint. We arrived at the farm around 7am to the sound of a big flock roosting about 1 mile southeast of us. We quickly got the decoys put out and settled into position. We began calling periodically just to let them know we were there. Around 8am they started peeling off of the roosting location and started flying in medium-sized groups. We then had about two solid hours where there were geese in the air almost constantly. Some were far off but we had many groups that came close enough to get our hearts racing. We did a fair amount of shooting with mixed results, finally putting the first bird ont he ground around 10am.

From 10 until 11:30am the shooting was less frequent but we were still working a lot of birds. Everyone managed to get in on the action as I finally erased my zero and crippled a bird that landed on the farm behind us. About 5 minutes later we had grabbed it and added it to the three other birds we had killed. We went home with four birds and everyone out of shells.

Sunday we saw equal amounts of birds only this time they weren’t roosting down the road. They were all transient birds coming in from other roosting spots and unfortunately were flying a lot higher. We attempted some sky-busting but our shooting wasn’t effective. One of the guys downed a bird that was actually flying behind the one he shot at. He dropped another not long after that was crippled and unfortunately we never located it.

We also jumped three rabbits on Sunday while looking for downed birds. Murphy was in hot pursuit of one and drove it back into the brush pile it jumped from, giving one of our shooters a chance when it came out the other side. We added the rabbit to our ‘mixed bag’ with regret that we left the beagles at home.

All agreed this was a great way to end the season after some of the weather-related disappoints of the previous couple of weeks. We’re already scheming about how to improve our luck next year. My plan is to knock on a lot of doors and try to secure access to some of the other farms in the area. We’re hoping by mixing up our locations we’ll keep the birds guessing.

The only thing left to hunt is squirrels for the month of February and then it’s quiet time until turkey starts in April.