oldfatslow

Magic Pee

2011-12-30T10:29:00.001-05:00

Each hunt we've noticed fewer
and fewer boats at the launching
ramp in the morning and heard fewer
and fewer shots on the marsh. The
December lull has been on.

Also, the water has been dropping.
ChickenFoot is no longer huntable.
So, we switched to Teal Whackin'
and Poo Water (nee North Snipe
City). In both of these, the water
is still waist deep. [Poo Water got
renamed due to the unique aroma
of rotting vegetation in that area.]

In neither spot, did we see the
numbers of ducks, attract the
numbers of ducks, or kill the
numbers of ducks that we had
earlier at ChickenFoot. We didn't
even have that awesome of a
day at TMG WMA when Tommy
had a top draw.

Still we never got skunked.

We've had other problems with
the hunting - equipment failures.
My Baikal has had numerous fail
to fires and has lost the pin sleeve
for the rear trigger housing pin. Not
a single gunsmith will touch it. I
ordered some parts on-line. Who
knows if they'll show. The Browning
Gold is also failing to cycle. We're
hoping a thoroughly deep clean will
solve that issue. There is nothing
more frustrating than having a
big wad of ducks over the dekes,
pulling the trigger, and hearing
nothing.

Yesterday, Craig, Jim, and I went
back out on the St. Johns and
ended up at Teal Whackin' again.
This is a half acre pond with
lots of smartweed and duckweed
starting to emerge as the water
drops. I got the decoys out while
the big boys camoed up the boat.
We got everything in place with
about two minutes before shooting
time.

Jim heard black bellies in the
distance, but whistle as hard as
we could they never neared us.
In the pre-dawn light we saw
a few ducks buzz through the
decoys, but could never pick them
up until they were on the way out.

Then we sat for a very long time with
nothing. It wasn't until Jim had to
pee that things turned around. Nothing
attracts ducks like a hunter not hunting.
Skirting our left side and along the edge
of the pond came a pair of the first mottled
ducks of the season. I'm glad I didn't
have time to think about that and was
able to drop the drake. Later, it was
Craig's turn and we got a blue wing
while he was "busy."

Late in the day, it was my turn.

As I stood there looking out the back
of the boat, I saw another pair of modus
bouncing along over the marsh. I grabbed
my Duck Commander Drake call and
hit a couple notes. They swung towards
us, went behind some reeds, and I thought
the were going to swing around and
come through. Instead they reversed
course and headed away. I grabbed
my Duck Commander DC-150 and
commanded those ducks to come
back. They did and Jim dropped the
drake.

Craig topped off the day by making
an awesome retrieve on a bwt that
got deep into the reeds.

We felt pretty good to come away
with six ducks total given the
circumstances.

ofs

Update

2011-12-26T14:53:00.001-05:00

The reason there haven't been
any hunting updates is that there
is nothing to update. We are
in the December lull and it
is depressing. We've eked
out one or two ducks a hunt,
but that's it. The surprising thing
is that there are still ducks around,
but we can't get them to come to
where we are.

Try again tomorrow.

ofs

ChickenFoot

2011-11-27T16:55:00.001-05:00

Hit the same spot on the marsh Saturday
that we did on Thursday. We only heard
one other boat and that guy only shot
twice that we heard. I like being lonely
on a big ol' marsh especially when we
have a day like yesterday.

Getting out there and setting up were
uneventful. The water is still well up and
it was four feet deep where it's normally
dry land. We set up with plants to our
back and our backs to the sunrise and
the forecasted 25mph gusts from the
east.

Shooting time was 6:25. At 6:15, we
heard shooting (from someone else not
the neighboring boat) followed immediately
by the blackbellied whistling ducks that
always clear out of the area just before
shooting time. Apparently, that hunter
wasn't going to let that happen to him.

We decided to try a different approach.
The three of us got on our whistles and
began calling the bbwds. We actually turned
a group of about 20 that swung around
us and came straight at the boat. But,
it was only 6:20 and we held fire. We
stayed hard on the whistles and the
ducks stayed right behind us. I had
the three of us turn our backs to the
decoys and get ready to shoot just
as shooting time arrived. Fortunately,
Jim hollered, "Behind you!" and Stu
and I turned back around and were
able to drop two immature birds out
of a group of about eight that came on
our right. I rewarded my adherence
to the law by jumping out of the
boat on the retrieve and landing
right on the tail of my Go-Devil
long tail. The pain was instantaneous -
I thought I had cracked my tail bone
or another vertebrae. But, the 5mm
waders I had on must have cushioned
the shock and I have naught but a
nasty bruise today.

It wasn't too long after that that I saw
a nice, plump duck zinging straight in
from my right. I dropped a beautiful
drake woody.

After that, it was all teal all the time. We
varied between singletons all the way
up to groups of a couple dozen. The
big groups always seemed to hit us
at bad times. It wasn't until the last
big wad (the 10 o'clock duck) came
in that Jim doubled and Stu and I each
dropped one. I ended up limiting, Jim
5, and Stu 4. Another big day.

Stu got a very nice drake blue
winged teal.

We breasted out 13 of those 15 ducks,
the 14 from the Thanksgiving day hunt,
the fulvous from our Tuesday hunt, and
two wood ducks from Early Teal. It took
four POUNDS of bacon to wrap the
marinated breasts. I was able to squeeze
all of them on the grill and cooked them
up medium rare. They were juicy and
excellent. We only quit eating because
we ran out of room. Stu's bwt and my
wood duck, we plucked whole and cooked,
but - at least for me - the breasts were
much tastier.

ofs

Hen Killers

2011-11-25T07:19:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, I took Jenny and her friend Abby
out to TMG. We were first draw for the
reservoir and should have had an excellent
morning. But, I had scouted the day
before and there were few ducks there
despite the conditions (topped out
hydrilla) being excellent.

We ended up with one fulvous duck.
It was disappointing to say the least.

But, that was then. On Thursday, Jim,
Stuart, and I headed out to hunt a "secret" spot
I had scouted the previous Saturday (after
a spectacularly failed opening day hunt.)

Few people ever hunt this area but I've
had some good hunts. We got where we
were going with ease. Got the decoys out
and got the boat up against some bushes.
I was shocked to find hulls in the water
where someone had hunted between Saturday
and Thursday. [What's worse, the guys who
had hunted there had been shooting #1s and
BBs at teal. What were they thinking about?]

We put out coots, bwt, gwt, a few woodies, and
a pinner for decoys. I figured I'd try my mojo
teal one more time. Wow, did we set up well.
Not only were we deep in shadows all morning,
but the decoys were set up perfectly for
ducks coming from left to right into the wind.
Never have I had so many birds want to decoy
and land. There were times we had to yell
to get a duck to fly up out of the dekes. They
just couldn't see us. The wind was right too.
The decoys really looked real moving in the
water.

We had a lot of singleton ducks come through
and a few small groups. It was a lot of fun.
Jim and I both limited (his first). And, Stu
got a teal and a very confused and lost ringer.

The odd thing on the day was that every duck
was a hen. Not a drake on the marsh. Go
figure.

ofs

Hunting on the Cheap

2011-11-04T14:40:00.001-05:00

I am cheap, not least of which because
I'm Scots. I like to find ways to hunt
that won't bankrupt me and still get
the same results as using expensive
tools and gizmos. To give an
example, I decided that I needed
a floating platform for my Mojo
Teal for water that was too deep
for the short pole that came with
the decoy. In essence, I wanted one
of these without forking over the
dough.

I ended up buying an innertube
for a riding mower tire and fitting
it to two boards. It worked really
great until Tommy shot it while
finishing off his crippled mottle
duck last year.

For early teal, I just used a long
piece of pvc conduit pipe that I
stuck in the middle of the decoys.
The problem with that was that the
water was almost deeper than the
pole.

Then, last week, manna from heaven.
Stu and I found a large, baby blue
chunk of thick styrofoam in Sarno
Marsh. It's probably been there since
the hurricanes in '04. I've now rigged
it to be my platform. The below picture
shows the block painted, but I'm going
to actually put a sheet of black visqueen
over the block and it will look just
like water.

Now I'm going to go make a homemade
jerk string and knock off Rig 'em Right
decoy lines.

ofs

Early Teal Too

2011-10-04T18:30:00.002-05:00

Tommy and I took last Tuesday off and
went out for Early Teal to Big Bend where
we did so well on wood ducks last year.

Because the water is up so much after
the drought ending, I wasn't sure what
we'd find. When scouting, I hadn't seen
a duck. Still, Big Bend has yet to fail
us.

We got out and got set up fairly easily
other than finding that I'd lost the thumb
screw that held the wing on my mojo. That
was right about the time that the wing
fell off and sank like a rock. I decided
to just have a one winged mojo and
hope we would have stupid ducks
come by.

We really needed stupid ducks because
I put the teal we painted this summer out
there too. They actually looked a little
more like ducks for some reason than
they had on the previous Saturday.
Fortunately, I had some wood duck
decoys too.

The day dawned and started slow.
There were NO birds of any sort out
there. It was eerie because there are
normally hundreds of shore birds
(ibis, herons, cormorants, gallinules,
etc.) around. There weren't even any
red wing black birds, grackles, or the
little yellow marsh birds. But, there
were mosquitoes. [I sincerely believe
the person who invented the Thermocel
should get the Noble Prize.]

At one point we did see three ducks
flying our way, but they were black
bellied whistlers. They were out
about 100 yds and passing us on the
right. I grabbed my whistle and got
them to turn, fly over the dekes,
realize there were no cousins down
there, and then fly over the boat as
they left. We could have easily
owned them had they been legal.
November can't come too soon.

An hour into shooting time, I saw
some wood ducks out ahead of us.
Turns out they were part of a wave
and two came right across the front
of the boat in a right to left shot. I
nailed a nice drake and might have
had a shot at the second one if I
hadn't heard an "Ouch" from Tommy
getting his ears rung. I gave him my
ear pro after that.

The water was too deep to do a retrieve,
so I left the duck floating safely. Another
hour passed before another woody wave
came over. Two of them swung wide and
then behind us. I was hoping they'd come
back when a third one landed plop between
both wads of decoys. Tommy wanted
to whack that one, but I made him wait
a bit. Finally, I green lighted him and
he nailed it with one well placed shot.

That was it for the day but we hung
on a while longer. I got worried when
my duck started swimming. Turns out
something had it. There was a big
splash and it disappeared for a couple
of minutes. All I could think of was my
buddy Mike T losing one of his birds to
a gator on the previous hunt. When my
bird popped back up, we broke down
the blind and went on a retrieve with
the boat. I was really happy I had a
dip net. We never did figure out what
had the duck, but it must have been
small: only the head and the back
were a little chewed upon. The
breast meat wasn't damaged at all.

On the way home, I did a little
scouting and kept hearing people
shooting behind us. Turns out half
my muffler had fallen off and I was
hearing my own backfiring. Just
got the boat back today - a well
invested $260.

ofs

Early Teal 2011

2011-09-25T07:13:00.000-05:00

Jim got us a #4 pick at TMG WMA. We
knew we could get in the reservoir and
be assured of a pretty good hunt if there
were ducks there. I knew there would
be woodies, but wasn't sure if the teal
were here yet.

My friend Mike T. was going to bring
his boat and hunt with Jim, Stuart, and
me. He got out on Thursday, scouted,
and identified the good spots. When
the time came to pick our spot, we
had moved up to 2nd in the reservoir
and had all four of Mike's options
available. We went with one that
has historically been good.

What was most surprising when we
launched was how low the water still
was at TMG. All of the rain we have
been getting seems to be just north and
therefore downstream of the WMA.
We had to navigate some thick lilies,
spatterdock, mud tussets, and hydrilla.
My Go-devil is sick and weak, but
still managed to chug us through.

Jim hunted with Mike in Mike's
boat. They stopped at the northwest
corner of our draw and we headed south.
Except we didn't. Once again, GPS in
hand, I got all turned around and actually
went east. Where we set up was still
in our draw, but right on the border.
It turned out to be an okay spot, but
I spent a lot of the morning slightly
disoriented.

Shooting time was late 6:42AM, but
we heard one gunshot at 6:24. It was
still way too dark then to be shooting
at ducks; someone must have had an
"accidental discharge."

I put out a few woodduck decoys and
a few of our newly painted bwt. I
separated the two groups and put my
spinning wing decoy with the teal.
We didn't get a single bird to decoy.
I will try the teal decoys one more time,
but may have to abandon our paint
job as a net loss.

Just before shooting time, we could
see some birds flying by and when
time came lots of people were shooting.
Given that they kept on shooting on
a day of limited limits, I can only imagine
is was a lot of bad, pass shooting.

Our shots came scattered, but we did
okay. Stu and I both shot a bwt flying
low and right at the boat at point blank
range. Stu was slightly faster on the
shot and hit it first. The bird was
still really close to us, alive, and
swimming. I could see where it
was but not see the bird itself with
the splashing and the spatterdock
moving. I put an anchor shot on it
that messed up everything on the
bird except the meat. That worked
out well.

I managed to hit two woodducks as
they zipped by the outside of the
decoys. The hen had a band on it
and that made my day.

Jim and Mike were having there own
adventure. Before shooting time, Jim
saw a big chunk of the deorbiting
satellite fall through the sky with
quite a light show of green glow and
sparks.

Mike shot one duck that was devoured
almost right away by a waiting gator.
The lizard came back and settled near
the back of their boat waiting to do another
retrieve. Mike eventually scared it off
by turning on his bilge pump.

By the end of the day, Mike had two
woodies and Jim had a woodie and
a bwt.

We had a good day.

Here's our happy crew. Stu is only
showing the presentable parts of
his teal.

The bird had only been banded on
August 4 of this year. Hardly time
to get used to the bling before the
bang. Still, jewelry is jewelry.

ofs

Off Season Doings

2011-08-20T10:55:00.011-05:00

Early Teal is a month away and we've actually
done some stuff this off season to prepare.
Granted, we still haven't made a layout boat,
but we did burlap/paint Craig's Herters bwt
decoys and paint the Dawn Treader.

Here are some scenes from the decoys
(it only took us a year to take this project
from start to finish):

We had to clean and organize the
shed first.

Then we got the decoys ready.

I wasn't burlapping the coots, but they
really needed some work too.

We put up a rack to hold our work.

Then we got to cutting patterns for
both the top and bottom of the
decoys out of burlap.

We smeared adhesive all over the burlap
and the dekes and smoothed it
down. Took two coats.

Once the work is done, management
shows up.

But we were done and headed in.

And there they sat for eight months
until we made time to paint them.
The style is a little more ideal
than real, but I bet we kill ducks.

At least the coots turned out awesome.

And, some from the Dawn Treader:

We cleaned and sanded the boat and
sprayed green zinc chromate on the
bare patches.

Cut a new floor for the boat too.

Then we put a base coat of Parkers duck boat
paint on.

Finally, we got happy with the spray cans
of Parkers camo paint (with a can of
Krylon camo green thrown in).

The handle blends in so well to
the deck and sides that I've already
tripped over it a couple times. This
thing will disappear in the saw grass.

Look for the DT (Dawn Treader) initials on
the stern.

I'm ready to go hunting.

ofs

TV Stardom

2011-08-02T09:56:00.000-05:00

We made the big time - national TV.

http://tlc.discovery.com/videos/surprise-homecoming-the-first-christmas-apart.html

The producers and team from Surprise Homecoming
did an excellent job. Our family thanks them.

ofs

Dandruff the Goat

2011-07-30T20:03:00.000-05:00

My #3 son just finished two weeks
leave from his assignment in Afghanistan.
He is an Army Combat Medic serving
about 5 miles from the Korengal Valley.
If you have seen the movie Restrepo,
you will know what kind of area he is
in.

The week before he came home his
company completed a week long
mission called Hammer Down II
high in the Watapur Valley mountains
(10K feet). Below is one story he told
me from that operation:

-------------begin here---------------

Operation Hammer Down II was winding down
and it was time for Delta Company to get
extracted back to COP Honaker-Miracle.
Chinooks had been detailed to fly into the
LZ and bring the soldiers out. At night, our
guys worked their ways down the side of the
steep mountain to a level, treeless area
designated as the LZ to meet the helicopters.

