Oh Yeah, My Dove Tree.

I made a portable dove tree out of found objects in my garage and basement. As the season grew closer it gave me a little distraction and something else to do to get ready. I took two old bamboo tiki torches and cut the torch parts off. Then I had an old tent pole piece that was two parts with a swivel in the middle. One part slides down into the the bottom pole and then stops where the cross tent pole piece swivels. Then I slide the top tiki torch pole down and it stops there. I drilled a hole mid-way up the top pole and a slid a rigid 1/2 inch a tomato stake through that. Then wrapped the pieces in camo tape. Stuck some decoys on the cross limbs and a mojo on top. Happy days! It worked like a charm this morning. I even had a couple of doves hover in front of it like humming birds. Big mistake on their part! Oh and I put a siren on it for added attraction! Kidding, it's just a firetruck going by in the background.

A Happy Opener After All.

Sometimes things go your way when you least expect it. Before going to bed last night I checked the weather forecast one last time. The weather man predicted rain all day particularly during the morning hours and continuing rain Sunday and possibly Monday too. Oh well, maybe Sunday afternoon or Monday the weather will cooperate and I can get a little dove hunting in before heading back to work.

I went ahead and got my gear together and laid out some hunting clothes just in case. Well I'm not sure I should be happy to report that I have a lousy weather man but in this case it worked in my favor. For once. I rolled out of bed at 5:15 walked downstairs and looked out the front door to see if the newspaper was here yet. Yep there's the paper. I'll let Bama out to fetch it up... but wait, something was missing. Hey it's dry out...no rain! Woo hoo! I check my computer real quick and on the weather radar there's a big break in the clouds right where my hunting property sits. Much scrambling, gathering, and coffee drinking ensued. By 7:30 I'm sitting on a dove bucket, decoys and mojo's set and sporting a big smile on my face. Life is indeed good.

All in all a good morning. I got a dozen birds and lost several in a thicket (Bama was a casualty of the need to move quickly this morning and didn't go with me) that Bama would have found easily so I could have limited out but that's not important. I got to hunt on opening day. That my friends makes
me happy.

Here is the radar image for this mornings forecast. My hunting spot is just a little to the right of the red pin marker. As you can see pretty socked in with rain predicted for this morning.

Sorry for the bad photo here but what you're looking at is a stand of sunflowers which runs for about 125 yards. To the left of the sunflowers on the ground is one of my Mojo decoys and on the right side of the flowers is my dove tree with a mojo on top and four decoys perched on the limbs. The picture is a little deceiving in that it's only about 20 yards from my position but looks much further than that. 

About half way through my first box of shells.

This could be the year of the 16 gauge.

Why a 16 gauge? Let me expound.

A man who identifies himself as a 16 gauge shooter is instantly elevated in "coolness" in any firearms circle. It immediately signifies one as being of good taste and judgement. If the shooter's firearm happens to be a fine English or high grade American double bearing an exceptional piece of Turkish walnut and wearing the evidence of much use but great care, he will be spoken of in reverential tones. The only shooters who could hope to rival him are those who shoot fine doubles in short 10, 28 and 2 1/2" 12 bore.

You will be found to be more interesting anywhere hunters and shooters gather. New shooters will instantly recognize you as the final word in all things shotgun. Women respond to men of good taste and refinement and will find you more attractive. Dogs are astute judges of character and will hunt better for you. In fact your best friend's dog may hunt better for you than him with his synthetic stocked jamamatic. Being a 16 gauge shooter, you are also gracious enough to hunt with him despite his lack of taste and character. You will essentially be the shooting fraternity's version of the world's most interesting man.

All kidding aside I bought one. I'm excited. Pictures below.

Fire In The Hole!

Although this post isn't about hunting or fishing or even preparation for either, it does qualify as an adventure. With that said I decided what we were missing in our backyard was a fire pit and in my typical fashion it's taken me about two years to decide where, what and how. Saturday June 16 was D-Day! As you can see from the pictures below we still have a ways to go but much progress was made. Kelan and Dylan were a big help digging and moving cobble stones. The wall I'll build on either side of the pit will be from cobble stones I had in another part of the yard. Moving those stones was back breaking work.

Bella helping me decide where to put the pit. Pit bull, fire pit. Get it?
Yeah well anyway you have to find your humor where you can.

I'm linking the bed at the end with a new one and lining it with cobble stones
but first we have to dig it out and make it level.

After the digging and the picture taken from the opposite direction.

Fire pit hole and gravel base. 

Assembling fire pit. First run of stones and then steel insert.

Finished fire pit assembly and beginning of stone wall.

  

A Little Small Water Fly Fishing

It was a nice evening for a little fly fishing on a nearby creek. Dylan and I decided to grab the rods about 5:00 and try our luck for a couple of hours. I'm glad we did. Lots of small rock bass, bream and largemouth to be had on small white or yellow poppers (Sneaky Pete).

The red shirt in the middle of the photo is Dylan trying to find a place to cross.

Nice little Rock Bass or around here some people call them  a Goggle Eye.

The water is pretty low but served to bunch up the fish in these little pools.

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You have to admire the can-do attitude of this little guy. 

Bottom one looked an awful lot like a small mouth bass. Maybe some kind of hybrid.

Sweet Little Sixteen

It's June which means not too much longer before bird season starts. September kicks it all off with the opening of dove season. So what better way to spend my time (other than fishing) than looking at shotguns I'd like to own. I've been eye-balling a number of sixteen gauge beauties the last year or so and would love to have one by the time quail and pheasant season opens the end of October. My current favorite is an Arrieta Special No. 2 in 16 gauge. Arrieta is a Spanish maufacturer that's been making fine shotguns for over a hundred years. The gun I'm looking has a straight hand/ splinter stock with a 15 1/8" lop and 1 7/8" dah. 28 inch barrels and weighs in at 6lbs 6oz.

And...I'm Back!

So the outdoor adventures have been a little lacking the past few months and I've been more than a little lax in posting new entries. So here we go....

This past week the family and I rented a house at The Lake Of The Ozarks and when I say family I mean E V E R Y O N E.
Everyone is the four of us plus our two dogs. The weather was great, low 80's in the afternoon and 60's at night. We swam (mostly the dogs), fished, kayaked, golfed, and ate like we were on death row. A great time was had by all. Bama swam and swam some more. We weren't sure how Bella would take to water but she's very competitive so she sure wasn't going to let Bama have all the fun. The fishing was pretty good. I caught about 12 or so nice fish over the 3 1/2 days and plenty of smaller ones. I really didn't fish that much when I think about it, there was just so much else to do and this was after all a family vacation not a fishing trip.

View of the lake from our dock. We were in the back of the cove which was really nice.

Kelan and Dylan coming in from fishing.

Kelan and Bama chillin' waiting for Dylan to throw a tennis ball.

Bella being cool but actually totally wiped out from swimming all morning.

Couple of nice healthy fish caught on top water.

Another nice L.O.T.O. bass.

Dylan taking us back into our cove.

This is how we spent a lot of our time. Fun.