Transition Time

This is more stressful than any tournament fishing all summer. Making the switch between hunting and fishing season. Swapping boats, gear, and making the most out of my limited space. Throw in an October tournament and there's no way to feel any further behind. I've also got different priorities as most of my early season adventures are picking the optimal time to get the girls out while the weather is nice and until that happens I’m always feeling behind.

I have never had a better year with more opportunity to harvest a deer on the westside. However a lack of time, lengthy stomach bug, and the girls catching daycare germs has shut that down. Just maybe I'll make it out for one more bowhunt this weekend but at this point it is more safe to assume that something will come up. The 2 bowhunts I was able to go on were action packed though. Neither resulted in me being able to let an arrow go but both hunts had moments where I thought it would happen. Even better was that Mabel and I snuck in on the ground for her first hunt. No blind or anything like that, just using the natural cover/terrain to our advantage and no sitting there watching videos on the phone while hunting. Are kids learning anything about nature sitting in a hut watching a phone until a deer walks up? I don’t think so. I knew it was going to be tricky to get a shot off as she was likely going to be a bit squirmy but we were definitely going to see some deer. They were already out in the neighboring field when we arrived and they just kept pouring out. It takes them a long time to get to me but we could see deer the entire night, a first for my deer hunting career. We saw at least 10 bucks throughout the night. big ones, small ones, and lots of does. We saw sparring, chasing, and just lots of activity. At one point a bunch put there tails up and came in from the side. Mabel goes "oh god, a whole herd" with a voice full of excitement and much too loud. That was the biggest success to me. We did have one deer that read the script but as i could see ears coming through the brush at last light it picked up on a squirmy child and was gone. No clue what it was other than it was definitely not a fawn and that was going to be good enough. I really hope to get out one more time as there really is something special about killing deer with a bow and those close encounters fueled that fire. If not i think we might actually have some success for the firearms opener on the east side of the state. There have been more deer sightings on that property than we've had in years.

Ducks have been the same deal, just rushed and trips have been few and far between. The opener was well...wet very wet. It rained and rained and rained. It wasn't great weather for ducks but the local puddle duck numbers where we go on the east side were very concerning. Both wood ducks and mallards, but less than 5 total mallard sightings on opening day was really strange. a drake canvasback made up for some of that though. it was hanging out with a flock of ringnecks and was certainly a surprise. That was the first can I've ever shot or even been on a hunt where one was. To make it better it was a drake and it will probably be the only one Hutch will ever get to retrieve in his lifetime. i wish it were a few weeks later and the plumage was more prime or that one might have gone to Jim and Sons Taxidermy. The bonus of it not being in prime plumage is i would finally get the opportunity to eat a canvasback, which is supposedly the best of the best. it lived up to the hype and definitely had a different flavor than a mallard.

I’ve only been on 2 other duck adventures, one with the girls and another to the Upper Peninsula. Fighting amongst the girls kept some of the ducks from finishing and it was overall just a weird night for duck movement. I never fired a shot, I didn’t expect that but it was still a success as it was June’s first time. By the time all 3 of them can go Mabel will be helping me do the shooting. That seems to be going by even faster than duck season is this year.

The other trip was a true adventure to hunt anywhere from Lake Superior to the North shore of Lake Huron. The actual hunting for me was one of those stories of just bad timing, bad whatever else, and flat calm conditions. We did kill some birds though and had a good time. It was fun to head up with a crew, do some exploring, and show my dad a bunch of new places. It truly is an enjoyable place to hunt and i hope the next trip up there my stomach will feel normal. It was awfully hard to concentrate at times and make the most out of being up there for both my dad and I with the 2 week stomach bug. I think we are both up for going back next year if we can make it work.

While I certainly haven’t been out as much as I would like. I’m grateful that every hunt this year has been fulfilling in it’s own way. All the girls have gotten to do something. Even the littlest one who went to check the zero on the .450 while she was stuck at home with hand foot and mouth (one of the most awful daycare bugs). I’ll be looking forward to what the rest of November has in store.