Unfortunately, clouds rolled in and the extraction
had to be postponed. Orders came to climb back
up the mountain to await clearer weather. As they
waited to get started, the guys saw a small, orphaned
goat. It was so tame (and stupid) that they thought
it might be blind. The clouds were so thick that the
path up was un-locatable. However, the little goat
began to climb and the company obediently followed
behind it. At last, they all safely reached their
mountaintop defensible position.

The guys named the little goat Dandruff and
wanted to bring it back to the COP as a mascot.
In the night, the Afghan National Army soldiers
ate it.

----------------------end here--------------------

ofs

Psalm 132:1

2011-04-16T13:48:00.000-05:00

Lord, remember David, and all his afflictions

Snipe Plogging

2011-02-19T09:58:00.001-05:00

Duck season is over, but snipe season
lasted a little longer and we tried to
end the season with style with two
back to back hunts.

Friday was an off day at work for me
and Jim got off early from college.
He met me at the launching ramp
at Hwy 50. I had his waders, gun,
ammo, waters, and Sweet 'n Salties.

We headed upriver to some of my
favorite and most productive spots.
If only they had been productive.
We only saw 5 snipe in all the miles
that we walked and only shot one.

Even more annoying was our
visit to Snipe City. I told Jim that
I had scouted the spot for ducks
right before that season opened.
A flock of blue wing teal had
flown directly over and landed
at the far end of the pond 60
yds in front of me. Even as I
spoke to him, a flock of green
wing teal flew over us and
landed at the very same spot.
Where were they when we
hunted the area? We even ran
up a flock of 16 mottle ducks
from one tiny pond. Who knew
mottles ever group up like
that?

To add insult to injury, I
had forgotten that I needed
to wear booties with my
hip waders and my left
heal had a blister the size
of Montana on it.

Here's a picture from the
boat ramp of the river.

Hwy 50 Boat Ramp looking south. Note all the free range cattle.

The next day I didn't think would be
much better, but I had agreed to join
my co-worker Rich R. at the WMA
and try our hand there. He, Jim, and
I had tried it last year, but struck out.
Turns out I'm glad we came back this
year.

Snipe hunt days at the WMA are first
come first serve. We were 5th in
line by 5AM. That too did not bode
well. Better hunting conditions are
directly proportional to the number
of people who show up. Rich pulled
up directly behind me. He's in BD,
so he's always upbeat and optimistic.
I don't suffer from that affliction.

At the check in station, I saw
Chuck McK. I hadn't seen him
the few times I got to TMG during
duck season and he said he had not
been able to get draws. We
chatted a bit and when our turn
came he recommended a spot
for us. Now, he is an awesome
shot and I took his advice
seriously. Eddie H. confirmed
it and we headed off.

Leaving the Check Station. On duck days, there can be a 100 guys right here.

It was just sunrise by the time we got
to our draw. We were greeted by
hundreds and hundreds of ducks
taking off. It was heart stopping.
I must reassess my hunting
decisions for next year. I think I
spent too much time trying to hunt
with the boat. I need to not bind
myself so tightly to that.

Our draw was 3S. Normally, it's
a bit deeper of a spot, but the
water had been drawn down
quite a bit. there were long,
muddy strips at the crowns that
were easily huntable. The
lateral (hidden) ditches weren't
all that hidden, but they still
could top our hip waders (as
Jim and I found to our chagrin).

We made several passes down
one side of strip and back up
the other since we didn't want
to try crossing the laterals if
we didn't have to. I dropped
one on the wrong side and that's
how I got water in the waders.

I had to take the waders off and drain
them out. My booties (remembered
this time) were soaked. Rich
had also hit a bird and I came
over to help him find it. Belly
down, a snipe may be the most
camouflaged bird in the world.

I discovered that much of the
new plant growth in the mud was
thistles. My stocking feet felt
every spine. We found Rich's
bird and by then, all of us had
at least one.

We went back to the truck for
water and snacks. Although the
day was cool and very windy, I
was sweating out my hydration
in buckets. I quickly peeled off
my jacket and gloves and only
hunted in a pair of long sleeve
shirts. My waders kept my cold,
wet pants from bothering me too
much.

We decided to make a pass down
some of the closer mud flats. Now,
these mud flats were - as far as we
could tell - identical. But, the one
I chose was the mother load. I
got 4 birds and brought my total
to 6. Jim got 2 to bring his total
to 3. I don't think Rich had a decent
shot at any. There were tons of
shore birds - coots, rosette spoonbills,
curlews, plovers, dowitchers, yellowlegs,
godwits, killdeer, ibises, etc. - all around
us. I held off on one shot for fear
of killing a lot of background birds.

Turned out I made the right choice.
The game warden was cruising
down the levee. When I finished
my pass huffing and puffing like
a train, he came down to see how
we were doing. I had to ask him
how his CPR was. There's nothing
like wading to test the blood
pressure medicine. He checked
my gun to make sure my limiter
was installed. He also checked
Jim's shells for steel and gave
Rich a complete check. I think
the officer recognized Jim and I
from repeated checks during the
season, but didn't know Rich.

We made a couple more passes,
but the day was done. We ended up
with a pretty nice haul.

Rich heading in

I yelled, "Strike a pose!"


Jim calling it quits

Jim and ofs in the marsh. Gotta get the orange hat off quickly and back to a real hunting hat.

Our snipe

Rich with his first kill in 20 some years. He's hooked now.

What Boy Scouts get when they hunt snipe

What the ofs Clan gets

ofs

Soloing and Full of Fulvous

2011-02-07T08:06:00.001-05:00

{This post is out of sequence -
I'm finally finishing it some weeks
late.}

Jim got bold and tried for a solo walk on
at the local WMA. It was his first time
hunting without me. We got him all
fixed up the night before and he was
up and gone by 1:30. He ended up
8th in line and got a spot in one of
the good wading impoundments. He
partied up with Pepi from the UWF
list.

They would have had a real long
walk down the levee to get to
their draw, but Pepi had a kayak
and they were able to easily cross
a canal and then wade a short bit
into the impoundment.

Jim was a bit nervous hunting with
someone he didn't know and only
managed a couple teal. Pepi got
several birds and a black-bellied
whistling duck. He had to leave
and get to work. Once totally on
his own, Jim got two more teal.
Considering that only one bird
decoyed, they did pretty good.

Pepi had glowing things to say
about Jim later in an email. That
makes this old, fat guy proud.

The next Saturday, Jim volunteered to
get in the walk in line early and spend the
night. It was so crowded that he was
the 7th car in line by 4PM in the
afternoon. By midnight, there were
18 cars. When Eddie came passing out
tickets, we ended up in the reservoir. We
partied up with Dan P. and returned
the favor (he'd let me on his draw
earlier in the season).

Joe R. gave me some good guidence
but I didn't quite find his spot. Still,
we had a good day of teal, ringers,
wood duck, and fulvous. Jim's nice,
drake woody floated away somewhat
at an angle to the wind. It seemed
strange, but we couldn't figure out why
until we picked up and found that
a turtle had gnawed the butt off the
duck. Since it didn't ruin any of the
meat, we were cool.

It was an okay day.

ofs

For the Children

2011-02-06T16:21:00.004-05:00

Saturday was the Youth Waterfowl Hunt

at TMG WMA. As always, it is my favorite

hunt of the year.

I was quite fortunate this year. Stu got

a draw for the Goodwin side, but was the

14th pick of 16 groups. I wasn't sure

we would get the spot we wanted in

the reservoir. Out of the blue earlier

in the week, I got an email from Mike U.

I had worked with him years before

at Controls. He had been scanning

the Internet for info on the Youth

Hunt, found oldfatslow, recognized

me from a picture, and wrote to see

if I was hunting. He and a friend were

each taking a son and his boy had

the fifth pick. He asked if I wanted

to have Stu and Tommy party up

with them. I dithered at first because

I didn't have waders for Tommy. But,

Tom found an old pair that he could

fit and the bathtub proved didn't leak,

and we were ready.

I got there early and found the gate open

and drove on in. There had been no

hunters in line and no one else at

the check in stand. Jason "Kansas" the

intern was working the desk and gave

me good G2 on where he had seen

birds. It was the same impoundment

where Craig had had his great YWfH

nine years before.

Mike and his buddy Dave showed up

with their sons, Josh and Kody and

reissued their invitation. I was only

too ~~greedy~~ eager to agree. Jamie F.,

the local Professional Wildlife

Biologist confirmed the G2 and we

got the spot we wanted.

Kansas wasn't going to run the "hay

wagon" and gave us permission to

drive up by the observation tower

next to our draw.

It wasn't a big pond and we set up

on the north reed line. With the south

wind we weren't in the best spot,

but it wasn't a strong wind and

teal will fly however they want to.

We were on the bank, high and dry.

The decoys were in two wads in

front of us and we had a lot of

time (an hour) to enjoy morning on

the marsh. I had hoped for fog and

ended up not being disappointed.

The fog rolled in and slowly blotted

out all the distant lights. We could

hear lots of hen and drake teal around

us and (I thought) some pintail. A

group of black bellied tree ducks came

over, but never came back.

When shooting time came, we had

one duck land and get nipped, but

it landed a ways out and disappeared

before we could make a retrieve.

I realized that we weren't right where

the ducks wanted to be and we picked

up and quickly moved to the only

other spot with cover. We were still

facing south into the wind, but the

decoys were in much shallower

water. We covered up with palmetto

fans that Mike and Dave had brought

with them as best we could. The

four boys were in front and the

dads behind. We were exposed,

but it didn't seem to bother the

birds. Fog helps.

Tommy in the Blind

Wide Open on Our Little Island

Stu fell in a hole and got most everything

wet but his gun. He was miserable, but

still hunting. Tommy managed the first

duck - a hen blue wing - that landed to

the right of his position. We were on

the board and the rest of the day was

gravy.

We never had big opportunities after that

and most of the shots were passing shots.

Mike's son Josh had the hot hand making

many really hard over the left shoulder

shots. He finished the day with his first

four ducks - 3 bwt and 1 gwt. Kody was

wedged in the middle and didn't have

as many chances, but as soon as he

moved to the end seat, he dropped a

nice drake bwt - his first duck.

Tommy got one more duck when

a small group of gwt flew through.

It happened so fast that he didn't

have time to really pick them up.

He fired instinctually and hit his

drake with most of the 3" #4 20 ga.

steel pellets. That was about as

dead a duck as I've ever seen.

Stu got a nice drake bwt and

crippled a drake ringer. Mike

and I made a two lab tough

retrieve on that bird in some

thick mud and para grass. I

again tested my blood pressure

medicine to the max and it

came through.

A UWF buddy - Naustin -

was on shore and took these

pictures of us on the wade in:

We hit IHOP for a late

breakfast/early lunch and

had then sent some tired boys

and proud-and-tired dads

home.

It was the best hunt of the season!

Four Happy Hunters


Stuart and Tommy with (l to r) Drake BWT, Drake Ringer, Drake GWT, Hen BWT

Duck Hunting is Serious Business

Arctic Real Blast

2010-12-29T16:34:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was as cold a hunt
as I can remember. It was
in the mid 20s, windy, and
very frosty.

We hunted the local WMA as
walkons and got one of the
less popular spots, but at
least we didn't have to try
East Marsh (our backup).

Some of the guys in the wading
impoundments were breaking ice.
We were in the boat and never
had to get wet hunting in the
reservoir. We set up in some
bulrushes, got our camo nets
and palmetto fans up, and put
ringer and coot decoys in the
hydrilla patch in front. The
decoys were very close, but
we were well covered up.

Unfortunately, the wind was
in our faces but the sun was
at our backs. I was afraid we
would have to shoot ringers
coming in at mach speed from
behind our heads. But, that
was the way the pond set up.

The day started well when a
pair of woodies came over the
levee from the impoundment
just north. I dropped a hen.
She turned out to be a real
bonus as my fifth banded bird.

ofs' fifth banded bird - hen woody

Later, we watched three ringers:
a beautiful drake and two hens
swim up to the dekes. That
is not the ringer way. We
stood up and yelled at them,
but they wouldn't fly. Dave
shot the drake and Jim got
one of the hens. We found
out later that the reason the
drake didn't fly was that he
was missing half a wing. This
was probably a cripple from the
previous year that had survived
gators, snakes, and turtles.
He must have been one mean,
manly duck. He still had
the mojo to attract the hens,
grabbed a pellet in his teeth,
and took several minutes to
die after numerous anchor
shots.

Grabbed a pellet out of mid air.

Dave ready to take off the other wing.

Stumpy winged ringer

I added to my meager take
with a stray bwt hen. But
Jim nailed a beautiful
fulvous whistling duck
while both Dave and I
whiffed on ours.

Jim's fulvous whistling duck

Again, unfortunately, Jim
and I managed to cripple
and lose some wood ducks
that were swimming around
in the spatterdock. A
couple, we were very sure we
killed, but may have lost
to swamp monsters that
weren't entirely frozen out.
[Duckmanjr told a tale at
the checkout stand of a
particularly nasty run in
he had with an eight foot
dragon on that cold cold
morning.]

Not our best, but a good day

ofs

Surprise Surprise Surprise

2010-12-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

First, we convinced my wife that our
Army boy would not get leave for
the Holidays. Most everyone we
knew was in on the deception.
Here is the moment she found the
truth.

As if that wasn't enough we also
surprised her with our oldest son
and his new wife.

Everyone else was already home,
so no more surprises this year.

ofs

Pounding the Modus

2010-12-24T12:11:00.003-05:00

The river is still passable, but barely.

The water is at the lowest it's been in

76 years of measurement. At the ramp

yesterday morning I made a command

decision to head south upriver instead

of to the places we had been hunting in

the north. Once again, we were the only

ones at the ramp.

Dave and Stuart went with me. I didn't

expect much from the duck hunting,

but we figured to shoot some snipe

if all else failed.

The boat trip took about an hour but

was faster than I expected and we

didn't get stuck once. We looked

over one pond and rejected it. I

decided instead to try an area near

where Craig and I had success

three years ago.

Everything around is burnt brown

from the hard freezes/frost of a couple

of weeks ago. Still, we found a wide

spot on a former creek that still held

water. If fact, it held a lot of water -

enough to top my hip waders. I

was cold, wet, and miserable all

morning.

Here are some shots of Dave at

sunrise.

The deeper water was in front of him where

we put the decoys.

We made booths like the Children of

Israel out of palmetto fans. To our

eyes, these may look weird on the

flat, burnt landscape, but one disappears

in them and the birds never seem

to mind.

We were teased all morning by

a hen mottled duck quacking her

lonely head off. Ten minutes before

shooting time, 3 teal flew right over

our heads. We figured we might

have a day. Instead, nothing

happened. The modu cleared

out and the teal never came

back.

I decided to tweak the decoys

and rearrange our position.

We moved from the deep

water to a tiny hole directly

behind us. It is just

visible in back of Dave.

Not only were we now higher than

that glorified puddle, we were much

further back than the decoys.

We had a lovely view back over the

marsh and across the river. There

are lots of little pot holes out

there and we were able to

watch a pair of mottled ducks

way in the distance bounce

from hole to hole. My duck

calling has really improved.

Modus are normally very

call shy and quiet ducks,

but I commanded these

birds with my Phil Robertson

Call. We were able to watch

them swing way out to our

right and then zoom into the

decoys.

The drake led the way and decided

to pull out right in front of me.

I dropped him and the boys

blazed away at the hen.

Unfortunately, they were a

little rusty and she got away.

Later, Dave and I were both out

of our blinds when he yelled, "Ducks!"

and hit the ground. I crouched and

watched as a group swung behind

us into the original pond we had

been in. We all opened up, but

only hit one bird. It followed its

group, but turned back to cross

in front of us again. It was

obviously hurt and glided with

the wind far out on the flats.

Dave took off in a sprint for

a good quarter mile to chase it

down. We could see him in the

distance working in and out of

the broom grass. After a bit,

we heard a distant "boom" and

saw him waving success.

When he got back we found

out that the group had only

been impersonating ducks.

We had a hoody (legal, but

useless for food).

We decided after that to separate and

try for snipe. I may have had better

reactions on the duck, but I can't begin

to outshoot Dave on snipe. 1 for me and

five for him including a true double on his

first ones.

Here's a picture I took of Dave and Stu

right before the camera died.

Don't get me wrong, I love shooting

modus, but something is very wrong

with duck season when they are the

number one duck in my bag and not

teal, ringers, or black bellies.

ofs

Don't Quack. Don't Even Quack.

