Thanksgiving week finally rewarded with some hunting at the end

The week leading up to opening day of duck season held plenty of chaos. First we would be travelling with our 3 month old twins starting Wednesday morning and not stopping until Saturday evening. Wednesday we left Memphis for Jackson, MS to take family pics with my in-laws. Our babies feed every 3 hours, and the drive to Jackson is 3.5, so you do the math. We ended up stopping at a Hampton Inn in Batesville, MS and feeding them in the breakfast area since it was empty at 11 am. We made it to Jackson with enough time to get unpacked before feeding babies again. We then went to take pictures with my wife's parents and 3 brothers, along with their babies. 7 kids, all under 4. Lots of screaming kids. We finally wrapped that up to get back to her parents to feed the babies (I think you are seeing the pattern for my week). Next day we went to Meridian for Thanksgiving lunch with a ton of her family. Lots of more chaos and feeding babies and driving. Finally Friday rolled around and we went to my hunting camp. I missed the morning duck hunt, but it was a bust anyways, so I didn't care. Almost as soon as I got there, I passed off the babies to my mom and dad as well as the other guest to take care of for a bit. I went off by myself to some stress relief and sighted in my AR with it's new scope I got for my birthday, and then proceeded to burn off an additional 40 rounds just for fun. When Saturday morning arrived, and for me my first duck hunt of the 2012-13 season, I was wide awake in anticipation since the 3 am feeding of the babies. Brook, my 1.5 year old lab was more excited. She was bouncing around and almost howling with excitement after suiting her up in her neoprene dog vest. The hunt was great. I took a member of our club and his grandson. We were covered up in wood ducks at first light, and then plenty of spoonies and teal after that. I was letting the grandson shoot primarily and he ended up with 3 shoveler and a wood duck, and I managed 2 mallards and 2 wood ducks in between chasing his cripples with Brook in the flooded corn. It would have been a fairly easy limit of 6 birds for me, but giving a young kid the opportunity to shoot by himself at the ample opportunities was fun. 2 more birds for me wouldn't have changed my life. Brook made some great retrieves and found a couple birds that landed in thick cover that would have been impossible to find without her. Here's Brook after the hunt while I picked up decoys.

We pushed home to Memphis Saturday afternoon since the birds really aren't down to our place yet in Mississippi, and ended up bow hunting for deer Sunday morning in Tennessee. I saw a ton of deer that were on the move with the rut in full swing and the first sub 30 degree morning, but nothing worth shooting. A couple small bucks passed by, and several does came well within range, but I wasn't going kill anything unless it was a nice buck. I wasn't too concerned with not killing anything. I've killed a lot of deer in my 30 years of existence (and 17 years of actual deer hunting)and most with a bow. Deer hunting is my least favorite of all the hunting I do, but it has the longest season of anything I hunt and it fills a lot of time between turkey, dove, and duck hunting. Since I exclusively bow hunt, I can hunt them from late September to the beginning of January in Tennessee. However, it has become more of a meditation to me now. It's a way to just sit comfortably by myself in silence and just relax. And there's no better way to relax than in the peace an quiet of nature.

Hunting Days are Few and Far Between

This hunting season has been fairly meager as far as hunting opportunities go.  Since the twins came at the beginning of September, I have only been able to get out 3 times.  Once for doves, and twice for deer.  Thankfully, each day of deer hunting has been good.  I've had plenty of deer around me each time.  This last trip was almost ruined by some local dogs as they were running in the woods I was hunting.  I had to chase them off before getting in the tree last Saturday morning and wasn't settled in until sunrise.  With my opportunites being so infrequent, I was none too pleased when this happend. 

The week before I was slam covered in deer all morning.  All does, yearlings, and spikes, but still a lot of action to keep me alert.  The only downside was I was going to try and get out of the stand early and head back as soon as I could so my wife wasn't alone with the babies for too long.  Unfortunately, I had deer under me until 9:30am and didn't get down until 10am.  Add that to dragging out, field dressing, and dropping off the doe I shot at the donation site, it was after noon before getting home. 

Both morning were gorgeous.  Acorns were dropping like rain in the white oak stand of woods and deer deer were taking full advantage.  I was able to seal the deal on a healthy doe.

Pre Rut November bow hunting in Tennessee

This is a video of a couple early weekends worth of hunts I had last season.  I passed on a bunch of smaller bucks and eventually took a healthy mature doe for the freezer.  With the cooler air in the mornings, the deer were certainly moving more.  I couple weeks after this, I spotted the buck I had been after.  There were rubs and scraps all over this hill side I'd been hunting, and I knew there was at least one good mature deer working the area.  Unfortunately I didn't catch him on film, much less shoot him, as he was chasing does through thick brush.

Here's the result for the freezer
 

Adding a fighting butt to fly rod

A couple years ago, I was wanting to buy a used 3wt Orvis Rod with Battenkill reel from a fellow that was selling all his fly fishing gear.  He wouldn't sell just the 3wt setup, I had to buy it all.  That included a bunch of very good fly tying gear (with a $150 vise and at least $150 in almost all unused materials and hooks), a White River 5-7wt fly reel with almost new Orvis 6wt WF line, and a like new St. Croix 6wt 2 piece rod.  All for $350!  I sold the vise on ebay for $100+ since I already had a vise and felt like I made out like a bandit having only invested $250 in about $600+ worth of gear.  However, I already had a very nice Scott 6wt for trout fishing and didn't really need the St.Croix or the reel it came with, but figured I'd hold on to it as a back up rig.  That was 3 years ago and it hasn't been out of it's sleeve.  So on a whim, I decided I'd add a fighting butt to it and make this my official bass rod that I'd leave at our hunting camp year round or I might use it for a lighter carp fishing rig as well.

To do so, I ordered a fighting butt from the tackle and rod building site mudhole.com for a couple bucks ($7 shipped).  I then cut a 6" section off an extra carbon arrow I had laying around and drilled a hole the same diameter as the arrow shaft into the butt of the fly rod.  Most non-fancy fly rods have a plastic butt cap that is easily drilled through.  Conveniently, the arrow fit perfectly snug inside the rod blank, so I did not have to drill into it.  I then glued the arrow shaft into the cork butt section after sanding it with some sandpaper to ensure a positive surface for the glue, and put glue inside the rod butt section and slid the arrow in.  I used a heavy duty polyurathane adhesive for this.

Here is the after picture.  It would take looking closely to tell it did not come from the factory like this.  Once it gets a little use, that cork will match the factory handle just fine.  All for about $7 using glue and an arrow I had laying around, and about 15 minutes of my time.  I thought it was well worth it.  You could add a thick metal (aluminum or brass) bushing in between the cork and the rod base to make it look more professional, but that was not a concern of mine. 



April 2012 Texas Turkey Hunt

1-15-12 Duck Hunt

Zombie Training

New Years Eve Holiday Hunt