Caught these little whitetail bucks on my trail cam last week. While they were duking it out their potential girlfriend probably eloped with a ten pointer.
Category: Hunting
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Little bucks, big fight
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Kansas big bucks
If this doesn’t get you fired up for deer season nothing will. These big guys showed up on my friend Scott’s trail cam recently. He didn’t tell me where they are and I didn’t ask but they’re somewhere in eastern Kansas. Scott says the one on the left in the second photo is a shooter but Scott is a trophy hunter. I’m a meat hunter so my trophy is a ninety pound doe.
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Missouri teal season
The Lone Oak Duck Club (aka The Five Guys And A Swamp Duck Club) sits at the far west side of the Mississippi flyway in Bates County, MO, only a few miles from the Central flyway. My friend Jon Blumb and I squeezed in a morning hunt before the early teal season ended September 27th. We saw a snowy egret, a pileated woodpecker, mosquitos, frogs and several acres of water lilies but no teal.
The big white bird in this photo is not a teal. It isn’t even almost a teal. It’s a snowy egret.
We called it a day at 8:45 AM and threw some training dummies for my black Lab Maggie who performed vigorously as usual. All she needs is for someone to shoot a lot of ducks over her. Maybe she should trade me in for another hunter.
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Deer hunting in Scotland
Mt friend, photographer Jon Blumb, often goes to Scotland to hunt deer and fish for salmon.
Guided by head game keeper Bruce Cooper on Glenprosen Estate near Kirriemuir in The County of Angus, Jon recently bagged this beautiful 6+ point roebuck. Jon downed the buck at 160 yards with Cooper’s .25/06 Sauer rifle.They had been out since sunrise (4:30 AM ) and Jon shot the buck at 7:30 AM.
Jon sent me a photo of himself wearing kilts but his legs are almost as ugly as mine so I did not include it in this post.
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My first banded duck
I don’t remember what year it was but it had to have been in the sixties. That’s a ’63 Ford Falcon in the background. Don’t remember where I shot it . Probably the Marais Des Cygnes Waterfowl Management Area near La Cygnes, KS. Could have been John Redmond Reservoir near Burlington, KS.
I’ve been duck hunting since 1964 and I have eight bands on my lanyard now. You see guys in magazine ads with duck and goose bands hanging down to their knees. Do they plink birds with pellet guns in parks? It might be believable if they were old geezers like me who have hunted for years, but they all look like they’re in their 20s and 30s.
No way!
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Tweener Time
Once again it’s “Tweener Time”. A Tweener is a cartoon too filthy and degenerate for outdoor publications yet too outdoorsy for Playboy.
For you non duck hunters…so-called dabbling ducks – mallards, pintails, teal and others -tip up to feed on edible stuff in the water like invertebrates, seeds and plants. When you see a dabbling duck doing this it is not mooning you, it is eating.
Diving ducks such as scaup, canvasbacks, and redheads dive completely under the water to find their food. What we call “trash ducks” such as mergansers eat old tires, discarded condoms and oil that has leaked from drilling platforms.
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Canada geese nest in strange places
Today I walked up to one of our duck blinds and a Canada goose leapt from the roof. She actually had a nest up there. Goose nests are not much better than dove nests, only bigger. Just a little pile of sticks. No wonder skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes and black snakes eat most of the eggs and goslings.
Also lots of blue wing teal and a few shovelers still hanging around. They’re the first to come down in the fall and the last to leave in the spring. They must like it here.
Couldn’t get a very good photo. Use your imagination.
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Look what showed up…
Look what showed up on my trail cam at our farm right after the Missouri fire arms deer season ended. This guy made it through the gauntlet , possibly because he’s totally nocturnal (look at the time signature). But he still had the rest of archery season and maybe black powder season to go.
I’m not deer hunting in Missouri right now because I’m turning into an ancient geezer who can’t climb up into and out of a tree stand and because MODOC wants to charge me over $200 for a deer tag to hunt on my own land where I pay Missouri taxes. But it’s funny how, if you’re not hunting, you sort of start rooting for the deer. I’m glad this little buck made it through another season but I hope he winds up in somebody’s freezer before he gets old and tough.
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My new shotgun
You’re driving on I-49 in western Missouri and hear a loud noise that rattles the windows in Butler and Rich Hill, sends wild animals scurrying west across the highway in panic and causes your vehicle to shudder uncontrollably don’t be alarmed. It’s just me patterning my new shot gun before the upcoming spring turkey season.