2010-12-22T07:36:00.001-05:00

I tried a Tuesday hunt at Goodwin
as a walkon. I was 10th in line.
Many of the ones in front had spent
the night in their cars.

I came prepared to either wade
or hunt out of the boat. Turned
out that I partied up with Dan
P. and his son Rob and we
would wade. He had a spot
he liked on lower Goodwin -
so wading it was.

It's been a long time since I
took the Goodwin wagon
ride, but it was fun still. We
got to our drop off and had
a 1/3 mile walk down the levee.
There was plenty of open water
and cover. Dan and his son
took their spot near the levee
and I plodded deeper into the
impoundment.

There water wasn't horribly deep,
but it was uneven and very muddy.
A lot of the para grass had been
knocked down in the freezes and
made progress much harder and
slower.

I found an area where the water
funneled down before opening up
into some water behind me. I
had a large, open expanse in front
and grass islands to either side for
cover. I tossed 7-8 teal decoys out
and sat down to wait.

I had forgotten several important
things - my gun strap and my
shell belt. I solved the strap problem
by carrying the shotgun out in
its case since the case had a strap.
The case, I discovered, does not
seal well. For a shell belt, I'd have
to use the pockets in my jacket.
That meant the jacket had to hang
outside the waders and down in
the water.

Somehow I managed to drop my
hat in the water. That sort of worked
to my advantage. I get so hot even on
a chilly morning that my glasses (forgot
my shooting glasses too) stay fogged
over. The cold, wet hat cooled
my head and the glasses weren't
quite as bad of a problem.

The lunar eclipse was neat, but I
only got bits of it. I was set up
facing northeast and it was behind
me. When the eclipse cleared,
the moon was very bright in
the clear sky. Coupled with
the rising sun, it was pretty
bright out. There were plenty
of teal zinging around and
two landed in the decoys.
I was really surprised no one
shot early.

When shooting time came,
the two in my dekes were long
gone and no more came close.
I saw ducks on two flight
paths. I moved to my right
and managed a bwt that
had landed out in the open
water.

Nothing much happened
after that. So I grabbed three
decoys and moved farther north.
I managed to break a chunk off
of my marsh stool getting it
moved.

Over the next few hours, I kept
fiddling with those three decoys,
but nothing ever decoyed. A
stray hen gwt landed close to
my hide and I bagged it. For
a long time after, I took longish
shots at ducks that never quite
got in range. Several times,
pairs of mottled ducks flew
from behind my left shoulder.
I was scared to accidentally hit
both and ended up shooting
behind the back one at each
opportunity.

At last, I heard a quack and saw
a singleton mottled flying
from in front of me. I hit
it solidly with one shot and
it dropped perfectly dead
in front of me. [Turned out
is was a drake, so I don't
know where the quack came
from.]

As I slogged out to make
the retrieve, five teal came
up from behind me. One
broke off and came right
at me standing wide open
in the marsh.

It took three shots to kill the
little teal, but my day was
done. And a pretty good
day it turned out to be.
I've sure had lots worse days
out there.

ofs

Day Glo Camo

2010-12-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

I went scouting and snipe hunting today.
Neither went particularly well. For most
of the day, I only saw snipe that were
skittish and jumping up 50 yards out.
When I finally did get a shot, I was
distracted and completely missed.

What distracted me was the sudden
realization of what had happened
earlier. I had been walking around Mud
Lake and was in a huge expanse of
acres of area where I was the tallest
thing by 6 feet. One of the helicopters
that practices hovering scared up a
large group of ducks. One half of
it split off and came right at me. I
figured if they stayed low and I
stayed low, I could jump up and
swat them with #7 snipe shot.
I huddled down and pretended to
be a stump. But, at the last instance
they flaired off. It wasn't til later
that I realized why - I had swapped
my camo hat for a bright orange
safety hat.

ofs

Lost in the Fog

2010-12-17T19:37:00.000-05:00

First Modu

Last Saturday's forecast for second opening
day was for patchy fog. If that was patchy,
I'd hate to see pea soup.

Tommy and I decided to head for East
Marsh. There was water and we had
seen ducks when we scouted the week
before. That said, G2 from my friend
who scouted the day before was that
there were no ducks.

We ended up launching about 2 miles
from the entry point to the marsh
after getting stuck at the launching ramp
50 feet away from the entry point.
The 2 mile ride was down a canal.
The fog was so thick, I couldn't
see the banks on either side. We
went very slowly.

We finally found the access point
and gallantly let an air boat have
the right of way. I also discovered,
to my chagrin, that I didn't have a
route platted into my GPS to our
spot code named Three Islands.
Instead, I only had a straight line
Go To Waypoint to follow. That
would have been fine except for the
shallow water, saw grass islands,
and cypress hummocks in the
way.

We finally got to a spot and the
GPS said we were where we
wanted to be, but I couldn't find
anything familiar. We circled and
got stuck for thirty to forty minutes.
I finally found a likely spot and told
Tommy we were setting up there and
hoping for the best.

Between driving the Go-Devil, watching
the fog for dangers, trying to read the
GPS, and vainly shining the Q-Beam;
I wasn't sure which direction we were
pointing. I ended up about 25 degrees
off of where I thought, but it made
no matter - the fog was thick all day.
If fact, only for a couple of minutes
in the middle of the morning could
we see the sun's disk and then it
was obscured again.

Setting up the boat was no problem,
but setting up the decoys was tricky.
I only went about 15 yards out, but
couldn't find the boat again after they
were set. I had to get Tommy to
shine a light to guide me back.

When shooting time came, we were
surprised at how light things were
even with the fog. I heard a noise
behind us and turned. Two ducks
came from off my right shoulder.
I couldn't tell species, but I shot
one of them. It landed quite a
ways off against the saw grass.
I jumped out of the boat to try
a retrieve. I searched for the
bird, but it must have been cripple
and gotten into the weeds. As I
turned back to the boat, two
big ducks came from my left.
I shot one and watched the other
curl towards the boat. I yelled,
"Coming across!" to Tommy but
didn't hear an ensuing shot.

I retrieved a nice, large mottled
drake. As I did, I heard boom
boom boom.
I yelled, "Did you get it?" "Yeah,
but it's swimming away!" Then
boom boom boom
again. "Dad, I got it!"

Tommy had swatted the hen. She
wasn't a widow for very long. The
duck had landed in my dekes and
he "waited" until it swam far enough
away before he fired. Unfortunately,
it wasn't quite as far as he thought.
He also killed a coot decoy and the
inner tube I used for the Mojo
teal.

We had two more ducks (both
beauties) than I had expected.
The day progressed well when
a ringer hen came in and I splashed
it. We saw a ringer zip by high in
the fog over our heads. I hit it
with the Duck Commander's
paralyzer and come back calls.
Five times and five different
directions it came back. It
finally committed and came into
the decoys. Boom, splash, and
we were done for the day.

Drake on the left - Hen on the right

These birds have beautiful speculum. Depending on the light, it can go from metallic green to blue to purple.

The little shooting we heard
from others proved that we
probably had as good a day
as anyone.

When we pulled everything in
and headed out, I got lost in
the fog again. A friend asked
me where I hunted and I honestly
answered that I didn't know.

Quite a fun day. I'm figuring
tomorrow will be pretty dull
though.

Tommy's take Modu and Inner Tube. Modus eat better.

ofs

Late Opening Day

2010-11-25T18:31:00.001-05:00

We didn't make this duck season's opening day last
weekend because the trailer lights were kaput and
there were no ducks anyway.

Still, today was Thanksgiving, Stuart's birthday,
and the trailer lights were fixed. We headed
out to a faithful spot. Unfortunately, there wasn't
enough water in the St. Johns to let even a
mud boat get where we needed to go. I
decided to hunt a pot hole that still had
water.

We set up easily on the bank and parked
the boat on a sand bar off the river.
The morning was cool and foggy, but
was going to end up sunny and warm.
We were hunting off of a point which
tends to be a good idea, the sun was at
our back (after a bit of meandering with
the GPS to establish directions), but there
was no wind.

Shooting time came and went with no
sight or sound of ducks, but we did hear
a large splash on the bank between the
blind and the boat. Later, we saw the
eyes of a gator floating beside the decoys.
I wasn't sure how big a gator it could be
because the water wasn't that deep. When
the nose of the gator popped up, we realized
it was bigger than I wanted to tangle with.
I wondered what it was doing when it
I saw a flash of white. A bird floated to
the surface. The gator repositioned it,
grabbed it, and sank again. The original
splash must have been the gator taking
a shore bird off of the bank. Makes one
nervous about walking along the edge
of the water.

I finally got tired of waiting and hit
my favorite Duck Commander call.
A few moments later, I heard Jim jump
up and shoot. Stuart must have shot too,
but I didn't really perceive his shots. I saw
two mottled ducks in front of me. I chose
the farther one and dropped it.

That turned out to be the only duck.
A wandering snipe came through and
I added that to the bag. It was a
successful, but slow and boring day.

ofs

Family

2010-11-02T11:53:00.000-05:00

Here are some pics of the family from the
last year. [I had a picture of Sherry and all
the kids, but seem to have misplaced it.]

Dave heads off to Hawaii.

Rob before his marriage.

Jenny, the prettiest bridesmaid.

SWMBO and ofs waiting.

The newly-weds.

Groom and best-man Craig.

ofs

Woody Whacking

2010-10-03T20:25:00.004-05:00

Early Teal (and woodduck)
season came upon us before
we were ready. I barely
got the Go-Devil back from
its annual check up so that
we could scout.

I had missed getting a draw
for the WMA and had decided
to go to our usual Plan B:
East Marsh. That has always
been good for a woody or two
and a teal. Not much of a
haul, but at least we would
get something. Unfortunately,
our scout of the march turned
up zip. We couldn't fine any ducks
and our spot (code named Three
Islands) was overrun with
duck repelling algae.

At the last moment, I decided
to head out on the St. Johns
to a hole that has been hot
during regular season for
teal. It is code named
Big Bend.

At the launching ramp, we
were the only boat. The
river is four feet below
the 82 year median. Still,
we were able to make record
time heading down river. I
had it wide open most of the
way because the moon was
full, the river still wide
enough, and the GPS was
tuned in. Everything turned
out deeper than I had expected.

We got to Big Bend and picked
our spot. The wind was light
and from no apparent direction.
Jim told us that the prediction
was for twenty mph winds from
the east. If his recollection
was accurate, it never materialized
while we were there.

We got the decoys out (all teal),
camoed up the boat, fired up the
ThermaCELL, and got ready to hunt.
I honestly didn't expect to kill
anything. Still, shortly after
first light, a duck flew in
and tried to land between the
decoys and me. I jumped up
to shoot it, but hesitated
because it wasn't a teal.
I fact it had a big white
belly like a merganser. That
moment of indecision put
my shots behind the duck
and he got away. After,
the boys and I decided that
it must have been a wood duck.
Since I had never seen a woody
in this area, I was quite
surprised.

A kingfisher worked our pond
over for a bit and then surprised
me by trying to land on the boat.
He hovered three feet in front of
my face for several seconds trying
to figure out what I was. He took
off angry and confused. That's
some good camo.

After a bit, a pair of woodies
came in and Jim and I knocked
them down. A brace of immature
drakes and we were on the board.
A bit later, Craig hammered
one that dropped on the land
over my right shoulder. I
was out of the boat and after
it in a flash because there
was some thick stuff in there
where a duck could easily get
lost. When I got to it, I found
a beautiful drake wood duck.
It was almost nice enough to
mount.

A little longer period and
a group of seven or eight
woodies came through. We
each popped up and fired.
A series of booms and three
ducks were dead in the water.
With that we were done, because
we filled our limits on wood ducks
and there weren't any teal to
get two of them.

Acually, that was wrong. As
we were taking down the palmettos
and picking up the decoys, a
wad of several dozen blue wings
blew right over our heads. We
camoed back up. Tossed the
dekes back out and sat bored
for another hour.

We finally picked up everything,
headed home, and showed off
our prizes. Tuesday, Craig
and I went back out. He finally
got a teal for us and I shot
two woodies - one of which got
lost in the deep stuff.

Dinner the next Saturday night
was duck and sausage jambalaya.
Wow, what a good early teal.

ofs

Waterfowl Kalendar

2010-09-06T17:42:00.000-05:00

In the Anglican Kalendar there is
a long, uneventful spell from Trinity
Sunday until the first Sunday of
Advent. In the duck hunter's
Kalendar, it is even longer: from
the last weekend in January til
Early Teal in September.
Thankfully, September 25
is soon to be upon us.

I did not get a draw for the
WMA. In fact, neither of
my hunting boys or my friend
Cannon got draws. So, I will
have to fall back on the spot
where I have shot ducks
during ET before. It's never
super productive, but it's been
reliable.

Unfortunately, the Go-Devil
is in the shop. As soon as it
is up and running, we will be
too. I need the thrill of
duck, boom, splash.

ofs

What a Drag it is Getting Old

2010-06-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

My future hunting is threatened by degenerative
disk disease. I've got one ruptured and two
bulging disk in my neck. The pain has been
excruciating, but thanks to a cortesone shot
and some physical therapy, I'm in less pain.
Still, the bad disks are there and won't heal.

Bummer.

ofs

Melbourne T. Gator

2010-02-22T08:29:00.001-05:00

Sunshine State Comics

I like this comic in particular.

ofs

Killer Tommy

2010-02-06T16:51:00.003-05:00

Tommy and Stu went on the Youth Waterfowl
Hunt at TMG WMA today. We had a lot
of opportunities, but it was a weird weather
day. Stu knocked down three ducks, but
we were in the reservoir and 30 mph winds
sent the ducks sailing. One bird that he
shot died with its wing up. It zipped
through the spatterdock like a sailboat.
We were looking into the sun and lost
it and his other birds.

Tommy managed a coot (which refused
to drift away) and a nice drake blue wing
teal which we found deep in the next
impoundment over. It was his first duck
(and first coot).

Last Hunt for the Big Boys

2010-01-30T18:56:00.006-05:00

Today was the last duck hunt of the 09-10
season for Jim and me. We were invited by
Mike T and John G to join on John's draw
at TMG.

This had all the omens of a disaster hunt.
I had originally planned on having Jenny
join us for her final hunt as a youth. I
wanted her to get her first duck for her
16th birthday. It didn't occur to me until
yesterday that she wouldn't be a legal
hunter because she didn't have a
license since being 16 for even a day
means you need one. Good thing we
didn't try to bluff our way through -
the game warden was at the check
station.

Last night, I went to bed nice an
early so I would have a good night's
sleep. After two hours, multiple
sirens started blaring on I95 and
woke me up. When I finally got
sleepy again, some idiot got a
number wrong and kept trying
to text message our land line.
I ended up with only three hours
sleep. Jim said he got even less.

Still, both the trailer and boat
lights were working. that was
a change from recent hunts.
Something was going right.

At the check station in the AM
we were 16th and last pick, but
were hoping for a spot in the reservoir.
None of us really fancied hunting lower
Goodwin and having long slogs and
wades. When our names were called,
only two other parties had chosen the
reservoir. I got some good G2 and
we headed out to the spot I had hunted
early teal.

We putzed around a bit until Mike found
a spot and Jim and I found another. The
hydrilla wasn't thick, but we had a pretty
good hole. Unfortunately, we were looking
into the sun. The wind was light from the
southwest. I put ringer and coot decoys
out along with four woodducks. My hope
was that the predicted heavy cloud cover
would stick around and that the wind would
pick up. Well, the wind did eventually pick
up, but it was a warm wind as the day crept
up to 80 degrees.

We didn't get a lot of early shots. I was
afraid it was going to be dead. We didn't
even hear anyone shoot out in the rough
blocks until exactly at shooting time.

During the lulls, we could hear big,
bull gators thrumming the water.
They were all around us and they
were loud.

Eventually, we got some singleton ducks
come in. Jim got the first one that we thought
was a nice wood duck. Turned out it was
a beautiful drake ringer (our only ringer).

I got on the board with a hen green wing. We
also got four drake bluewings. One for Jim
and three for me.

By the end of the day, Jim had three ducks
down and I had six. But, one of his and two
of mine had dropped a long way away and
one of those wasn't hit too hard. We never
found any of those three. I'm pretty confident
that the marsh monsters got to them. Where
Jim's duck landed there were three small
gators and a big cottonmouth.

