Spring 2012

Time to do some quick catching up. I had a pretty solid spring. H-dog and I started off turkey season by making our annual pilgrimage down to South Carolina to hunt with out buddy Ragsdale. As usual we had a bunch of great hunts culminating in these two birds. Ragsdale pretty much serves them up on a platter. H-dog and I did everything we could to mess it up, but still we both got a bird. There were almost too many birds around this year!! Rags and his dad are doing a bunch of predator management this year and I am excited to see how it affects the population.

 

My friend Steve Mclean invited me to one his honey holes the second to last weekend of the season, and he shot this bird about 20 minutes after we sat down. This place was loaded with birds, and we were really lucky to get this bird because we bumped 3 off the roost and we were late getting to our spot. We never got a good picture of the bird in the woods, and Steve had to rush off to a meeting so Dex and I decided to show off his bird for him. He was a HOSS. 10.5 " beard and 1 inch spurs.

After Steve took this bird it was still so early we decided to hang this bird in a tree and try to set up on another. It only took about another 30 minutes before this big female coyote came running right to Steve. We think she was smelling that turkey, and Steve laid the smack down on her. These things are hell on turkeys so we were pumped to get it out of the population.

Mase and I headed to the Jackson River to try to get an elusive mountain turkey. We got worked by the birds in the morning, but had a stellar afternoon on the river. These are just two of the nice fish we caught. There was a great caddis hatch coming off and we caught a lot of fish sipping in the flats. I caught the fish in this pic on a double bunny before the bugs started coming off.

My friend Chris Smythers is a pro bass fisherman and he took me out on the Potomac and we wore the fish out.

Caught this thug on a crank bait in the weeds.

 This is one of the first fish we boated and Chris got him on top water.

That my friends is a Potomac River Snake Head and they are fowl!! This thing has teeth going all the way down its throat. I dropped it shortly after this pic and Chris and I were both dancing around in the boat like a couple of teenage girls trying not to get bit.

La Redfish Video

This is video I just got back from Louisiana. This is the footage I talked about in an earlier post that led to the big fish below. I fished with Captain Christian Yergens and Shallow Water Expeditions. As you will see I blew the first cast but this generous fish gave me another shot. The video at the bottom is footage that Christian put together.

Last Hunt of the Season

On the last day of the season Dad and I managed to kill a limit of geese and one red head. It was another blue bird day with absolutely no wind. The only time I can remember the forecast saying O mph.

 Dex at attention

This red head sucked into the decoys all by himself and got hit with a load of BBB's out of a full choke at about 15 yards.

Mase Dog and Lil Kel

The Mase Dog and Lil Kel and I managed to scrape out a limit of geese on a blue bird day late in the season. Every bird we killed had its feet down which was nice, but it did not come easy. We did not get out of the blind until mid-day.

 I felt a big ole knot in the neck of this honker when I pulled him out of the boat and decided to investigate. He has been eating well somewhere.

 Dex is mad I made him pose staring into the sun.

Mase and Lil Kel

Hdog and Rags Come to Town

Half way through December Huston and Rags flew up from Atlanta to hunt with me at the marsh.  When I picked them up at the airport it was 63 degrees and by the time we got to the cabin at about 10:00 it was still above 60. I have never in my life been down there when it was that warm. The stink bugs and wasps were out in big #'s and we had to open all the windows and the front door just so we could have the fire going and not be sweating. We got there on Thursday night and fortunately a little bit of a front rolled in and we had some decent weather in terms of wind and cloud cover.  The first day we hunted # 4 and managed to get a handfull of mallards to do it right and Huston "HairyHead" Green laid the smack down on at least 3 mergansers. We were all pretty hungry for blood since it was early in the season, and there were a handfull of very effective water swats dolled out. The next day we moved to # 2 and put out a big spread. We hunted all day with a steady wind at our back and ended up killing 8 greenheads and one handsome drake gadwall. We all thought the hunting was going to stink because it has been so warm, so we were pretty psyched about the final tally.

Big Red

Was down in New Orleans for a conference in October and stuck around afterwords to do some red fishing. I fished with Christian Yergens from Shallow Water Expeditions. The first day was one of the best days of fishing I have ever had. The conditions were perfect and the fish were cooperating. I am itching to get back down there and give them a go.

Christmas Eve River Swat

On Christmas Eve I ran down to the James River with the Gar Hole crew. The King brothers and I hunted one hole and Scotty, Martin, and Will ran further up river.  At first light we had two mallards work the spread but it was super dark and as soon as they dropped below the horizon we lost them. About 20 min later we had two black ducks that only gave us one pass before they sucked into our laps. One of them literally landed at my feet and unfortunately almost got ripped in half. Should have waited on the shot a bit longer. While Stu was in the boat picking up our ducks another black duck  showed up, and to Carrington and I's surprise got in the elevator and dropped right in. We had one more green head do it just right before things shut down, and Chester had an impressive retrieve in fast water. The river was charging and we all thought it was going to be super slow so we were pumped about our morning. The group upriver ended up having a good morning too.

Opening Day of Duck Season 11-12

Taylor and I headed down to the duck marsh for opening day. We had pretty much everything going against us as far as the conditions were concerned. We had wind out of the south (sets up crappy for most of our blinds), falling tide, full moon, and a balmy 55 degrees. Despite the lousy conditions we managed to scrape out 5 ducks including a canvasback, which was a first for Taylor and I at our marsh. About 20 minutes after shooting time, we had a group of what we thought was about 7 ringnecks dump into the decoys and we killed 3. The last duck Dex brought us out of the three was the canvas back. Next we had a lone ringneck sneak up on us and then we had a pair of wary mallards work us and we reached out and touched the greenhead. Taylor brought Cash who started off a little shaky but ended up settling in nicely after watching Dex go and do his thing.

The Mighty Shenadoah

Time to play catch up. It has been way too long.

This summer Taylor and I went fishing with our buddy George Cox on the Shendoah. The flow was good and we did not catch that many fish but we caught a handful of really nice fish. All the big fish we caught were large mouth which is kind of crazy for river fishing in VA.

Notice we are pimping lots of cool gear from our friend Mase Dog's company Howler Bros. Check them out they have lot of great products for those of you that like to be outdoors.