No... our other roomate from college..DC.Originally Posted by Tech77
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No... our other roomate from college..DC.
“Towie Barclay of the Glen, Happy to the maids, But never to the men.”
I know who you are talking about then. We need to catch up sometime soon.
Good old Memorial Gym
Yes, it was Charlie and his son. They had a good hunt, killing mallards and grays. Unfortunately, the hunting has tailed off the past couple of weeks. There are fewer ducks and the remaining ones are smart as hell....avoiding decoys and calls at all costs.
That's what I'm seeing. I'm down to using about a half dozen HD mallard drake decoys and 4 HD Pintail drake decoys and not calling at all. I went Sunday Am and shot three teal and one pintail drake....took til 11:30. Should be righteous this weekend. Gonna hunt off the river on an oxbow Friday afternoon in the snow
“Towie Barclay of the Glen, Happy to the maids, But never to the men.”
So I been gone a while. No...I didn't leave town. Much to the contrary I was here- and WAY too much here. I work hard most of the year and all of it on my feet as an owner/manager but the holiday rush is a creature all it's own. I'm proud to have it but it takes it's toll. Damn near two hundred hours in two weeks of wide-open craziness and the actual stress and ordering part begin right around or before Thanksgiving..
I do my best to take care of my family, friends, employees and customers during this time but it does have some after effects. When the phone rings I jump..whether at house or home. When I hear my name I tense-up...as I heard it nearly a hundred or more times a day I bet. The phone calls that begin with, "I know you're busy but...". You damn near lose where you end and your business begins...or the other way-round. Anyway... I'm not complaining...just explaining. It's a creature all its own this business thing...and it haunts you for a while after. It's impossible to explain to a layperson..so I don't know why I try...but I am.
When I was younger it took a duck hunt or two and a couple of weeks and I was good...this time maybe longer. Music ceases to amuse and please. Simple meetings or a dinner out become a burden. You realize that you haven't laughed or smiled without forcing it for quite some time, and you begin to question whether you can handle the physical; let alone the mental, part of this thing one more time.
If you can't... you won't make it through the slow times...and if you can you're not sure of your mental and/or physical well being at the end. The guys that own the other Maxwell's Markets all book Dr visits after this season because they (we) all get sick after...we're done, worn-out and ready for a break.
Anyway..I took off early to deer hunt yesterday afternoon. On the way out I cranked the radio up damn near all the way with some Frank Sinatra..and it sounded spectacular. It was hot so I walked out to the stand in shorts, a short sleeved shirt, camo boonie hat and some ankle high boots. I had three locally brewed beers in a small cooler, a .22 Browning semi-auto pistol that my brother gave me on my hip, and a single-shot 7mm-08 deer rifle over my shoulder.
It was a gorgeous day...sunny, windy, and the leaves were blowing through the woods. As i was sitting in the deer stand I noticed the squirrels were active, cleaning a deer would be a royal pain in the ass, and I had a .22 pistol. I scored my first two pistol kills ever; cleanly, on two squirrels and brought them home and stewed them with some veggies I picked that evening out of the garden from the country.
I drank beer while cooking dinner, listened to music and thoroughly enjoyed myself...for the first time in a while. This weekend I'm going to the lake..come hell, high water and/or (hopefully) snow. Gonna hang-out with my super-hot wife by the fireplace, duck hunt, and cook a huge pot of venison stew. Throw in a whiskey drink, a screamingly quiet place on a secluded lake, a fuzzy blanket and an old dog in my lap by a roaring fireplace and between family, dog, and nature as a healer- I bet I'm good. If not..I bet I still give it a good run. Night all!
“Long live the bleak bitterness of such a morning, of the churlish dawn … The duck hunter, probing the secrets of a new day, sees the night retreat, as nothing is so fine as daylight coming and night departing while wings overhead whisper the old and unresolved mystery of migration.”
– Gordon MacQuarrie, The Last Stories of the Old Duck Hunters
“Towie Barclay of the Glen, Happy to the maids, But never to the men.”
MacQuarrie's stories are my very favorite, Ross. I own all his books. You have a lot of the same gift for telling a story that he had.
I've seen more dead birds over the last three days than I've seen in quite a while. got 4 Thursday, 2 Friday and 5 this morning on some beaver ponds. very close to giving up the lease in mer rouge and just stepping back and enjoying what made me fall in love with duck hunting. chasing woodies on the creeks is pretty enjoyable stuff, (twss) just had to be forced to remember the good times. Picture was taken on the beaver pond in spearsville Friday. Darby is really taking huge steps in becoming a duck dog and its great watching the desire in this one.
Nice Chou! I hunted half moon lake with Charlie this Saturday. It was 14 degrees in Bradley Bottoms and we had open water. Mu gun froze, my gloves froze to gun, waders froze, etc... It was epic! Hundreds and hundreds of mallards, hundreds of greys, hundreds of pintails, blackjacks, shovelers! Charlie waded out to get our third duck of the morning and stepped in a gator hole and went in over his head and had to hightail it back to truck. I shot my 6 and carried all of our stuff out. I've been duck hunting my whole life and in some great spots and Sat Am was as good as I've ever seen. Sunday PM had a blackjack rodeo on Claiborne with Billy Moore. Fun weekend!
“Towie Barclay of the Glen, Happy to the maids, But never to the men.”
Dad and his group in Monroe had a great shoot all the way from Friday through yesterday:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=3&theater
“Towie Barclay of the Glen, Happy to the maids, But never to the men.”
we hunted em hard this weekend....scratched out 22 (about half spoonies) between 3 of us on Sat and Sunday. Mallards are almost impossible to kill at our place right now. They get spooked once they get within 100 yards of decoys. It's like they just know something isn't right. The only way to kill a few right now is to get in the thick stuff and hope that's a spot where they have been hitting for a few days.
expensive day in the duck blind . . . .. .
Beautiful cans. Post up a picture of the mounts when they are done.
sure will. friend of mine that hunts down around Catahoula Lake said they shoot cans when theres nothing else flying. told her yeah, I get it, trash duck to them. one mans trash duck is another mans once in a lifetime trophy
Really nice. I am still searching for the perfect can or can pair to mount. Also still want Pintail and Red Heads as well. Thats a good looking pair.
several years ago I took a couple friends to our place south of Monroe. one of the guys killed both a drake redhead (had never seen one before nor after this hunt) and a huge Pintail drake. that would have been an expensive hunt had that been me but he didn't care about such things, said they would taste great and that's what he did.
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