It must have been cottonmouth day. RedFishRob
told us at the ramp that they had run into
one and we saw another on the levee that
some one had run over.

As days go, it wasn't the best. We shot
behind and badly, didn't have great
opportunities, but didn't get skunked either.
I really needed the afternoon nap.

Next week, Youth Waterfowl Hunt.

ofs

Like Riding a Bicycle

2010-01-24T15:46:00.009-05:00

Whew! I haven't forgotten how to
kill ducks. We had an awesome hunt
Saturday.

My friend, Mike T. had two open
spots to hunt Broadmoor WMA and
invited Jim and I to join him. He
was pick 11 out of 14, but with the
way things have been going lately,
sure to move higher with no shows.

The forecast was for dense fog. I've
had good hunts in fog and some
really bad hunts. I was nervous
as we drove out in fog so thick
that we were under 30 mph
for quite a bit of the drive. But,
no fog at the check in station and
no fog on the marsh. Very strange.

We did move up a few slots and
my buddy, Duckmanjr, gave us some
good G2 when our pick came and we
were off. I've had some really good
hunts in 2 North before and this
one was no exception. Mike has
bad hips and can't wade too far
so he hunted near the levee, but
Jim and I decided to head about
4 tenths of a mile away from
him where we had heard large
numbers of black bellied
whistling ducks. It wasn't a
hard wade by any stretch and
we found a spot where a lot
of ducks took off in the
dark. (That's a noise that
will make you stop for a
second). We each put out
decoys at opposite ends of
a long row of reeds. For
once, the hidden, lateral
ditch was in the middle
of the clump of reeds and
not much of a threat.

No sooner did I have my
dekes out than I talked
myself into moving to the
opposite side of the reeds.
That way Jim would be looking
south and I north and we'd have
a good view of where the ducks
were flying.

In the wait until shooting time,
I've never had so many bb whistling
ducks around me. About
8 minutes before legal light,
I group of 8 or 9 came across
on my left all of them singing
and wide open. It took every
ounce of ethical energy not
to get my limit right there.

Later in the morning, we were
also serenaded by fulvous
whistling ducks. Their
notes are a little easier to imitate,
but both birds can be talked
into your spot if you have
enough guys with whistles
to offset their social
gatherings. Jim and I
did our best.

When shooting time did come,
it was all blue wing teal in
shooting range. I dropped one
that fell hard in some reeds.
I had to search the spot three
times over the morning to find
my bird. Behind me, Jim got
a teal. He moved south a bit
to where some birds were working,
but I was doing pretty well
where I was. I added three
more teal (including a true
double) and then got a double
on a group of black bellies
that came through. One of
them landed in the next cell
up and was still swimming.
I was able to reach him and
put an anchor shot on it.

Jim wasn't having as much luck.
I had him move to my spot and
then move north a cell. I
saw him drop one teal stone
dead in some low weeds. It
should have been an easy
retrieve. Where it went
we'll never know. Maybe
a mudfish that survived the
freezes got it.

I was sitting back at our
original spot. Even though
I had limited, not a duck
had decoyed all morning.
It was all passing shots.
Suddenly, there was a whir
in front of me and a splash.
Four or five blue wings flew
through, but a nice drake
and hen landed 30 feet in
front of me. I sat stone
still for about 10 minutes.
Neither duck seemed to
notice me in the reeds.
I was able to learn that
they would actually land
in a hyacinth patch. As
far as I know that's not
a food source. They
eventually took off and
I moved up with Jim.

A little later four fulvous came
over. Jim had switched
to my Baikal 12ga because
his little Remington 20ga
wasn't cycling right. I
yelled at him to shoot one
of the fulvous and he popped
up and hit one. Unfortunately,
it wasn't hit hard and sailed
on the wind a couple hundred
yards behind us. I saw where
it went down and went off
on the retrieve. After
crossing two laterals, I
saw the bird making for a
large patch of fairly low
stuff. I got there and
spent 20 minutes stomping
around (part of which in
a third lateral) before I
gave up. I really wanted
Jim to get his first fulvous.
When I got back to him,
he had gotten three more
blue wings and we called it
a day. It was warm and we
had drunk all our water and
had a healthy wade back to
the levee. By then the wind
had freshened and was at
my back. I let the decoy
sled float back to shore
with only the occasional
nudge from me. There were
still so many teal flying
that I could easily have
shot another limit on my
way back in. At the check
station, we found that Mike
had limited on teal too. A
great day for all of us.

After that, we went to
picking. Teal are
easy this time in the
season, but the black bellies
are next to impossible.

A really fun day.

ofs

Christmas 2009

2010-01-13T15:23:00.003-05:00

Here's my tribe:

ofs

Sleet Hunt

2010-01-09T12:28:00.003-05:00

It was cold, windy, and sleeting, but the sleet
was better than rain since it just bounced off.
The day was slow since we were the only guys at
our boat ramp, there were few other hunters
on the marsh shooting, and there were
precious few ducks in the air. Still, I hit
four hen quacks on my call and four mottles
came over the reeds and dropped their feet
for a landing. We had three guns in the boat,
made three splashes, and sent the fourth duck
off a widow - she kept circling us all morning.
The only tricky bit was that one mottle got
caught in the river current and was headed
to Jacksonville. I had to run after it and
jump into waist deep water on the retrieve.

ofs

Reminders to Self

2010-01-03T23:08:00.003-05:00

Three things:

1) After you have crossed the hidden
ditch several times, you should remember
that it is there and not trip in it.

2) Water over the waders on a cold, windy
morning is unpleasant.

3) It was worth it for a couple bwts.

ofs

Hmm, That Looks Odd

2009-12-27T16:19:00.005-05:00

Our duck hunting was horrible Saturday.
Only one teal came across the spread in
a #4 station high house shot. I whiffed
badly. I even skybusted three blackbellies
that were breathing oxygen they were so
high. Nothing.

We decided to snipe hunt and scout.
The snipe are all gone too. At one point,
we were crunching through some heavy
broom grass and smart weed. I saw
Craig jump back and point his gun at
the ground. I figured it was a snake
and yelled, "Shoot it!" He said that
it was already gone. I told him to
go around it the other direction.

Later we went up to Teal Whackin'
and saw some birds jump up. We
decided to grab a handful of decoys
and hide in the reeds in case they
came piling back in the way they did
for Craig and I several years back. I
put Jim on a point, Craig to his left,
and me to his right. Of course, that
was the end of the ducks.

I did see movement off to the right and
watched an otter come bobbing along. I
yelled to Jim to alert him. At that
moment, I heard a muffled boom from
Craig. Jim thought he had taken a
shot at the otter; I thought maybe a
stray duck had come it.

Instead, it seems that Craig said
the most dangerous thing you can
say on the marsh. He was squatting
in the reeds and happened to look
down at his foot. He saw a weird
pattern in the weeds and mud and
thought, "Hmm, that looks odd."
His next thought was, "that's a snake.
It's head is sticking out and it's a
venomous snake." He quickly jumped
out, spun around, and shot the
snake. At first he thought it was
a pygmy rattlesnake (from having
stepped barefoot on one in the
back yard) but later we determined
it was a baby cottonmouth.

Not that I think Craig has messianic
delusions, but it was interesting that
we read Gen. 3:15 in the liturgy this
morning.

I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and
her offspring; he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.

Craig definitely had enmity. And that snake's head
was "crushed".

As we say, "Some people have fun on the weekends.
We have adventures."

ofs

Diver Elimination

2009-12-23T08:41:00.005-05:00

I have not had the best luck on the
online lottery for draws at the local
WMA, but I was on it once. For this
week I was first pick for Goodwin
Reservoir. I had my ideas of which
spot to choose, but I needed to confirm
it with the Mayor of Goodwin, Duckmanjr.
He and Jason put me on the hot spot.

Since I can only hunt three guns in the
boat, I still had an opening for one
more hunter. The only requrement
was that he have his own boat. I
picked up a guy with a canoe. We
towed him out and set him up well
east of us.

I found a spot where we would blind
up that had obviously been used by
others. I got the decoys all out and
then realized that I had -once again-
set the decoys up downwind instead
of upwind. We had to pull them all back
in the boat and switch them around.
Bonehead!

That done, we got the boat in place
camoed up and sat down. Shooting
time was only 15 minutes away. Nice
timing. It was a cool morning (upper
40s): cloudy and breezy. Very nice.

It didn't take long after the 6:39AM
shooting time before we and the
rest of the marsh warriors were
blasting away. It was a little dark
to see at first and the temptation
is to blaze away and miss behind
the birds. But, we had them
decoying and were able to jump
them out of the dekes and splash
them there.

By sunrise, we could see pretty well
and the day looked like it would
be awesome. That's when I heard
someone shouting in the distance.
Unfortunately, he was shouting my
name. I hoped it was merely something
like, "I'm limited out and am paddling in" or
"I got the duck of ducks." Instead, it
was, "HELP! I need HELP!" I told
Jim and Craig to get out of our boat and hunt
from the reeds. I pulled the camo
netting in, fired up the Go-devil, and
headed out to find him.

Having flipped a canoe on my first
duck hunt, I knew what to expect.
The guy was soaking wet in three
feet of water. The canoe was back
upright and had his stuff back in
it, but it was also full of tea colored
marsh water. I pulled all of his
sodden gear into my boat, we dumped
and righted the canoe, and then
got him and his gear back in.
By then it was warm enough
that hypothermia wasn't going
to be an issue. I left him to
continue hunting and headed
back to our spot. I picked up
what ducks I saw, picked up
the boys, got back in our spot,
pulled the palmettos that hadn't
got caught in the prop back around,
set up the camo nets, and got
back to hunting. We weren't even
an hour into shooting by then.

The rest of the morning was
a duck here and a duck there,
but they added up. The fun
was in turning ringers with
the call. A mallard hail call
really works on them. We
also had a group of six mottles
really give us a hard look. I
was using the Duck Commander
Drake Mallard call and a
live hen in the group was
doing her best to get me to
join her. Sadly, they've been
so shot up that we couldn't
quite overcome their trepidation

We ended up with one mottle duck
more by accident. We got one
that someone else must have shot.

Our final take was 15 ringers and
1 pulverized blue wing teal. A real
Wheel O'Ducks.

The best surprise was when one of
Craig's drake ringers had a band.

That was one beautiful sight to see.
And, it shows how good our set up was.
This was a mature drake that had been
banded in Ottawa back in '07 and was
making at least his third migration.

I also managed the most beautiful
drake ringer I've ever gotten. We're
still deciding if it gets mounted.

You can just see the chestnut ring on
the bird's neck.

We had them buzzing us just about like this.

ofs

New Species

2009-12-20T21:44:00.002-05:00

The big storms of Friday never completely
materialized, but the threat was enough
to keep us off the marsh. So, we rescheduled
for Saturday morning.

The day was quite windy which was perfect
and a little more water was on the marsh.
We made it to the spot I had identified as
a hot spot the week before. It was perfect
depth, but an inconveniently placed island
of para grass in the middle limited the area
to put decoys, plus the hole did not lend
itself to a north west wind. Still, we got
set up and hunkered down.

Ten minutes before shooting time, we could
here folks in the distance blasting away. I
had high hopes for the day particularly because
I had a first time hunter with me. Things
eventually got going when Jim dropped a gwt
that came in from our left - the direction I
had hoped they wouldn't fly from. I got a
gwt that Jim thought was too long a shot.
Later, a pair of mottled ducks came from
off my right shoulder. They were a little
behind us. I had to stand up and turn
completely around to get a shot at the
bird on the right, But, it dropped like
a rock. When I did the retrieve, I found
out that it wasn't a mottle, but my
first ever gadwall. Woo Hoo. We
sat idle for a long time until three
more gwts came in. My friend and
I each took one and that was our
day.

I've sure had many worse days, but
I had hoped this one would be more
exciting for my friend (who prefers
anonymity).

ofs

Down on the Farm

2009-12-20T20:45:00.007-05:00

My Mom's family farm in PA.

This was my great grandparent's home

This was the log cabin where my mom was born.

This is a picture of my mom and her younger brother Jerry.
Or, so I think. If it isn't Mom, it is one of her sisters. No
mistaking the Bowman face.

This is the one room school house Mom went to. I'm assuming
this picture was taken in the late 30s.

This is my Uncle Jerry back to visit the farm
and drinking from the spring house. All
the refrigeration they had was the cool water
that flowed through this.

This is the family out house. I'm not sure who the
lucky victim was. Mom talked about having to
brush snow off of the seat.

ofs

Back on Track

2009-12-15T23:44:00.006-05:00

Couldn't scout during the break and - to be
honest - the lack of birds, water, and weather
had left me less than enthusiastic. Still, the
two little boys wanted to hunt. I couldn't
think of any of my usual spots that were
appealing. So, I Googled Earthed until
I found a pond right off the river that
should still be holding water. The
recent rains gave me some extra hope.

The trip down river was uneventful.
I took a quick look in Fog Hunt, but
there was no water to float the boat
and what little pond there was was
too small for three guns. The new
area was just a small step away
and we were soon there.

I was surprised that the water was actually
deeper than I had hoped. I got the
boat up on the bank with our backs
to the coming sunrise and told the
boys to get the palmettos out while
I put out the decoys. No coots today
(there aren't any on the marsh). I
put out blue wing teal and green wing
teal in the classic J hook pattern.
I put a Mojo Teal pretty much in the
center. All of these were upwind to
our right but only about 10 to 20 yards
out. In a real shallow area off
the stern of the boat, I put some pinners -
a few of them on the bank. To the left of
the boat I put two mottled (black)
duck decoys. One of which was
had a Holy Hand Grenade.

I then came back to the boat got the
camo and the palmetto fans up and
settled down for the wait - and it was a
long one. We heard some blackbellies,
but they were long gone by daylight.
I didn't hear any other ducks. Things
didn't look good.

When shooting time came, nothing
was happening. We waited patiently
until actual sunrise and still nothing.
Finally, a small teal came zooming
straight in and over the dekes. Boom
boom and the day wasn't a total bust.
I relaxed then. A bit later a small
group of teal came in and landed
smack in the landing spot. I doubled
on a pair of gwts and Stuey hit a bwt.
We had one duck zing through that
we didn't pick up until it was long
gone. Suddenly, a big dark bird
came loafing in. There were
cormorants around, so I wanted
to be careful. But it was a big,
drake mottle that landed also in
the landing spot. Stu shot and
missed and I caught it on the
rise. The final group was teal.
They buzzed us and I gave them
a mallard hail call. Turning on
a dime the 8-10 birds came back
and landed in the dekes. Again,
I doubled but this time on bwts
and Stu dropped one.

This was Tommy's first hunt and
he wasn't comfortable with a pump
and I didn't give him more than one
shell. Since he's shooting lefty now,
he had trouble working the safety
on the Remington. I switched him
later to the Mossburg, but the birds
were done by then.

If fact, the birds started flaring off.
I now think it was the Mojo and I
shoulda pulled it in, but it's hard to
give up on something that worked
early on.

We finally gave up and packed up.
The boys hid the palmettos so we
wouldn't be advertising a good
spot.

We had watched ducks all morning pile
into a hole about 300-400 yards away.
We went up and scouted it. It was duck
central. They didn't want to fly away when
we motored in and they kept wanting to
come back while we were there. The
snipe there were thicker than fleas too.
I only managed one, but I was using #4
shot.

We decided to head home, but we know
where we're going next week.

ofs

Low Water

2009-12-02T11:48:00.006-05:00

The duck hunting stinks. There are
few birds around mostly because it hasn't
been cold enough and the drought has
dried up all the water and killed
the food. Here are some pictures
from last week that show how our
boat blind works.

First, a view across the pond. This
is the way we would have been shooting
had we been shooting. Note someone
elses old blind on the left of the photo.
They had left the water full of hulls and
wads. At least some time in the recent
past it was a hot hole.

This is the view of our blind.

Closer view:

This is from the back. The breeze
flipped one of the palmetto fans
over.

After we take the fans down, we
take off the camo netting.

From the bow of the boat, you can
see that we string long bungee cords
from stern forward and then drape
military camo netting over it all.

The netting is propped up by pvc conduit.
The bungee cords are threaded through tees
that remove from the pvc for storage.

Good look from the side:

Closer look at the bungees, pvc, and tees.

