Seeing the first real snow of the year laying on the ground has my blood pumping a little bit faster now.  The fur in the wild should be priming up real good and it’s going to be trapping time pretty soon.  With that a guy needs to know how to handle the fur he catches in order to market it and make a few bucks.

For those who haven’t done a whole lot of fur handling here is a very good source of  “how it’s done” and if you pay close attention to the details they tell you, the cash you bring in will be higher than if you ignore what they are saying.

http://www.furharvesters.com/pdf/pelthandling.pdf

Bears Butt

Nov. 2011

AH!  Another fine day for hunting.  Clear, cold and not a breeze in sight.  It does not sound like a very good day for duck hunting does it?  Well, that is what we are going to do.

Some days you just have to accept the fact that the weather doesn’t matter.  The birds (animals) still do what they do best and that is “whatever they want, whenever they want to do it”.  We will be there to intercept them in their endeavors.

Magpie and I have never hunted ducks together and so today will be the first.

Wish us luck!  I’ll report later on how the day went.

Bears Butt

Nov. 2011

The hunt began when Magpie arrived at my home.  As always he was just a wee bit early and so “right on time”!  I expected his arrival early and was standing at my already warmed up vehicle!  The dog was put up and I was ready and anxious to get going!

At the club we were faced with the coldest morning so far this fall and there was a 1/8 inch coating of ice on the water.  It made for a slower than usual walk to the blind, but still not too bad.

Magpie offered to bail the box out, but I had already decided to let him set the decoys out, afterall, he used to guide duck hunters in his past and I wanted to learn a thing or two about his uncanny ability to attract ducks via decoys.

The box bailing was done in short order as it had only filled half way from my hunt the day before.  Life was good!  And once that was done, I went to preparing the goose decoys for deployment.  Magpie set the goose decoys and we settled into the blind to wait for ducks, geese or other shootables to arrive.

It took a full hour or so for the first of the ducks to show and of course they would not decoy within range.  They would fly just on the edge of the guns capability and sometimes they would even land out on that edge.  A bit frustrating, but still fun.

When the sun had had a bit of time to melt off the ice, we decided to move the decoys a bit closer to the blind and also moved a couple of goose decoys to cover our movement in the blind.  The duck flight pattern today was about 100 yards to our right, which was different than the day before.

With the decoys placed closer to our blind the ducks were mostly now flying in the kill zone!  They began to hit the water after we shot and life was getting more interesting.  We tried a call or two, but the only one that seemed to actually draw in a duck was a vulgar attempt at speaking loudly through the duck call.  I had told Magpie a story about doing this some years back and it seemed to work then.  So, I spoke through the call and what to our amazement did arrive was a couple of teal that came out of nowhere and only one of which continued to fly on!  Calling was not to be done much the rest of the time.

With the price of shells being what they are today, we had shot quite a number of times at the fast little teal and had several in the bag when we decided to save our shells for bigger ducks.  We waited and waited for bigger ducks.  Meanwhile teal were sitting in our decoys by the tens!  I decided a bologna sandwich was in order and as I proceeded to explain to Magpie how the day before had me doing “this” when suddenly two pintails were flaring in my face.  He said, “like this?” as he raised up and politely downed a drake pintail!!!!  Good shot Magpie!

Well, there you have the big duck story of the hunt.  After an hour of not shooting because nothing but teal seemed to be flying I told Magpie I could not take any more of these little buggers flying around and that I was going to start shooting them!  We both started shooting at them and hoped for bigger ducks before we either shot all our shells or had our limit, which ever came first!

We ended with our limits and I had shot 22 shells.  How many Magpie shot is a mystery to me, but I’d guess somewhere around 30.  He took some long shots at big ducks because he was shooting 3 1/2 inch 12 gauge shells and could reach out there and get them, while my 20 gauge just wasn’t enough.

The end result was two limits of birds, a wonderful fall day in the swamp and a great memorable day for us both.

Bears Butt

Nov. 2011

Goin out duck hunting again this morning with my brother Bob!  It’s currently raining outside and the forecast is for colder and possible snow by this afternoon.  I like hunting when it’s nice and comfy like last week.  This will not be as enjoyable, but should prove to be a “fowl” day!  More will be posted after the hunt.

Bears Butt

NOV. 1st (can you believe it?)

Well, as fate would have it, Bob got pretty sick and called to tell me he couldn’t make it.  Dang!  Usually that would have had me bummed out and I would not go hunting.  I really don’t like to hunt alone, but since this was a day to hunt Colmer Island and the walk is only about 200 yards, I decided it would not be so bad.

I left home about 9:30 a.m. and headed to the club.  Last nights storm had all but finished its flurry and the sky was bluing up.  There was still a pretty good breeze out of the north and it was colder than it has been in quite some time.

As I approached Colmer Island I jumped about 300 ducks and they flew off.  That is a good sign and usually by the time you have your decoys set up here they come back.  This time I was doing it all by myself and so the bailing of the box took the usual 20 minutes and then I still had to put the decoys out.  The birds decided I was taking too long and flew elsewhere.  Oh well.

So, once settled there I sat watching seagulls and black ibis fly around.  NO ducks!  A few geese, but none interested in my setup.  Ok, so I’ll sit here awhile and enjoy the swamp and what it has to offer.  How about a crawfish?

And so I sat wondering just what I would be doing if I was home.  And so I decided this wasn’t such a bad place to waste my day.  It was about noon when the first duck decided to fly into my set.  Of course I was half asleep and didn’t see it coming until it flared up in front of me….I missed both shots!

With both my eyes open now, I was intently watching and this intensity lasted almost 10 minutes.  Then my mind wandered to the sandwich I had brought.  MMMMMM bologna!  I opened up the plastic bag it was in and took 1/2 of it out.  Moved my face mask in order to get to my mouth and right in front of me were two Pintails flaring up and over the top of me…10 feet!  Dang!  The sandwich went down onto the plastic bag and stayed there another 10 minutes, while I reconnoitered the area for more ducks….none.

I noticed the wind was shifting around some and I decided now would be a good time to eat my sandwich.  The wind shifting just might get the ducks flying.

12:20….ducks!  And they were winging right at my setup!

Just like the first duck I shot at, these got to hear two shots, but did not know what all the commotion was about.

And then more ducks, and more ducks!

Wow!  I was pounding them bad boys and hitting them hard!  Of course I used 20 shells doing it, but I finally dropped the last one for my limit of 7!  I was a pretty happy guy and it wasn’t even 3 p.m. yet!  And so, I sat there in the blind and watched the ducks come and go.  I took some video and I hope I can figure out how to post it on this deal here.

DucksComingIn

DucksReallyFlyingGood

LotsOfDucksToday

VideoDucks

Heck, that was easy!  Thanks WordPress!

It was a very fun day even being by myself.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Bob would have been able to make it.  I know my shooting would have kicked his butt….7 for 20!  Heck Ya!  He shoots 20 just getting out of the truck!

The birds today were two shovelers, four teal and one gadwall.  The action seemed to be mostly teal, followed by shovelers and then gadwall.  But one of these days it’s going to be Pintail and Mallards…Then look out!

Bears Butt

Nov 1, 2011