Spent two hours across the road Saturday morning, found a dead doe that the bad winter did in. No antler sheds found. Dakota found this beaver house. I had been seeing a lot of trees that had been cut off by them. Sunday I hunted back on my side and found this old one. Janey found this one. Both were on the edge of that little field you come out to when you take that path through the woods. I found another dead doe along the right-away path, its' bones were nice and clean. I took the skull . Here's this years finds so far. This quail was out in the open cut bean field this morning, she better be careful or Mr. Hawk will get her. She got down real low and did not move, I was cruising along the edge and was lucky to see her.
Went across the road Saturday with the dogs and the 17. Didn't find any antler sheds. Got a squirrel and a snow goose. Janey treed the squirrel, it played hide and seek in the top of this oak. I made a nice head shot. There were about six snow geese feeding along the ditch on the way back to the woods. I shot one of them and Janey made the retrieve.Dakota just watched.I did find an old decoy along the stream .There must have been 100 mallards on the stream. Sunday morning I looked for antler sheds in my woods and found this old one. In the afternoon I got Judy to help me. Spent a few hours, must have walked 4 miles back in my woods. I found both of these within 10 yards of each other. The ducks and geese have started using my flood pond now. There has been 50 Canada Geese and about 30 ducks on it most mornings.
Last Monday, after work, I walked with the dogs to the woods. Came back by way of the back lane and took the road from there. When I got close to brother Brian's house I heard some quail calling. I looked down and there was a dead quail on the road. There wasn't much left of him. A little away from that one was another one. This one was in better shape - he was still alive. I took him home and put him in a box by the wood stove. I gave him some water and some food. In an hour he flew out of the box. I moved him out to the garage the next day. My plan is to release him outside this week.
Saturday we shot some snow geese at the wetlands. Flickr">I shot this squirrel with the 17 and had him for dinner last night. Milton, from Jersey, came and we filled his feeder. Sunday I went looking for sheds and checked for deer tracks. You can see the browse line.
The snow has kept me from hunting.It was too deep to drive through. Really hard to walk in even with snow shoes on. I walked back to plot 1 and by the time I got back home I felt like I had run 10 miles. The dogs were not doing any better. I cleared a path to the hard road with my tractor. Then went to brother Brians house through the field. Cleared his drive way. Judy tried my snow shoes, fell down and couldn't get back up. This weekend I cleared a path down the back lane almost to the straw bales. The snow geese were out by the wetlands and I was able to get one. It's not that bad a walk now to the duck blind or wetlands.The snow geese ate all my corn. I got this picture on my trail cam that is set up at the flood pond. Two of these geese have bands around their necks. I put corn out behind the duck blind and a salt block and set my trail cam there. The next day I checked on the camera and corn and found this: That's me putting out the corn. This is what happened to it all by the next day . Here I am, I can't believe it, - 50 pounds of corn gone! Monday at lunch the snow geese were back at the wetlands. I walked to the trees sticking up in the pond, the ice was thick enough to walk on. Resting my 17HNR rife on a tree, I took aim at one of those geese with the bands around it's neck. It was out about 175 yards. I aimed a little high and hit the goose behind it. It fell over on it's back and Janey went for the retreive. Before she got to it, it got up and flew off - Janey chasing behind.
I met Bill at his farm Saturday morning. We had a plan to sneak up on the snow geese and ducks that had spent the night on the pond. With both my dogs, we snuck up to the pond before shooting light. The ducks always leave first and we were in place when they left. The first pair of ducks flew over Bill and he got one of them. Then the snows got up, about a thousand, they were a little too far for my twenty but I did knock one down. The dogs went for Bill's duck and didn't see my goose go down. Janey finally found it. Next we put decoys out in the field. Stayed in the blind till 8 and then gave up since it was cold. I went home and cleaned up the buildings. Bill sat in the truck and watched the ponds. A lone goose came in to the decoys. That got Bill out of the truck and back in the blind. The goose stayed with the decoys and Bill. When Bill saw another goose, he started calling and almost got him but he flared and away he went. It was snowing hard by then and Bill went home. At 4 I called Bill and told him I was going back to try for the ducks as they came back to the pond for the night. When I got to the blind the goose was still there but I couldn't stop Janey from running it off.The wood ducks started coming back about 4:45 and I ended up getting 2. Dakota retrieved one and Janey got the other - they were both drakes. We ended up with about 8" of snow. I've been seeing a lot of does in the food plots and there has been 8 quail feeding in the soy beans next to the the cover beside brother Brian's house for last few days. Here's my house in the snow.