We store the nets in black plastic bags
that can be used to cover anything shiny
in the boat. We'll dry the nets in the
yard when we get home.

Then we pick up decoys. The decoy bags
are camo and used to cover the boat's gas
tanks.

ofs

Opening Day 2009

2009-11-22T19:52:00.002-05:00

Well, the day turned out better
than I had imagined, but barely
better. There were few ducks and
few people hunting them. We heard
some distant shooting, but even that
wasn't very much. It was an eleven
mile trip up stream. For some reason,
I had mis-figured it at eight miles
and about a two hour journey. By the
time we got off all the sandbars we
rammed and got to our spot
(code named Deep South), we had
little time to set up. But,
set up we did. The last decoy
was out and the final bit of
camo on the boat exactly at
shooting time. We had
pretty high hopes early because
the dark was full of the sound
of black bellied whistling
ducks and mottles. The bbwds
were gone before shooting time
and never came back. The
mottles hung around, but that's
for later in the story.

The sun was at our backs. I had
coot decoys as blockers at the
upwind side of the spread off my
right shoulder. The teal and
mottle decoys were just inside
of the coots. For good measure,
I put 4 pintail dekes in the
shallows off of Jim's left shoulder.
Before us, was a nice, open landing
area.

Now, we don't actually intend to
shoot coots. The coot decoys are
there as confidence decoys. They
are wary, skittish birds that
won't ever hang around hunters.
Ducks see that and think they
are home free. So, first thing
in the AM, the only real coot
on the marsh lands in our spread
and spends almost the rest of the
day swimming amongst the decoys
trying to feel a little less
lonely. I got out of the boat
several times and we fired at
ducks once or twice. Our coot
friend was entirely unfazed.
Jenny named him Charlie. I
hope someday he finds true
happiness.

Anyway, the twilight turned
to daylight and shorebirds
by the thousands came out.
Maybe an hour into shooting
time, Jim said a duck was
flying just over out heads
and away from the spread.
I hit it a lick with the
mallard paralyzer call, it
turned on a dime, zoomed
back, and landed. I told
Jenny to shoot it since
she's never gotten a duck.
We stood up and yelled at
the hen ringer to fly but
it decided to swim for it.
Jenny fired and missed, the
duck took off, and I knocked
it down with my second shot.
At least we weren't getting
skunked.

A couple hours later, Jim
decided to go on walkabout
and see if he could scare
up some snipe. Jenny and
I stayed with the boat. Jim
was gone a long time and
never got a shot off. I
was surprised to suddenly
see a greenwing teal hen
fly up and land right in
front of Jenny. Again,
she got the first shot off.
The duck flew and we both
unloaded on it. The duck
is still flying.

When Jim finally got back,
we had to load him up with
water, it had gotten hot and
he was wearing his chest
waders and a jacket. Once
he was cooled down and irrigated
we got back to our semi-futile
hunt. Across the pond, three
mottled ducks landed. We
binoced them and waited. When
nothing happened, I got the
call back out and did a feed
chuckle and a few lonely hen
quacks. Low and behold, it
worked and all three picked
up and flew straight at us.
At about 20 yards out and
20 feet up we rose as one,
and fired. Nine shots and
all three ducks flew away.
It was pathetic.

We finally picked up and
did some snipe hunting
back down the river. I
got four and some sore
feet. Jenny and Jim
got sunburned.

ofs

Winner, Winner, Winner

2009-10-19T05:36:00.002-05:00

I doesn't happen often in life,
but sometimes you're a winner.
This time it happened to me.

ofs

Phys Ed

2009-09-29T15:04:00.006-05:00

One of the great things about homeschooling
is the creativity one can have. For instance
in our school, duck hunting is PE.

Stuey went out for Early Teal with me
this morning after I decided to take a
vacation day and try a walk on at the
WMA.

Things didn't look too good when we got
there. Six cars were in front of us.
But, when it came time to pass out
the walk on numbers, we were the second
pick. Even better, only two people with
draws at Goodwin bothered to show up. I
got the spot I wanted and got some good
G2 from Ken.

Launching was easy. The boat ride out
was easy. We found our spot easy. Got
the decoys out. Got camoed up. Fired up
the Thermacell (you NEED one of these).
And sat back for an hour wait. We took
turns shining the Q-Beam at bullfrogs and
waited. Finally, shooting time came. We
didn't hear any woodies squeeking and
I was a little afraid they might have
cleared out after the pounding they took
last Saturday. We were pushed up in a
cat tail island with the sun at our backs.
The palmettos we had jammed in around us
didn't give us a good look to our rear. As
always, ducks came from the way we weren't
looking. Two big groups of blue wing
teal came zooming out of the sun over
our heads. I couldn't think fast enough
to recognize them, jump up, and take a
tail shot.

Still, wood ducks started showing up in
ones and twos. We actually had a few
try and land in front of us unlike
Saturday's pass shooting only extrava-
ganza. Stu and I each got two to take
home. He got a beautiful drake. We
had a blast.

ofs

Early Teal

2009-09-26T16:37:00.005-05:00

Was today. There weren't many folks
at the check in station today, but
we were 4th pick and got the spot I
wanted.

The boat ride out was tricky. There
were several large mud tussets that
had become floating islands full of
plants. They were blocking much
of the launching ramp. The first
boat out pushed some of it out of
the way and we were able to punch
through pulling Cannon's pirogue.

Somehow, I managed to get turned
around once we got out into the
marsh. Fortunately, I had my
GPS. The humidity had my glasses
and the GPS screen fogged over,
but we managed to read our way
to the levee jump and then to
our assigned spot.

When we got to the hole I had
picked out we were assaulted by
largest group of bugs I have
ever seen. Jim said the entire
bow of the boat was covered in
a sheet of insects. I could not
open my eyes or breath for the
swarms. Dragonflies were flying
down my shirt. I inhaled a
couple of little bugs and had
several get caught in my eyes.

I was glad when we finally
got the decoys out and got
blinded up. There were only
mosquitoes to deal with then.
But, they were viscous. They
were operating in packs. Our
new Thermacell wouldn't light
and we only had a little spray.
The skeeters harpooned me from
the back of my pants. I'll
probably die of butt encephalitis.

When shooting time came, we could
see a lot of wood ducks around
us, but we weren't on the flight
line and they sure didn't like
the mojo teal. We scratched out
four knockdowns on passing shots,
before Cannon paddled out and pulled
in the mojo. Jim got one last one
and our day was done. The real high
light was Cannon getting a banded
duck. Woo Hoo!

We got home, crashed, and then
picked the ducks (woodies are
the easiest picking ducks), cleaned
the guns and boat, and settled down
for some Gator football.

Other than forgetting batteries
for the camera, we had a good day.

ofs

Why I Fund a Useless Degree

2009-08-26T11:21:00.002-05:00

This is where my number 2 boy goes to school.

ofs

Why I Believe in Liberalism

2009-08-05T15:17:00.000-05:00

I'm in favor of this kind
of liberalism any time.

ofs

Hunting Gets Trickier

2009-08-03T18:50:00.002-05:00

If cottonmouths and gators weren't
enough, now I'll have to worry about
pythons when I step off the levee
at 4AM.

ofs

Where I will not go.

2009-07-03T14:07:00.001-05:00

I get nose bleeds stepping up off
the curb (kerb for you Brits). So,
this is one place I will not step.

ofs

VINDICATION!!!

2009-06-20T10:49:00.003-05:00

The blessings of God are in fatness.

"The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he
that watereth shall be watered also himself."
Proverbs eleven verse twenty-five

oFs

Blogging Change

2009-06-03T14:22:00.002-05:00

I'm switching oldfatslow to only focus on
hunting and family. I'll use Tohu Bohu for
my political and religious howling.

ofs

Dang Meatballs

2009-04-22T18:17:00.004-05:00

It times like this that I am most
proud that I won't buy anything
made by GE. No, not even a
light bulb.

ofs

Drawing of the Dark

2009-04-09T20:56:00.003-05:00

Tim Powers is one of my favorite authors.
I have read his Drawing of the Dark many
times. It's not a great book, but it's a fun
read. Here are some of my favorite
quotations:

"If but we Christians have our beer,
Nothing's to fear."

"I hate times, he thought, when it
seems like there's a ... worldwide
brotherhood whose one goal is to
kill Brian Duffy."

"When Duffy awoke, his pillow was
littered with debris from his dream.
He had seen this before, the apparent
survival into daylight of a few dream-images,
and he patiently patted the sheet where
the things seemed to lie until they
dissolved away like patterns of smoke.
He swung his legs out of bed and
rumpled his hair tiredly, as a startled
cat leaped from the bed to the windowsill.
What kind of dream could that have been,
he wondered, to leave such uninteresting
rubbish - a few rusty links of chain mail
and Epiphany's old coin purse?"

"He felt as if someone far away below in
the darkness was chipping away at the
pillars of his mind, and the steady crack ...
crack ... crack of it was the only sound in
the universe."

ofs

All Greek to Me

2009-03-11T22:08:00.002-05:00

My boy at New St. Andrews had his Latin
oral final today. He had had his Greek tests
earlier in the week. As he walked into the Latin
test, the professor looked up and said, "Hello"
in GREEK. Craig froze like a deer in the
headlights. The professor proceeded to ask
three questions in Greek about all the Latin
readings. Craig had to respond in Greek.
Craig was very close to blowing a gasket,
but he must have done pretty well. When
the test was done, the professor said, "I
think you are a language person." Craig
gave him a you're-out-your-mind look.
I think the guy may be on to something.

ofs

Wanton Waste

2009-03-01T10:43:00.001-05:00

I don't have any use for wanton waste,
but I also don't think it is as heinous a crime
as some might. My concern is that these
guys were trained to be the leaders of our
military. They passed some of the most
rigorous standards anywhere. But, they
lack good judgment. Heck, they lack any
judgment. When the time comes to put
their men in battle, I don't trust them to
not fall back on wanton waste. My #3
boy will join the military this fall. I'm
so glad he has ruled out the Navy.

ofs

Serendipity

2009-01-31T22:13:00.004-05:00

Was headed down Wickham Road to
WalMart tonight and suddenly flashing
lights came on behind me. I pulled into
the closest parking lot. The cop came
up and said, "I pulled you over because
your headlight is out."

I said, "Good, I'll just go in and buy a new one."
(I'd pulled into an Auto Zone store.)

He said, "Okay, I'll let you off then."

Whew.

ofs

Last Hunt and First Duck

2009-01-31T18:07:00.011-05:00

Today was my favorite hunt of the
year - Youth Waterfowl Hunt. Only
kids under 16 can hunt. They don't
need licenses just an adult to
supervise them. I've been taking
my kids for years and we have had
some very successful hunts.

This year was Jenny's last and Stuart's
first. Jenny has gotten short straw
many times either because she was
crowded out of the blind by her
more numerous older brothers or
sickness. She had yet to kill
a duck beyond finishing off one
of her brother Jim's cripples.

Here they are the night before
making sure they had all their
camo.

Today, was to be special. We
were first pick at the WMA and
my G2 was very good. I had a
spot where there were a lot of
ducks (mostly ringers and bwts)
and they were decoying ducks.

I was up a mite early and found
out that the two of them had
been too excited to get much sleep
the night before. The weather
was supposed to be 37 and very
windy. It actually came in at
47 and windier. At first, I was
disappointed that the weather
wasn't a little cooler, but the
wind chill more than made up
for it. It was parky to say
the least.

Still, the boat ride out was
uneventful other than the
usual problems of the boat
lights failing. But, a three
million candle power Qbeam
kept us on course and others
away.

I scouted around our draw as
best I could, but a patch of
hydrilla laced with shotshell
wads became our final destination
I put the ringers to one side with
a bunch of coot decoys and some
bwts and even fewer coots to
the other.

Here are the ringers.

With the strong north west wind coming
off our right shoulders, the ducks
should break down right in front
of us and head for the dekes.
It actually worked for once.

The day started promising with a
lot of ducks zinging by. When
legal light came, we had to wait
a bit but started getting some
opportunities. Several small
groups came across the spread
and a least five separate times
they landed in the dekes. The
kids put up a lot of shots. The
ferric content of the reservoir
must be at an all time high.
Still, contact wasn't happening.

Stu in the boat.

And in action.

Jenny taking her shots.

Jenny was just coming off a nasty
cold and her blood sugar got way
high. She adjusted her pump, but
felt too poorly to continue. She laid
down in the boat for a while.

After a bit, a coot landed near by.
I told Stu to shoot it and get some
practice cycling the Mossburg 20.
Boom, boom and he had his first
kill.

Jenny rallied, ate a sweet and
salty and rejoined the hunt.

A large group of ringers came
flying over the decoys and past
the back of the boat. Stuart swung
on it and nailed a beautiful drake
on his second shot.

What's that in the water? A
first duck?

Sadly, Jenny didn't rally enough to get one of her
own. Still, we had a wonderful, exciting day.

Back at the ramp.

A happy little boy.

Some of my duck calling worked. Since that
and encouraging the kiddies was my job, I
came away very happy with the day.

ofs

Deja Vu

2009-01-25T22:00:00.002-05:00

Tommy asked me, "What's deja vu?"

I told him, "You haven't been enough
places once to think you've been there
twice."

ofs

Not With a Whimper, but a Bang!

2009-01-24T21:01:00.005-05:00

11 duck grand finale

Season's over. We had some good days,
but it wasn't last year's 99 duck haul.
The local WMA was down 2,00o ducks
over last season. I actually lost count
of how many we got cause it just didn't
seem to matter. I think I killed more
snipe this year than ducks.

Still, today turned out pretty good.
We hunted the TMG reservoir. I
picked a spot where I had seen ducks
last week. But, last week was last week.
They did not want to land where we were.
All but two of our birds were passing shots.
The only two decoying ducks didn't even land
in the decoys, but we swatted them anyway.

Dave and Jim waiting for sunrise in the boat
blind.

And, there's the sunrise behind us.

Watching, waiting, and whistling.

The strange thing was that last week
we were covered up in fulvous whistling
ducks (limit one per hunter). Today,
it was reversed and we were surrounded
with black bellied whistling ducks (limit
six per person). Over and over, the bbwds
would rise from the forbidden felony-to-
hunt-in zone to the west of us, fly in
huge circles around us, and then relight.
I picked off two from a couple of groups
that came nearby. It was darn nigh
close to skybusting, but they dropped
very dead. The problem was that these
noisy birds were in such big groups
that the three of us couldn't compete
with our little whistles. It wasn't until
a group of three were out there that
we turned them and they came right
over us. It was a Duck Commander
"Cut 'em all, Jack" moment. We
each whacked one. I finished my
limit with three blue wings. Dave
had a bwt and a ringer in addition
to his bbwd. Jim had another season
ending mountable drake bwt (his
third) to go with his bbwd.

Given that some folks came in
with no ducks from some of the
more productive wading areas
of the WMA we felt pretty good.

Dave shot this video of us picking
up ducks. We had them spead in
a 40 yard radius 270 degrees
around. We had no cripples and
found all of our birds. No gators
or cottonmouths today, but a
lot of fun. Sadly, my little
digital camera does not pick
up sound. You can briefly
see where we were blinded up
where there is a patch of
palmetto fans and hulls laying
in the water (we picked them
all up later).

ofs

It Coulda Been Worse

2009-01-17T23:03:00.004-05:00

Tough hunt today. I fretted and puzzled
about where to hunt all week. No
one hunted the reservoir last week but
I was second pick for a draw and wanted
to hunt out of the boat. I didn't want
a repeat of the blood pressure medicine
test that last week's wade gave me. So,
I decided on the reservoir.

I had planned to take Dave and Jim
with me and invite Cannon to hunt
too. Cannon wouldn't have been
able to hunt out of out boat, so
I offered to tow his pirogue out.
But, at the last minute, Dave got
called in to work and his seat
opened up.

I woke up an hour early and did
crosswords until 2:45 AM when
I got Jim up. We got started
well, but things fell apart when
Jim figured out he'd left his
license at home. No hunt
for him. He would be on
observer status. Just as
well we didn't try to brass
it out; the federales were
all over the check station.

At the check in stand they
asked me if I would let a
couple of guys fill up the
other two slots on our draw.
I said sure and was introduced
to Blaine and Brian - a couple
of real great guys. They had
a small jon boat with an out
board. They also had a dog.
I offered to tow them out, but
suggested they leave the outboard
and dog behind. Too much
hydrilla for the motor and too
many gators for the dog.

