Gator

I imagine that the turkey will see themselves as they get close and try to attack the thing! Be sure to have the camera rolling lol. I bet it will work better in low light/cloudy conditions when there's less glare IMHO. Can't wait to hear.

In areas with lots of apples, the best ones win. The rest rot on the ground. We have 39 trees on our property, about half of which will produce in any given year. Some are spitters and some are gold. You can tell which are which by watching the deer.

Now that the Ash have started dying, this sort of thing is going to become more common. Sometimes there's so many vines climbing the dead ash that the trees look alive over the summer! I'm looking forward over the next couple of years having to constantly clear dead trees from my trails prior to mowing. That's what being too cheap to spend 15 cents to irradiate Chinese made pallets will get you. Don't listen to the scientists. But I'm not bitter...we've shipped our share of invasives and pathogens all over the world, too. May the best cockroach win!!

I'm looking forward to a good story and some pictures later today! This weekend's hunts were...interesting. Lots of deer, a few small bucks dogging doe, and a couple of mishaps. One of my friend's sons shot a doe on Saturday evening that we let sit overnight, and while we recovered it, it was eaten by the coyotes. Also, we found out that a doe can go over 800 yards on one lung, spitting blood the whole time. And I found out that if I use my 20 yard pin rather than my 35 yard pin to shoot at a giant 8-pt that's standing 7 yards behind my 30 yard marker tree, I will shoot right under him. Normally, I wouldn't take a 37 yard shot, but I've let a couple of beasts walk because the season is so young, and I've been practicing up to 50 yds, and he stepped broadside into an old logging road with a clear shooting lane. I didn't factor in the pounding heart, adrenaline, and its impact on judgement. At least it was a clean miss. He startled at the shot, but wasn't spooked; in fact, the does that were with him stopped to feed at 70 yards for the next ten minutes while he casually walked into the swamp. I found my arrow right where I knew it would be, no hair or blood. I just shake my head at the though of having hit him poorly. Poor decision making on my part. From here on out, I'm sticking to my rule of nothing over 30 yards. I may even remove the longer pins from my sight. Stupid, stupid. I may have a picture of him walking by on one of my trail cameras just prior to the shot that was pointed in that direction. I was flustered enough when I left that I didn't check. If I do, I will post him here.

Fancy headgear!

I have a tough time with somebody who won't stand behind their work. "We didn't make the string" is a BS excuse for not taking ownership of your mistake. And to charge not just extra, but twice what you'd estimated to fix a problem you caused in the first place is insult on top of injury. I get that a small shop needs to make money. But the best way to do that is word of mouth to bring in the clients. A serving is added to the string to prevent wear and tear at high impact areas like cams and the nock point. Wrapping a serving and knowing how to keep it from shifting while simultaneously not forcing the string open under pressure is talent. If the shop owner wrapped a poor serving, he should have redone it without question. The only expense to him is a piece of thread and some time. If the serving that failed came preinstalled on the string, it's still his responsibility to supply a quality product, and if it needs to be replaced, it's his responsibility to take care of it. I hate to judge somebody based on a single incident, but unless there was a problem with the bow that caused the serving to fail...which he would have remarked on....this was simply unacceptable.

Lots of hard work is right! And consistent hard work, too. Spots come and spots go. Nephews decide they want to hunt birds and you lose access to your best marsh. Properties sell. Folks pass away. And if you don't keep up the legwork, it all evaporates overnight. Between that and scouting and the 3 am alarms and huge decoy spreads, I think that waterfowl hunters may be the hardest working sportsmen on the planet. But you get out of something what you put into it, right? Keep on living the dream!

I've been training the new fox red lab this year, and he's full of spunk, takes commands well...but his real talent lies with a frisbee. I'm hoping to get him out a few times this fall, but he needs finishing next year. Any failings aren't his, they're mine; he is smart, focused, and takes direction like a champ. We should try to get out together once the western season opens.

That picture with you in the background is a keeper! Nicely played. I was covered up with doe last night munching acorns, and it turns out raccoon like acorns, too. I had one beneath me for half-an-hour chomp, chomp. I love hearing the deer before I see them - a few came in under some pine canopy and I knew they were there before I got a look at them. Chomp, chomp. Years hunting over acorns, though, and I've seen 20:1 doe over bucks. Other sets are better ratios. It's a fun sit, if you want to shoot a doe. Which I do, but not last night. Timing issues. Other good news: the fields and food plot that the farmer planted late are starting to come up. I don't know if they will be a significant draw this year, but my fingers are crossed. Final thought, with the guys remarking on shooting that 180 in the brow time, cause that's where they'd be looking. The 6 1/2 year old that I took last year had a mark at the base of its antler from a broadhead. So, shooting where you're looking, it's not entirely unfounded lol.