With only two weeks left of duck season, we went for the ducks. Bill and I have been watching the ducks at his farm, waiting for some mallards to start using his flood pond. There were some nice groups showing up in the morning and late afternoon. Bill invited his son Scott,my Uncle Buddy [world famous waterfowl hunter],and Bill Wright. The day before, Bill and I put up a blind where the ducks were landing, on the north east end of the flood pond. We met at his farm at 6:30 Saturday morning to set out the decoys. There were a good 1/4 inch of ice that we had to break up for the decoys and to have places for the ducks to land. It wasn't a good day for duck hunting - no wind and a clear sky. A group of mallards did fly over and Buddy did his best to try to call them in. They circled a few times but didn't like the way our decoys just sat still - they were looking for movement.Soon after that group left a single drake showed up and Buddy talked him into joining our decoys. We tried to get Scott to shoot but I guess it was too much pressure on him so his dad took the shot. To his surprise he got it. I left my dogs home because of the lack of room in the blind, so Buddy made the retrieve. Not long after that, here comes a group of snow geese. Buddy called them in. We knocked down four of them and let one get away. Darn if he didn't come back around and gave us another shot and down he went. Buddy left around 8:30 to shoot snow geese and we quit around 10:00. Bill and I went back about 4:00. I bought my dogs. We had about four groups come in close enough to shot and got 3 more mallards before the end of shooting time. Lots came after sun set and were fun to watch. I went home and cooked some deer chops. I had a bowl of my Mexican deer sausage soup to go with it. Then went in the house with the dogs and had a glass of my wine. Both dogs passed out.
I called Calvin and invited him and his dogs over for a little rabbit hunt. He excepted my invitation and we met at my house at 9:30. He had Dave with him.I also invited my friend Frank. We crossed the ditch and started down the hedge row. In only a few yards we jumped a rabbit. The dogs ran about half way down and lost it. Score: 1 - rabbits 0 - hunters. Calvin called the dogs back and threatened them with finding them a new home. We started hunting where we left off and within a few minutes the dogs jumped another rabbit. This rabbit headed west. He ran past the cabin and shed to the dirt road and came back to the bush pile behind the cabin. The dogs stayed on him but he wasn't coming out of the bush pile. Score: 2 - rabbits 0 - hunters. Well the dogs didn't get in trouble over that one. We hunted out to the end of the hedge row and along the edge of the woods. Soon jumped #3. This rabbit knew just where he wanted to be. He went straight to a hole about 200 yards down the edge. Score: 3 - rabbits 0 - hunters. We got the dogs out of that hole and went back to edge to find #4. Within a few minutes the dogs were going strong. This one bypassed the hole and ran Calvin's way. We got to the corner of the woods and jumped #5. This rabbit did a little woods running and field running till Dave put a stop to it. We went back in the corner and dogs where running again. Calvin got this one coming back . I jumped the next one in the new bush pile behind my duck blind. The dogs saw him come out and were on it hard. The rabbit made a nice big circle. Frank and I stayed at the bush pile, the dogs were getting close to the bush pile when the rabbit came out from under the duck blind. I emptied both barrels at him and he just keep going and going. But in a few minutes I heard a shot and Calvin stopped him. We went to the thicket by the wetlands next. Calvin got two more. I jumped a big covey of quail on the east side of the thicket, they flew across to the woods on the other side of the road. That hasn't happened since the 1980's, it was really a great site. Then we headed over by plot 4. Dave and I got some rabbits. Ended the day there about 2:30, with a total bag of 11. Leaving lots of rabbits for the next hunt. Calvin said it was his best day this season. HABITAT IS THE KEY.
I had been seeing a lot of trees that had been cut off by them. Sunday I hunted back on my side and found this old one. 
Janey found this one. Both were on the edge of that little field you come out to when you take that path through the woods. 
I found another dead doe along the right-away path, its' bones were nice and clean. I took the skull .
Here's this years finds so far. 
This quail was out in the open cut bean field this morning, she better be careful or Mr. Hawk will get her. 
She got down real low and did not move, I was cruising along the edge and was lucky to see her.
I shot this squirrel with the 17 and had him for dinner last night.