We got both boats launched,
but my battery wouldn't work.
I fell back on the pull cord.
Usually that is a bear. Instead,
it started easily on the first pull.
In fact, it started so easily that
I lost balance and knocked both
my hat and head lamp into the
water. I tried to grab them by
steadying myself with the back
light of the boat (which I finally
had working). It snapped clean
off. I retrieved the hat and
the lamp - mumbled a word
or two I shouldn't have and
started the tow out. We got
stuck in the mud and had
a little trouble getting free,
but finally got headed out.

I dropped Blaine and Brian
off at a spot I thought might
work well for them and headed
to a grass island I had seen on
a previous hunt. We got the
decoys out, jammed the boat
in the island, and camoed up.
Unfortunately, the island was
a floating island and the palmetto
fans we had cut ended up a trifle
short. Our heads stuck out.

When shooting time came, we
had lots of birds around us but
none decoying. The passing
shots came zinging through
on the pretty stiff breeze. There
were scores of fulvous whistlers
in the air. I managed to hit a
drake that came by. Cannon
had to wait longer for his, but
got his first fulvous ever as the
10 o'clock duck. It took us
all morning to finally get to
four ducks apiece with three
lost ducks. Here are mine:

I got out of the boat to do retrieves
and fiddle with the decoys any
number of times. Once I tripped
and twice I hit pot holes that
brought some very cold water
over and into the waders. I
was soaked.

At the end of the hunt, we took the boat
though all the spatterdock (big green
leaved plants in the above picture) looking
for our cripples. At one point Jim was
laying on the front of the boat moving
leaves out of the way to improve his
view. He let out a shout and jumped back;
he almost grabbed a gator by the nose.
We figured that Mr. Gator had already
retrieved the downed teal.

We met Blaine and Brian and started
the tow back in. As we got to the
final cut through in a reed wall,
Jim yelled out, "Look at that
cottonmouth!" I just got a glimpse
of it as we sailed by. Quickly, I
cut the engine and yelled for
Blaine to shoot it. Since they
were drifting in the direction
of the snake, they were
incentivized. He jumped up
and I watched him fire. Brian
said, "That thing was huge......
.........Shoot it again!."

Then we were back to shore and
done for the day.

Mud and the Blood and the Bozos

2009-01-11T10:19:00.013-05:00

We were first pick at the WMA. The G2
was very good on the spot I wanted. The
boys biked the area on Thursday and
filed their reports. They spotted Blue Wing
Teal as well as a large group of Black
Bellied Whistling Ducks. The four of us
would have 40 prime acres all to ourselves.

Things would be rosy. Since the duck hunting
has been poor, the check in stand was not
nearly as populated as it has been in the
past. We got our selection, put our gear
on the "hay ride," and waited to be taken
to our drop off. The weather came in 6
degrees warmer than had been predicted
and was going to rise to the mid 70s. I
decided to hunt in only a long sleeve shirt.
The boys all had jackets of sorts.

After we were dropped off, we walked
down our levee for about two thirds
of a mile, cut into the impoundment,
and then cut across another third of
a mile to the far side. The mud was
thick and pot holes abounded. Craig
found out that his waders had a nice
hole in them. Still we found the place
we wanted in the northeast corner of
our draw. Rob has identified a nice
clump of brush to hide in. The
picture is looking back at the blind
from where I had the decoys.

Here (from where I was sitting) are Craig and Rob. Jim was
visible to the naked eye a little farther down, but I
can't find him in the picture. We were well-covered
up. What helped was that we were set up in a drop
off. The area in front of us was shin deep, but in
the blind, we were almost waist deep.

I only put out four teal decoys and the mojo.
After a bit, I pulled the mojo in.

The time before shooting time was full of
the sound of whistling from tons of black
bellied whistling ducks. They are the
noisiest ducks of all. Fulvous ducks are
a close second.

Of course, they all cleared off by legal
light. Well, almost all of them cleared off.
At shooting time, we saw movement in the
dollar weed to our right. Craig thought
they might be water rats, but it was three
black bellies running through the weeds.
I whacked the one that was most visible,
but the other two disappeared. After
that, everything went cold. There was some
shooting all around us, but we didn't
have anything nearby.

Part of the problem was that some
new hunters to the area were in the
impoundment to our north. They
decided to ignore their assigned
impoundment and the rule forbidding
shooting off the levees. Two of them
were in front of us firing into our
impoundment. I didn't see them
drop any birds, but I did see two
cormorants fly over them and
then have to flair when a bunch
of shots rang out. I finally waded
near them and tried to warn them
off, they either didn't hear or
ignored my warning.

At around 9Am, the world changed.
The sky was suddenly full of dozens
black bellies flying in large groups
and all of them whistling. We got
on our whistles and tried to reach them.
We succeeded in pealing off three
from behind us. As they came up
on our left, Jim and I each dropped
one. It was a new species for Jim.

A little later, a group of five
bwt came straight at us and a little
high. Craig thought they were too
high, but I whacked one and then
forgot to shoot at the others as
I watched the slow helicopter
crash of the one I did hit. It seemed
to take forever. Really cool.

Craig dropped a black belly
out of a pair that came from
behind us too.

As we sat there, wishing the
snipe flying by were teal. Craig
saw two birds coming low, slow, and
straight at us. I wanted to believe
they were ducks, but they sure
were trying to look like coots.
But, they were ducks. A nice
pair of mottles. I dropped the
hen and Rob hit the jumbo drake.
The drake (the nasty pervert) was
a very mature bird. My hen was
quite immature. Ah, ducks are
nasty beasts.

We had to pack it in to catch
the 11AM ride back to the check
station. As we slogged our way
out, we saw the guys who had
been poaching our impoundment
try and enter our impoundment.
Little did they know there is
a twenty foot deep canal on
the north side of every im-
poundment. The boys saw one
of them "float his hat" and have
to get pulled out. Picture
me sniggering like Mutley.

I probably shouldn't have
sniggered; I hit a pot hole on
the wade out and got some
water over the waders. Wow,
that was a tough, tough wade.

Here we are on the levee waiting
for our ride.

The bbwd is dead, but it was a cool pic.

We got home took pictures of
the whole take

The bbwd is one pretty bird. Their beaks and feet
are bright pink, but the color fades quickly once
they are dead.

They also have a huge wing span. This
one was 35 inches.

Here's my bwt for comparison.

Then, we got to picking. (Earlier hunt pick picture.)

And, had a big grill out.

Not the best hunt every, but an exciting day.

ofs

More Conversation Snippets

2009-01-01T09:32:00.004-05:00

Dutifully, I took SheWhoMustBeObeyed
to the mall for Christmas shopping. I
grabbed a chair in the shoe department
at Pennys and snoozed while she went
looking for stuff. I caught these two
random thoughts as crowds surged
around my zone of isolation.

Guy on a cell phone: "Anyway,
you can't fight with a retard."

Girl in a family group: "You
don't have to go out with your
pants zipped either."

ofs

The Serpent in the Garden

2008-12-26T10:27:00.004-05:00

Tuesday, we were still waiting for Craig's
snow-delayed flight from Moscow, Id.
Rob and I decided to try a walk-on hunt
at our favorite wildlife management area.
The hunting there has been well down from
previous years, so we figured we had a good
shot. Instead, we were the eighth car in line
but ended up tenth pick and that tenth pick
wouldn't even start until all the folks who out-
ninjaed the on-line reservation system got
their choices. Things didn't look too good.

Matt, one of the WMA's biologist saw me
standing there and said he had a draw with
two open slots and would Rob and I like
to join him and Jamie another wildfowl
biologist. "Oh yes and thank you!" We
actually got to choose an impoundment
that I was surprised was still available.
We got some good G2 on where to hunt
and were off.

Getting into the impoundment was
tricky. There was a heavy brush line
that bordered the levee. We walked
until we found a small trail down into
the water. (Hmm, was it from previous
hunters or a gator trail?) Down off the
levee and into the dark black water.
For the most part, the wade was knee
deep water, but the bottom was crusted
mud that occasionally gave way and
dropped another couple of feet. Extricating
this fat man from that really tested the
blood pressure medicine. Rob, a
Legolas-like elf, effortless skittered over
the top of the mud.

By the time we got to where we would
set up, the projected 20 mph wind had
died and I knew I wouldn't need my
hunting jacket. I peeled it off and hunted
with a long sleeve tee shirt. I only put
out 8 or 9 teal, a few pinners, and the
mojo dove. Those were all the decoys
we needed.

Waiting for legal light was nerve wracking.
I've been covered up in ducks before, but
never quite like this. We had them landing
all around us. They all were calling: teal
drakes and hens, widgeon, mottles, fulvous
whistlers, and black-bellied whistlers. When
the shooting time came, things were fast
and furious. Unfortunately, Rob's shot
gun wasn't cycling and was only giving him
the single shot offering. After I had four
teal, I swapped guns and places with him.
He started dropping teal. And, I even
managed to round out my limit with his
gun (the ducks were that close - it wasn't
skill). Matt and Jamie had things a little
slower but were killing birds too.

Matt was on duty that morning and had to
head in early to drive the pick up wagon.
Jamie moved over and joined us. Things
slowed down a bit, but were still fun. We
decided to hold out for the 11:00 pick up.
By 9:45, Jamie was thinking of calling it
quits. I told him of the success we had
had in waiting for "The Ten O'Clock Duck"
in the past. As 9:59 a huge group of blue
wings came zinging in. Jamie got one
and Rob got two. We had ringers and
spoonies take looks at us, but it ended
up mottles and teal. Rob would have
limited, but one cripple got under the
weeds.

The wade back in was exhausting. The
wind finally did pick up, but the mud
seemed to break even easier. Rob
and Jamie decided to take a short
cut up the levee through the thicker
brush but I opted to wade over to
our original path. On the way up
there, I saw the middle of a large
black snake with green spots cross
directly in front of me. It kept
slithering, but I never saw either
end. At first, I didn't think it was
a cottonmouth. After all, they don't
have green spots, but I eventually
realized it was duck weed. I reached for
a shell, but I had given them all to
Rob. I had to quickly back out and
get another path up.

It was a great day.

We picked Craig up and got him home
from the airport about midnight. We
slept in, but got up and shot snipe
on Thursday. We did okay for hunting
as late in the day as we did.

ofs

First Limit

2008-12-07T22:12:00.005-05:00

Friday was closed to duck hunting, but
snipe were still open. I went out on the
St. Johns River to do some scouting for
Saturday's second phase of duck season
and to whack a few snipe.

There were only two folks on the marsh:
the sheriff's deputy that checked my
license and me. He was real decent
and let me sit on the side of his airboat
and puff for a bit. We chatted and then
he headed off.

I hadn't gotten snipe one up to that
point though there were tons around.
I finally decided that it was the blaze
orange shooting vest I had on. Although
there wasn't anyone else around to mistake
me for a snipe, I also thought it might
be a good idea to have it on in case the
heat and/or exertion got to me and I
ended up face down in the mud. Still,
the snipe were seeing me a hundred
yards out and bolting. I ditched the
vest and put a camo jacket on that
had pockets for shells and birds.
That seemed to do the trick and things
picked up. The only problem was that
the day was over seventy degrees, sunny,
windless, and I was wearing neoprene chest
waders. I needed to be in shorts and short
sleeves. As it was, I ended up drinking
7 bottles of water to keep from dehydration.

I would hunt a spot for a bit in as close
to a circular route as would bring
me back to the boat without having
to cover hunted over land. When
I covered that, I would pack up and
find another spot. I covered a lot
of really boggy ground. I spent a lot
of time shooting behind birds, but
I was picking up one or two at every
stop. There were times I flushed so
many that I didn't know which one
to point at. But, I didn't lose any
birds and found all but three of
my hulls from almost two boxes
of #7 12 gauge steel shells.

It was my first snipe limit ever
and maybe more fun than duck hunting.
I was glad that we weren't able to
get organized for duck hunting the
next day. I was too sore.

ofs

Pie Man Jim

2008-11-30T15:45:00.006-05:00

This was the boat blind for Saturday's hunt.
Both boys are sitting in there.

It was a great spot, good decoy placement,
and no ducks. We ended up with a stray
green wing for Dave and a stray blue
wing teal for me.

We decided to go scout and maybe shoot a
few snipe. On a small island, we found this.

How it got there, we had no idea. We debated
what kind of goose it was and if it was legal
to shoot. I finally told Jim to take a whack
at it. The bird took off and flew to the far
end of the island. Now, this was an island
that had been shared with a whole herd
of cattle.

Jim decided to belly crawl up on the
goose to get a shot.

Closer

Almost there. But, it took off right as
he was closer. Turns out it was a blue
phase snow goose and very legal. We'll
never get another crack at one of those.

Jim will forever be known now as
Pie Man. We made him sit down
wind of us the rest of the day.

We decided to go shoot a few snipe.

This was the ultimate take.

And this was dinner. No more ducks in
the freezer.

ofs

The Big Gunns

2008-11-27T10:08:00.008-05:00

Mike T. and John G. had two extra spots
on their Broadmoor draw last Saturday.
Cannon Kirby and I joined them. We were
able to get the spot that has been the
single best producer for me over the years.
For security reasons, that spot will
remain nameless.

The wildlife management area guys were
able to do some phenomenal work to
prepare this area for hunting given
the flooding from Tropical Storm
Fay 3 months ago.

The day started off badly. The lace
on my wader boots broke, the coffee
at the 7-11 was burnt, and I forgot a hat.
But, I restrung the boots, choked down
the coffee, and borrowed a hat from
John. Not to fear.

The morning was cool, not cold and
very still. There weren't a lot of clouds
either. As I said, the area was beautiful.
The walk on the levee was short and
our wade out uneventful because most
of the dreaded para grass had been
killed off. We found a large chunk
of reeds that we could both hunt in,
dropped off our stuff, and put out
the decoys. I had teal, pinner, and
Jim's new woody decoys in and
around a clump of smart weed.
We also both had mojo doves.
These are the bees knees.

We set up our stools, hid the decoy
sleds, jammed some palmetto fans
around us and settled down for
shooting time. Since sunrise was at
6:51, shooting time was 6:21. We
didn't have long to wait. A few
folks didn't wait that long at
all and were blasting away very
early.

It wasn't very long after legal
light that we were in the game.
I don't remember which of us
got the first duck - probably
Cannon, but I had one in the
decoys that I flushed and
whacked. After that it was
fast and furious. We had
birds coming from all angles
and in groups of all sizes.
It was awe inspiring. I've
had great days in the marsh,
but this was like no other.

Cannon had 4 teal and a ringer
and decided to hold off for
a big duck. After a bit, I saw
two mottles come in from my
left. They are so much bigger
than teal. Mike T. calls them
"flying footballs." But their
size is deceptive; they look like
they are flying slow, but they
are as speedy as teal. I whispered
to Cannon that they were coming.
They swung out wide and in
front, but one peeled off to
take a look at the spread.
Cannon dropped him like
a rock. An anchor shot to
mak siccar and Cannon was
done. But not quite. When he
retrieved the mottle, he started
woo hooing all over the marsh.
It was his first BANDED duck.

Days don't get much better than
that.

A few moments later, I finished
up 4 blue wings, 2 green wings,
and a ringer. All drakes (and that
not from skill).

Then, the sun came up. It was
quite a hunt.

Cannon took some photos:

Sunrise on the marsh:

ofs on a retrieve:

ofs and a fistful of ducks:

Cannon's picture:

ofs blinded up in full camo:

On the way out of the marsh, we kicked up
these ringers from a lake. I counted around
250 birds. Double click on the picture to get
a good view. All the black dots in the air
are ducks.

And, I killed a coot.

ofs

Opening Day -2008

2008-11-23T22:52:00.004-05:00

Opening Day went well for us. I got my
first scaup and three teal, Jim got three
teal, and Dave got one teal.

We hunted an area where I've seen
ducks before but never thought was all
that huntable. There were a lot of
tour airboats to keep birds working
and I bought a mojo decoy this
year that really seemed to work.

Of course, for the scaup, I had
these special decoys - very life like.
In case you can't tell, the scaup is
in the center of the picture.

ofs

More Coffin News

2008-10-20T05:29:00.004-05:00

That the hurricane caused disinterment
of so many is just weird. Weeks later,
they are still finding folks.