That was the take home message that I got from reading the reports, as well. I'd like to have a better feel for how valid the assumptions are that they make in order to calculate straying though. I was likely missing something in the calculations, but I wasn't convinced that their conclusion was as solid as the pen vs. direct stocking vs. survival impact, which was clear as day. Not really my field, but I'm down for being educated. I've been told I'm teachable, but just barely .

Salivating now...

I only have one evening to hunt this week, and today is it. Unfortunately, NE wind won't allow me to get where I'd like to be, so I'm going to have to settle for a stand that I'm less enthusiastic about...but that's never been hunted before. So, who knows? I figure with a new property, I need to at least hunt each stand once to get a feel for them. The ladder is in a travel hedgerow looking over a field that was recent planted with hay, and it could be great during the rut or in a year with less acorns (with crops to the East). I suspect I won't see much tonight, but since the stand is at the front of the property and easily accessed, I won't be blowing up my other sets (shout out to DD), and I'm tempted to poke a doe given its proximity to the truck lol.

Interesting read. It's apparent that the percentage of fish caught that were stocked locally increases as the year progresses, with somewhat random representation of ports in the July lake catch transitioning such that the majority of the spawning fish caught in October were stocked locally. And that's great data for each of eight ports surveyed, indicating that local imprinting does occur and that straying between streams on the Western end is minimal. The straying to the SR is a different story, but the #s suggest 10-15% of the fish stocked at other sites stray. I'm not sure how these numbers factor in the relative ability to assess spawning composition at the SR versus other sites and the total # of fish that make the return. I have to admit, this isn't my field. But it seems like translating percentages to numbers based on different sampling techniques could be difficult. Certainly straying to the SR is a much larger factor than straying from the SR or between smaller tributaries. The other question I have, which unfortunately we can't address at this point in time, is whether the distribution of Caledonia fish differed from the SR fish. But based on the report, I think they'd have you conclude that straying isn't a significant factor. I think there's a few missing pieces I'd like to see before being convinced that this is a robust conclusion though. Thanks for posting the link!! There's some good reading out there. It provides perspective on whether what we're doing with the pens (which I support wholeheartedly) is effective or is just making us feel good about ourselves. Objectivity is important if we're going to better the fishery.

I had some little guys sparring and dogging does, and quite a few wandering the oaks feasting on acorns. Saw maybe twelve in total, six within range. Munch, munch.

First sit of the season, and I could have taken a slammer buck. I didn't even pick up my bow. If I had, I think I might have shot him, because I probably couldn't have stopped myself. But i decided before I went out yesterday that there was no way I was shooting a buck this early and moping around the rest of the season. I know, I'm crazy. I could have been fishing, duck hunting, shooting does. And I would have gone through the fall feeling a certain lack. There's something about the focus and intensity in late October when the rut kicks in and you're on edge knowing any moment could be THE moment that I can't get doing all those other things. I'd be giving that up by poking a random stud that wandered across my set early. I was up in the middle of the night wondering if I'd screwed the pooch, but I'm okay with my decision this morning. At least it wasn't work keeping me up lol. Time to go hunting!

Hey!! Deer don't look up...

Blood? That looks like spray paint!! Nice shot.

As a scientist, I will tell you that you don't have to prove a negative correlation to determine absence of effect. The major point being, the salmon raised at the Caledonia hatchery didn't imprint on the Salmon River. Hence, the hypothesis was that the Salmon River wouldn't be their default destination and they would be more likely to be found elsewhere doing the dance of love. I'm not trying to be argumentative, just clarifying something where I've seen a flawed premise lead to confusion. It is likely that it was not the imprinting when Caledonia was open that was impactful, it was the lack of imprinting that promoted a more random distribution during the spawn.

Normally, I'd agree...the squirrels would be doing the chipmunk dance once bow starts. But I found out the hard way on Sunday that my .22 needs to be sighted in . So, not so much on my land this year. I bought a bunch of blunts though, and those long-tailed rats aren't going to be pestering me in my stand much this year. Just keep dancing, partner, your time is coming.

Take a kid hunting!! I don't hunt blinds, but there's four of them between the two properties, from my vantage they're mainly for kids. And sissies lol.

Three of my stands, including a favorite, are in ash trees that have minimal-to-no canopy now. They were thinning last year, but have now bit the dust. I will hunt the stands this fall, then remove them after the season and begin to explore other options...of which there aren't any good ones. Most of the ash are dead, but none of them have started to fall, so I don't feel unsafe. I predict that it will be another year or two before we start seeing the real mess. Unfortunately, ash and tamarack are the predominant tree on our reclaimed farmland. We already have enough cover, so opening up the canopy will do little good. The boatloads of trees that I've planted there over the past five years - with the help of others - won't be ready to hand a stand in for at least another decade. Luckily, there are other good stands that aren't affected, but not in the same areas.