Burial is still better than cremation.
My kids still talk about when
we made a trip to the keys and
ended up out on the old piece
of the 7 Mile Bridge. At the
rail where the bridge was cut
off, was a grizzled old guy and
a ten year old kid. We couldn't
help overhearing their conversation.
Very shortly, I realized that
they had a small, gold box with
them and a bottle of Miller
Beer. They were getting
ready to dump the kid's father
into his final resting place.
We made a hasty exit rather
than intrude on their time,
but it was seriously strange.
After all, who wants a bottle
of Miller poured on them?

ofs

Conversation Snippets

2008-09-26T12:42:00.004-05:00

Sometimes you overhear just enough of
a private conversation in a public place
to have a very surreal experience.

Today, I was heading out of Barnes &
Noble when one of two women heading
in said to the other, "I know where underwear
goes, and they don't go in the refrigerator."

Very random.

Once while I was visiting my mom in the
nursing home, one of the female detainees
walked past and said to herself, "I feel
like the last rose." The image that popped
in my mind almost floored me.

Very powerful.

ofs

Early Teal

2008-09-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

To be candid, Early Teal stank. It was just
short of a disaster. The Go-Devil was in the
shop. Our canoe committed suicide off the
top of the jeep. We had a crappy draw at
the WMA. The water which should have
been shin deep was chest deep. The
duck weed was like oatmeal. There weren't
any ducks flying near us. We had a mile plus
walk both ways. The shirt I wore was
still impregnated with poison ivy.
The mosquitoes only slightly outnumbered
the fire ants. My shoes came untied.
I had to swim a ditch. The Jeep didn't
have a/c. A stool fell off the sled and
we had to double back to find it.

But, it was only a near disaster. Dave
killed a duck. SUCCESS!

ofs

Cardboard Coffins

2008-09-15T08:56:00.003-05:00

I saw the above from Galveston after Ike that
showed coffins that had burst from the ground.
Hopefully, a cardboard coffin wouldn't have
this problem, but it can have other problems.

ofs

I Can See Clearly Now the Rain is Gone

2008-09-14T22:14:00.004-05:00

No Tropical Activity. Ahhhhh.........

yIKEs

2008-09-13T08:42:00.003-05:00

From the Houston Chronicle website:

Waves crashing into the Seawall reach over the memorial to the hurricane of 1900 as Hurricane Ike slams Galveston. Photo by Johnny Hansen.

ofs

More like it

2008-09-06T08:01:00.002-05:00

I don't wish the poor people of Cuba any
ill will, but it's time something flushed
the Castro regime away. ¡Cuba Libre!

ofs

Ah, nuts

2008-09-04T22:15:00.002-05:00

Here we go again. Isn't it North Carolina's turn yet?

ofs

Topped out

2008-08-28T12:07:00.003-05:00

The river is finally topping out here.
Farther north, it has swamped roads
and threatened homes.

ofs

Spot the Tropical Storm

2008-08-22T07:24:00.002-05:00

This is tough. See if you can tell where the
storm hit on this graph.

That is a huge amount of water to put on the
ground at any one time.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2008-08-20T04:49:00.005-05:00

Almost a foot of water on the St. Johns since yesterday.
My yard is as deep as I ever seen it. And, we may have
today and tomorrow with this continuing monsoon.
Very stressful.

Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech
thee, of thy great goodness, to restrain those
immoderate rains, wherewith thou hast afflicted us.
And we pray thee to send us such seasonable weather,
that the earth may, in due time, yield her increase
for our use and benefit; through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen

More from Mike

2008-08-08T10:18:00.003-05:00

Here's more from my friend Mike Madaris. Haven't seen
him since '79, but I'd know him anywhere.

ofs

Sole Man Back at It

2008-08-03T20:01:00.004-05:00

Jamie Soles' has a new album:

Pure Words is a collection of songs from the early Psalms.
Several of them have been around for at least a couple years,
and most of them are being used in our church. When I
gathered my thoughts for this project, I had probably 8 or
9 of them written already, and I set out to finish the remainder
of the first 16 Psalms. I did not succeed as I wished; you
will notice the absence of Psalm 9. Perhaps one day I will
be man enough to write a song for Psalm 9, but that day is
not yet.

It seems to me that the Church should be singing the
Psalms, her ancient songbook. In a number of places in
the New Testament the psalms are spoken of or quoted
as though they had been uttered by the Messiah. If this is
the case, and I believe it is, and if the believer‚s task in life
is to grow more into the image of Jesus, then mastering the
Psalms would be a wise way to learn the mind of Christ. Do
you want to be like Jesus? Well, here is a treasure trove of
the way that Jesus thinks and expresses Himself in song.
Learn to sing them well. Jesus is pleased when His people
know how He thinks.

Most of these songs are taken word for word from the ESV
Bible. I have taken artistic license in a few places, particularly
in older songs, but I have found that the ESV makes doing so
unnecessary. There is something very musical about this
translation, something which accommodates it to contemporary
song without need of revision. This is a very good thing,
because today's churches need to be singing the Psalms, and
doing so in a fashion which makes sense to the modern ear.

To the Church of Jesus Christ the King; may these songs be
useful for you, and helpful in your pursuit of Him.

Jamie Soles

July 30/2008

Grande Prairie, AB.

Pray for Mike Madaris

2008-07-31T12:54:00.003-05:00

I tracked down an old friend with Facebook.
It was great to find him and get a response,
but the news wasn't what I expected. Mike
is in hospital getting treated for melanoma
in his lungs. He is a firm believer and is
looking for prayer from other Faithful
folks. Please remember Mike. He has
a blog here.

ofs

The Prisoner

2008-06-15T15:46:00.002-05:00

I've been watching The Prisoner. It was a show I first
watched as a child in the late 60s. I was surprised
to find out that it had been produced in color. I watched it
then at my babysitter's (Nana Fause) on her black
and white TV. It was a weird show and one I didn't
understand then. But, Rover fascinated me.

I'm sure McGoohan's work helped shape my anti-
totalitarian views. Whatever else, I will never
be a number; I will always be a free man.

ofs

For Princess Bride Fans

2008-05-23T14:32:00.000-05:00

The ultimate gift.

ofs

Family Motto

2008-04-09T07:44:00.002-05:00

Finally, got the family motto in
Latin. It sounds best shouted over
the shoulder.

Tu tene eum procul; Ego curram ob auxilium!

ofs

Goodbye Old Friend

2008-03-05T20:09:00.005-05:00

Nineteen years is a long time for a backyard swingset
to last. Ours made it that far, but no farther. My
father bought it for my #2 son's first birthday. My
father-in-law helped me assemble it. We wore through
many hangers and wore out many swings. The slide
was removed and reattached with every hurricane
that threatened to send it frisbeeing through the
neighborhood. It survived partial dis-assembly,
relocation, and re-assembly when we moved to this
house, but time, constant use, termites, big storms,
and entropy triumphed.

In its last days, it was down to one operating swing,
a slide kept only in place by sheer weight, and loosening
bolts and nails. The kids had reported that nails and
bolts were visibly loosening; I forbade them to use
it until I could see if it could be saved. Monday,
time ran out. It collapsed in a heap. I got out
the chain saw, sledge hammer, claw hammers, and
wrenches. It was in garbage manhandleable pieces
and on the road far too quickly.

Our old friend and meditation spot will be missed.

ofs

Poignant

2008-02-20T22:06:00.002-05:00

I gather this isn't by Watterson, but
wow ....

Another Reason to Hate Ducks

2008-02-20T18:57:00.003-05:00

WATCH OUT. THESE INDIVIDUALS ARE RUTHLESS!!!!!

Police say that the gang usually is comprised
of four members, one adult and three younger ones.

While the three younger ones, all appearing
sweet and innocent, divert their 'mark' (or
intended target) with a show of friendliness,
the fourth -- the eldest -- sneaks in from
behind the person's back to expertly rifle
through his or her pocket or purse for any
valuables.

Be on the alert!!

Scroll down to see a photo from a recent
attack.

How to Know Your Kid's in the Right School

2008-02-20T08:11:00.001-05:00

You gotta love this.

ofs

I Really Meme This

2008-02-16T13:45:00.004-05:00

Angie tagged me for a book meme with the
following rules:

1. Pick up the book nearest you with at least 123 pages.
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Count the first five sentences.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five other bloggers.

The book is The Best of Cordwainer Smith edited by
J. J. Pierce. Looks like we're both
reading sci-fi.

Elaine approached it before she met D'joan.
Elaine was not the only case, but she was a
rare and genuine one. Her life, thrust back
from all attempts at growth, had turned back
on itself and her mind had spiraled inward to
the only safety she could really know, psychosis.
Madness is always better than X, and X to each
patient is individual, personal, secret and over-
whelmingly important. Elaine had gone normally
mad; her imprinted and destined career was the
wrong one.

ofs

Uncle Charlie's Account of the Wreck

2008-02-06T22:44:00.001-05:00

This was written by Great-Uncle Charles
Bowie, Dec. 5, 1945. "To Bettie Jean
and Donnie Gillum" This starts on
page 95 of "Out of These Roots." The
story Uncle Charlie writes is about his
father.

------------------begin here------------

Long, long ago, really a hundred years,
there lived a young boy, just about Bettie's
age, in a town away up north called Picton
[sic, Pictou], in Nova Scotia. Picton is
just a small town, or was when this boy
lived there. It is on a bay where the
water from the ocean comes right up to
the main street of the town.

The father, whose name was Charles, was
a coal miner, as that was his trade.
Coal miners, in those days, received
very small wages, so the family - like
the rest of the neighbors - were very
poor. At the time our story begins,
the family had lived in Picton for
twelve years and the young boy about
who we are writing had four brothers
and sisters. There was one sister
older than he was, and two sisters
and a baby brother who were younger.

In those days there were no public schools
like there are in our country today.
The only way children could learn to
read and write was for their parents to
teach them. Or, sometimes, a man would
find a room and open a school, and then
those parents who wanted their children
to learn to read and write would pay
the teacher, and he would teach them to
read. As this boy's parents were poor,
they could not afford to send them to
school very much, and he only attended
school for about six months in all his
life.

When boys were seven or eight years old,
they were set to work to earn money, or
their board and keep, so his arents sent
him to a farmer who lived near Picton,
to do chores and help with the work.
He learned how to milk cows, hunt eggs,
drive the cattle to pasture, and do
other things around the farm. When he
was not busy helping with the farm work,
he would play around with other boys who
lived in the town - much the same as boys
do now-a-days. In the summer the boys
would go swimming in the bay, which was
connected with the ocean, and this little
boy became a very good swimmer.

When he was about twelve years old, his
father, Charles, decided to leave Picton
and go to Pennsylvania and try to find
work where he could to earn more money.
Then he would send for the rest of the
family and they would start a new home
in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. So the father
bade the family "goodbye" and sailed away.

He found work at Plymouth and it was not
long before he had earned enough so that
he could send it to the family and tell
them all to come on to Plymouth. Several
other families decided to go with them
to Plymouth. Several other families
decided to go with them to Plymouth, so
they packed up all their things, bundled
up the children, engaged a small sailing
ship, and all went aboard and sailed off
for the United States.

The boat was small and crowded and the
passengers had to take their own provisions.
Also, the ocean was rough, so they did
not have a very pleasant trip, but our
"story boy" did not mind this. He went
all around the ship and visited and
became acquainted with all the passengers
and sailors. Among the sailrs was a
big strong man who took a liking to this
boy and became quite friendly with him.

At last the voyage was nearly ended, the
boat was entering the harbor, on a foggy
morning, to make a landing. The Captain
of the ship should have waited for a tug
to tow them into port, but he refused to
do this and continued to sail on. Soon
the vessel struck a hidden rock and began
to sink.

Then there was a wild scramble between
the crew and the passengers to lower the
small boats and leave the sinking ship.
There was not enough small boats to carry
all of them, so the crew deserted the
women and children, and left them to sink
with the ship.

Just before the ship went down, that big
strong man who had taken a liking to our
small boy, saw him on the deck and asked
him if he could swim, and as he had learned
back in Picton, he said he could, so this
man picked him up and threw him overboard!
Now you may think this was a very cruel
thing to do, but he did this because when
a ship sinks, all the people on board are
usually carried down with the boat. He
told the boy to swim as far as he could.
The boy swam away in the cold water and
did not see the ship sing, as there was
too much fog.

Well, there he was out on the water all
alone and he did not know where he was.
Did he give up? No. He just kept on
swimming like a brave little boy. After
he had been in the water a little while
he saw a bow boat passing close to him,
so he began to call to them for help.
He called as loud as he could. Now this
was one of the ship's boats, with the
Captain and some of the crew and a few
of the passengers; it was so crowded
that the Captain refused to take on any
more and ordered the crew to row on and
leave the boy in the water. But that
big strong man was one of the persons in
the boat and he stood up and said to the
Captain, "You stop the boat and pick up
that boy or I will throw you out." The
Captain was a coward and afraid he would
be thrown out, so he ordered the crew to
pick up the boy and take him aboard, and
so he was taken out of the water.

Again the boat started on, but had not
gone far until they saw a small baby
floating on the water. Again the Captain
refused to stop and pick it up. Ghen our
small boy began to cry, "That is my little
baby sister. Stop and get her!" Again the
big man said to the Captain, "Stop for the
baby, or out you go!" So the baby was saved.

The boat again started for the shore, but
soon another person was seen in the water,
hanging to some floating wreckage. Our
little boy saw it was his mother, so he
began crying out, "Oh, save my mother!
Save my mother!" But the Captain refused
to stop and take on any more people, as
the boat was almost ready to sink. Once
again that big man told the Captain, "Pick
up that lady, or out you go!" And the
Captain ordered the boat to stop and the
little boy's mother was saved.

The boat was now so heavily loaded that
everyone had to sit still to keep it from
rocking and filling with water, but they
all managed to reach shore, and all who
were in the boat were saved.

When the little boy's mother took the
baby in her arms, she saw it was not her
baby, sad to say. All the rest of the
family who were on that ship were lost
- one little brother and three sisters.
[The newspapers say there were six
children lost. - ofs]

The people on shore were very kind to
those who were saved. They took good
care of them and saw that they were all
sent on to their destination. So this
little boy and his mother arrived at
Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and the father,
Charles met them. What a sad meeting
that was - only one left of the five
children!

The mother did not live long, the
shock of being in the cold water so
long, and the loss of the children was
to much for her and she soon passed away.

After that the father, Charles, could
not settle down and stay in one place,
so he went west to Illinois and soon he
passed away and was buried at La Salle,
Illinois.

So there was left of that family only
that one little boy. What became of
him? That's another story, but he grew
up, married a beautiful girl and raised
a large family.

Bettie Jean and Donnie, don't you think
he was a brave boy? Now, who was this
boy and what was his name? His name
was Robert Bowie and he is your Great-
Grandfather - that is, the Father of
your Grandpa, Walter B. Bowie.

And this is a true story.

My Family and the Wreck

2008-02-06T21:53:00.001-05:00

The following is from a family history
entitled Out of These Roots. It is the
history of my dad's mom's family.

The section is titled "History of
the Bowie Family as written by Annie
Bowie and/or Alice Maude Bowie and/
or Lillian Bowie sometime between the
mid-thirties & 1956" The page is #6.

My great-grand father was Robert Bowie.

-----------begin here--------------------

"Charles Bowie, our paternal grandfather,
married Margaret McCray in Scotland, then
later with his wife and little family as well
as his mother, Christina Winton Bowie, went
to Nova Scotia and settled near or in Picton
[sic, Pictou]. Several children were born to
the family in Picton, until seven children
graced the family board.

Robert Bowie, our father, spent part of his
time in a farmer's home, helping with the
chores that a boy could do. This family
was named Frasier and consisted of several
unmarried brothers and sisters and all
evidently were kind to him.

The town offered little in the way of
educational advantages. School ws in
session only a short time during the
winter months.

Thinking to better himself in the States,
our grandfather, Charles Bowie, left Nova
Scotia in company with several other miners
and came to Pennsylvania where he found
employment in his field of labor. When
he had accumulated money enough, he sent
word to his family to join him and make
a new home in this country. As there
were several families leaving Nova Scotia
on the same errand, the entire company
took passage on the Brig Sutledge. There
were 57 passengers on the ship as well
as the crew. They left Picton, N.S. some
time in June or perhaps late in May 1846.

Of the disaster and shipwreck that befell
that little group consisting mainly of
women and children, a full account is
given in a booklet written by Rev. David
Love, who as a boy was on the boat with
his mother, sister and young brother,
so I will not write more about it.
Suffice it to say that our grandfather,
Charles Bowie, who was waiting for his
family at Newport, Rhode Island, only
his wife, Margaret McCray Bowie and one
son, Robert, were left to him. Five
young children were lost at sea and
the mother and son were saved only
because a boat picked them up, when
they were almost exhausted, after
swimming for some time in the sea that
had claimed the lives of so many women
and children.

The survivors of the shipwreck were
cared for by the good people at Newport.
Each broken family received food and
clothing with shelter until they could
adjust themselves to changed conditions.
The two great lodges - the Odd Fellows
and the Masons - were interested in the
care of these people and ave to each man,
who had made the ill-fated voyage, $30.00
and to each woman $35.00.

Later, a monument was erected to the
memory of these people lost at sea, in
an old church yard or cemetery in Newport.
There it stands until this day, moss-
covered and weatherbeaten tho' it may be."

--------------------end here-------------

Robert Bowie was 12 years old in 1846. I
think he was the eldest child.

I would pay good money for a copy of the
booklet by Rev. David Love.

The Olivers were the only family that did
not have any losses. Family legend is that
George Oliver had a rifle and commandeered
seats for all of his family.

The newspaper article cited previously shows
that the churches in Newport did a large amount
of the collecting for the survivors as well
as lodges.

The monument mentioned is the one we found during
our whirlwind trip back in '97. It is easily
located in the giant cemetery in Newport.
America's Cup Street dead ends at Farewell
Street. Continue on into the cemetery for
about 50-70 feet. Another 50-70 feet to
the left is the monument. A picture of the
monument is on an earlier post.

ofs

More on the Wreck

2008-02-04T18:18:00.001-05:00

This is from the NEWPORT DAILY NEWS
dated Monday, June 29, 1846.

From Saturday's Second Edition

SHOCKING - WRECK OF THE BRIG SUTLEJ, OF
PICTOU, N. S., - THIRTY LIVES LOST. -

The schooner Dusky Sally, Capt. Wilder, of
Hinham, arrived at Stevens' Wharf this morning
at about 9 1 2 [sic] o'clock, bringing the sad
intelligence of the loss of the brig Sutlej,
Capt. Graham, together with THIRTY LIVES.

The brig was from Pictou, bound to Fall
River, and had on board about seventy
souls. The passengers were partly
Scotch, and were families in comfortable
circumstances bound from their homes
to the State of Maryland, where they
were going to work in some of the mining
establishments.

The brig struck on the "Sow and Pigs,"
a cluster of rocks about 30 miles
from this place, between Gay Head and
Cuddyhunk, at 1-4 past 3 o'clock, this
morning.

The schooner which brought the unfortunate
people in, was in sight at the time and
repaired forthwith to their assistance.
She went down immediately after striking
and had the schooner been a little nearer,
all might have been saved.

It is a most melancholy catastrophe,
and has cast a gloom over our citizens,
which it is impossible to describe.

Below, we give a list of those who have
been saved, and also of those who are
lost, which we obtained from one of the
passengers' two of the names we have been
unable to obtain in full.

Saved. - Margaret Bowie, Robert Bowie, George
Oliver, Mary Oliver, Robert Oliver, George
Oliver, Jennet Oliver, Isabela Oliver,
Hugh Oliver, John Oliver, John Howat,
James Howat, Michael Howat, Thomas Fatkin,
John Fatkin, Jane Love, David Love,
Robert McMillen, Margaret McMillen, Hugh
Denoon, Margaret Frasier, _____ Archibald,
_________Munroe, William Loraine, William
Wier, Arcibald [sic] Smith, Ellen Smith - 28 [sic]

Lost. - Margaret Bowie, Christie Bowie,
Mary Bowie, Alexander Bowie, James Bowie,
Jennie Bowie, (all children of the lady
who was saved;) Elizabeth Howat, Agnes
Howat, Margaret Fatkin, Peter Fatkin,
Margaret Fatkin, (daughter,) Jane Love,
(mother,) Alexander Love, Jesse Love,
Margaret McMillen (mother,) Elizabeth
McMillen, Ann McMillen, Hugh McMillen,
William McMillen, Jennett McMillen,
Robert McMillen, Margaret Denoon,
Marrion Denoon, Mary Denoon, Daniel
McLean, William Frazier, Sarah Frazier,
Ann Catharine Frazier, Effy Wier,
Joanna Gream - 30

Another vessel came up, very soon after
the disaster, and she remained to pick
up such bodies as the schooner Dusky Sally
did not get, - and also to save such
property as they could; she will probably
arrive here in the course of the day.
It was with great difficulty that the
wreck could be reached, as the schooner
could not approach very near to the rocks,
and it was dangerous for the boats to get
too close in, as there was danger of their
being swamped.

The wharf, where the vessel arrived, was
densly [sic] crowded with people, and every
assistance was rendered these unfortunate
emigrants; those who were alive, were in a
very feeble condition, and many of them
could hardly walk, from the effects of
exhaustion, having been in the water so
long. They were all taken to various
homes near by, where dry clothes were
furnished them, and food supplied. An
Inquest was held on the dead, and all
the necessary arrangements will be made
for their burial. We have no time to
say anything further. It is a most heart-
rending calamity, and the unfortunate
sufferers will receive every kindness
and attention from our citizens. This
is another fearful warning of the
dreadful uncertainty of time.

--------------

Those that escaped with their lives from
the wreck of the Brig Sutledge, have
lost everything they had, and in order
to provide them with clothing, &c., it
is proposed to take up a collection in
all the churches tomorrow.

A collection will be taken up in all
the churches, to-morrow afternoon, for
these emigrants; and any one desiring
to give anything to them, who not intend
going to church, will please send it to
Benjamin B. Howland, Esq., Town Clerk.
- and it will immediately be delivered
to them. - Certainly our charities will
be liberal on this mournful occasion.

------------------end here---------------

The article includes two spellings of the ship's
name. From what I can tell, Sutledge is the
correct. Though, I found accounts that called
it the Sutley or Sutledj.

Brrrr

2008-02-01T11:15:00.000-05:00

This was taken Thursday. The snow was so
heavy that classes were actually cancelled
at New St. Andrews for the first time in
their 14 year history. Craig didn't get the
message and dutifully slogged his mile
and a half to campus. Somehow, he ended
up shoveling snow. Notice the Florida
boy's toughness - he's not wearing gloves.

He also got interviewed and photographed
by two local papers. Here's the photo
and caption from one.

Geoff Crimmins/Daily News

New Saint Andrews College freshman Craig Linn
shovels snow outside the school’s building in
Moscow this morning. Linn, originally from
Florida, said he has never seen this much snow
before.

Special ht to Daniel F. for the video and
Dale C. for the photo.

ofs

More Grave News

2008-01-30T09:42:00.001-05:00

From ROMAN CITIZEN (New York) 7 Jul 1846

We take from the Newport Rhode Islander
Extra, of the 27th ult., the following
account of the wreck of this vessel, and
melancholy loss of life by the disaster:
The melancholy news of the loss of the
Brig Sutledge, Capt. Graham, of and from
Pictou, N.S., for Fall River, was received
here this morning about half past 9 o'clock,
by the arrival of the schr. Dusky Sally,
Capt. Wilder, of and from Bingham.

On the arrival of the Schooner at Stevens'
wharf, the information rapidly spread to
all parts of the town, and the appalling
scene presented, was one, the like of which,
our inhabitants have seldom had occasion to
witness. On the deck lay the dead bodies of
those who had been picked up from the wreck,
surrounded by their kindred friends who had
been rescued from a watery grave, giving vent
to their feeling in the most agonizing manner.

The following particulars of the loss of the
Brig we have received from the Captain, who
was among the survivors: The Brig Sutledge,
of and from Pictour, for Fall River, sailed
on the 12th of June with 56 passengers --men,
women and children. On the evening of the 26th,
at 8 o'clock, it being thick and foggy, came
to anchor; and at 2 o'clock, on the following
morning, got under way, and at about half past
three, struck on a ledge of rocks (in the
Vineyard) called the Sow and Pigs, soon after
which, the tide having caused her to slew round,
she backed off the ledge, filled and went down,
bow first, in ten fathoms water. Previous to
her going down, the mate was sent below, forward
to ascertain if the Brig leaked, but he discovered
nothing that looked like it. The pump was then
ordered to be sounded, but before that could be
done, water was reported in the forecastle. The
boat was then got out, and the passengers rushed
into it, when the Captain gave orders to shove
her from the Brig. He then jumped overboard and
swam to the boat, and kept her as close to the
Brig as possible, picking up such as jumped into
the water. The whole number picked up in the
Captain's boat was 31 alive. The schr. Dusky Sally
being near, sent her boat to assist, and succeeded
in saving 6 more alive who were in the water, and
3 more also from the rigging of the sunken Brig.
Sixteen dead bodies, (4 women and 13 children,)
were also picked up by the two boats, which,
together with the survivors, were put on board
the D.S. and brought to this place, as above
stated. The Captain also states that another
vessel was at the same time picking up what
was adrift from the wreck, &c.

The Captain and crew, and 28 passengers were
saved. The passengers were all foreigners --
mostly Scotch, and we understand were on
their way to Pennsylvania, where they expected
to find employment in the mining establishments.

Dénouement

2008-01-27T18:55:00.002-05:00

My story this year is over. It wasn't
the conclusion I had hoped for but I've
had worse.

VanKirby hunted with me and kept the
day from being a complete duck skunk.

He took the pictures and wrote the
details.

ofs

Fog Hunt

2008-01-19T14:28:00.002-05:00

Decided to hunt the WMA today as a
walkon since I got shut out on the
permits. I found out that UFTarpon
had a permit and I asked him if I
could join his party. Fortunately,
he had an open spot. Things were
crowded enough this morning that
they actually had to turn folks
away.

We ended up with the exact spot
that UFTarpon wanted. It turned
out to be a great spot. But, it
was going to be a hard hunt. Heavy
fog started rolling in right before
we headed out to our draw. To
make matters worse, the bulb on my
headlight went out. I've had fog
hunts so bad that I couldn't find
my decoys after I put them out. To
be without any light was going to
be tough.

UFTarpon was hunting with Ironeyes
(both members of the A-Team). He
also invited Matt the WMA intern
to join us. UFT and IE had a canoe
and would hunt a pond on the east.
Matt and I would hunt the northwest
corner. We would be just south of
Bandit1 and his party.

The odd thing was that the lack of
a light (Matt didn't have one either)
actually worked out well. We were
able to see the water and the
reed/para grass islands we would use
for cover. I tossed out only 6
decoys since we figured we would
have to move once the light was better
to wherever the ducks were working.

Shooting time came and went without
much action on our part. When ducks
came through, they burst out of the
fog and were out of range by the time
I picked them up. Finally, a pair came
in on my left. A dropped two hen gwts
for a nice, true double. Then things
went cold for us. The guys behind us
just to our north were shooting a bunch
and I thought we might be too close to
them and the area just to the south
looked pretty good. We pulled up stakes
and moved.

As we waded over, the water got shallower
and we found a nice reed island big enough
that Matt could hunt the west and I the east.
I tossed out decoys for him and headed over
to where I would set up. As I got there, two
big ducks took off and flew toward the guys
to our north. They fired at them but missed
and they turned back right over me. Three
shots and I got the nicest drake bull sprig
pintail I ever shot. He was a definite mount
candidate. Unfortunately, he proved next
to impossible to kill. One pellet had gone
through his head, but he just wouldn't die.
I tried all day long to finish him off in a
way that wouldn't mess up the feathers, but
had to give up and whack him good. Oh well,
they eat well.

I finally got decoys out and got set up just
in time to shoot another hen gwt. She was
crippled and landed in a small para grass
clump. I sloshed over there, saw a piece
of grass move, and fired there. I ended
up with a nice retrieve.

The day finished up with another double.
This time it was a drake hen bwt pair.

Here's Mr. Bull Sprig

ofs

Family Graves

2008-01-18T12:07:00.004-05:00

Came across a website called Find A Grave.
I guess this is part of the Mormon drive
to get baptized on behalf of the dead
(I Cor. 15:29). Nevertheless, it's a good
resource for us Christians who find
the explanation for this odd verse in
Num. 19:11-22) but still like to find
some family history.

Anyway, a nice lady took pictures of
lots of my family gravestones at
Middlecreek Presbyterian Church's
cemetery in Rockford, Il.

Here are two of my great-great
grandfathers

My great grandfather

My grandfather

ofs

Saturday Hunt

2008-01-15T19:45:00.002-05:00

Hunted the River with Rob and MT. We
met at the Racetrack at 3:00AM and
hurried to the ramp. Once again,
we were the only people trying to
launch. And, once again, there
was a sacrificed rooster. Only
this time, there was no bad
juju. Whew!

It was a two hour plus trip on
the river. We made pretty good
time until we hit some pretty
heavy fog. I kept glued to the
gps while Rob manned the Qbeam.
He hasn't quite mastered the fine
art of not hitting his father in
the eyes with 3 million candlepower
beams. I about wrecked the boat
once. We ran aground a couple times
where the river had dropped off and
where I got off channel. Still we
got down to where I had seen birds
when Craig and I had scouted the
week before. I turned in a cut
early and beached the boat pretty
hard, but was within 2-300 yards
of where I wanted to be. We
decided to abandon the boat (it
definitely wasn't going anywhere)
and head out on the mudflats to
the pond I had mapped in.

We made three palmetto fan booths
and set up with the sun to our backs
about 20 feet from the water. There
was absolutely no other cover
around. We tossed the decoys out
but kept them close to shore. It
was ankle deep water.

Here's the boat camoed up in the
distance.

Here are the decoys. I put the coots
to the left as blockers and pinners
in the middle. The teal (out of
frame) were on the right.

I barely got set up and into my
blind for a little quiet time
before shooting time. MT whispered
that there were ducks landing in
the decoys. When shooting time
came, I told Rob and then stood
up to tell MT. Right as I spoke,
I heard a splash. I looked up
and a nice teal was in the middle
of the dekes and looking very
worried. I yelled, "Up duck" and
flushed him. Boom! and I had a
nice drake GWT. A bit later and
MT got a hen. Then it went
cold.

We were covered up in snipe, so
I went on walk about to see if
I could get a few of those. At
one point, I fired at a snipe
and then heard MT and Rob
blasting away. When I got back
with a snipe, I found that a
group of teal had landed just
out of range. When I fired,
they took off and flew right
by MT and Rob. MT got another
teal and Rob got his first
true double - a nice drake
hen pair.

I settled into my blind again.
A bit later a group of 20-30
teal landed way to our left
those were followed by a
second group. When a third
group started heading in, Rob
and I got on our whistles
and started peeping. The
teal turned and flew right
across the spread. MT and
I each knocked one down. I
had hopes for more teal, but
that was it for the day. I
managed to end the day with
another hen merganser. They
just look and fly too much
like ringers when you haven't
seen a lot of ringers in the
season.

Here we are picking up our blinds
and gear.

This is Rob in his blind. I
do love a palmetto fan for
brushing up.

This is Rob's gwt. Beautiful bird.
We almost mounted it, but it was still
a couple weeks shy of fully plumed.

ofs

Nice People Still Exist

2008-01-06T20:35:00.000-05:00

A lady in Deland Florida sent me an
email. She had been to an antiques
show shopping for old photos that
showed groups of people. She was
making some kind of art project
that needed pictures like that.
At the booth of a dealer from
Michigan, this lady picked up
two photos: one that showed
four generations of one family
and one that showed a 1897 college
graduation of young women.

After she got home, she noticed
my family name on the back of
both photos. She did some googling
and found that I had posted a
request for information for my
great-grandfather on a geneology
website. From there, she found
my email and sent me a request
to see if my GGFather was the
same guy in the picture. He
was and she kindly sent me
both pictures.

I didn't immediately recognize
the name of the lady in the graduation
picture, but I did some research
and found she had married my
grandfather's brother.

This shows my great-great-grandfather,
great-grandfather, grandfather, and
uncle. The pictures was taken in
1902. Their ages respectively were
88, 66, 33, and 11 weeks.

The lady in the family is third from
the right: