Monthly Archives: October 2012

It had been a year or so since I had spent a night on the water.  We were bored.  Working third shift had its advantages, but when everyone else is sleeping and you are wide awake its time to find something to do.  It was a Sunday night which was always the worst.  No place was open late and the “regular” working world had to be at work in a few hours.  Seth and I decided it was time to go fishing.  Seth hadn’t done much fishing and it showed when he arrived at the house.  He had a bucket cap and beer…I apparently was responsible for the rest.  I had the trailer hooked up to the truck and everything else loaded when he arrived.  We jumped in the truck and took off for Taylorsville Lake.

I had grown up on that lake.  I fished it from the time I was probably 2 years old and spent countless nights fishing it with Dad.  His second shift job allowed us to fish often at night.  As I got a little older, we hunted the lake and the surrounding areas.  It was one of the hidden gems in Kentucky if you were willing to put in the work.  I knew the lake well and had some great fishing nights on it.  Tonight we were targeting catfish.  This was the lazy fishing.

We got there just before midnight and launched the boat.  I didn’t trust Seth to handle either the truck or the boat, so I launched it like I was alone.  It took a few extra minutes, but beat having to ask someone for a ride out to the boat floating away.  I parked the truck and we got into the boat.  It fired up right away and I idled us out past the no wake zone.  Once we arrived at the buoys, I turned the boat to the left and put it up on plane.  We ran back a half mile into the shallows of Big Beach Creek.  Tonight we would be doing some pole fishing, but I was going to show Seth about jug fishing.  The basic idea is to tie a short string to a milk jug or something similar and put a baited hook on the end of the string and then throw the jug into the water.  As the jugs float through the creek, the catfish will find it and pull it under with the jug setting the hook.  I had 20 jugs with us that we baited and dumped into the water.  We trolled out to the front of the creek and kicked back.  I tossed a line into the water to kill some time and dug a Pepsi out of the cooler while Seth was content on watching and drinking a beer.  It wasn’t long before we heard the popping noise of milk jug handle hitting the water.  I pulled out the spotlight to see one of the jugs skimming across the surface.  We immediately trolled over and I grabbed the jug.  When you have a milk jug with three feet of rope and no telling what on the other end, you tend to pull with some authority just in case.  This one was a smaller cat, maybe two pounds.  I took him off the hook and put him in the second cooler…not the one with the drinks.  We rebaited it and tossed it back into the water.  The action began to heat up.  It wasn’t long before we were chasing down our second jug of the night.  This was going to be Seth’s first try.  He missed grabbing it on the first pass so we circled back around and this time he snagged it.  It was about the same size as the first cat and he got added to the cooler.  We continued to catch fish over the next two hours.  I was barely able to get my line back into the water before we were chasing another jug.  Most of the cats were between one and five pounds although we had one pull of the hook as we lifted it into the boat that was pushing 10 pounds.  After two am the action began to slow down.  I pulled over to the bank and started to bass fish.  That’s how I learned to fish and always enjoyed it.  Seth was pushing the limits of his drinking abilities and decided to lay down in the bottom of the boat, while I continued to fish.  After another hour, I had stopped catching fish and decided that I would go collect the jugs.  I turned around to find us completely fogged in.  Staring at the bank from 20 feet all night, I hadn’t even noticed.  I tried to drift around the creek and find the jugs and I managed to find a dozen of them, but no more.  Now I was going to try to find my way back.  I fired up the engine and Seth didn’t even budge.  He was completely knocked out.  I slowly headed in the direction of the dock or so I thought.  Moving just past idle speed, I was getting no where fast.  Not really sure of the time, I knew that it would be difficult to find the dock before sunrise.  I headed towards what I hoped was a bank.  I eventually found it and decided to fish my way back towards the dock.  I managed to catch a few more bass and find two more of the jugs.  Feeling confident I was headed the right direction, I continued moving down the bank.  With Seth asleep, I knew I was in no rush.  I got to a bend in the bank just before first light and knew exactly where I was.  The fog was still so thick that you couldn’t see more than about 25 yards, but I decided to head across to the dock.  I got there right at sunrise.  Tying up the boat, I went to get the truck.  Seth finally woke up when the boat hit the trailer.  He asked the time and I informed him it was time to go home.  He climbed into the truck never the wiser to the fact we were borderline lost for most of the night.  I ended up going home and cleaning catfish and he left and avoided fishing again.  I think that he found fishing to difficult on his drinking, but I found that even in the fog and lost until sunrise, I could continue to put fish in the boat.  This wasn’t the last time that I would find myself lost in the outdoors, but it never lasted for long and was always semi-intentional.

Being at the start of the second week of October, it makes me remember all the great grouse and woodcock hunts this time of year in Wisconsin.  I remember a hunt with our two bird dogs, Sally and Lily.  Sally was towards the end of her mediocre career.  She had turned out to be a great pet and a loving dog, but wasn’t too keen on pointing birds.  Lily was a young dog coming into her own.  She was bored with quail but did a nice job on them anyways.  On the other hand, she was a terror on grouse.  They had to hate her!  She was developing a nice pattern and was one of the few dogs that we had seen actually point and hold on grouse.  This day turned out to be a special day for both dogs.

We were parked in an area that we had hunted the prior year and knew was great for both grouse and woodcock.  From the parking location, to our left was an area of low briars and tall pines.  Beyond the end of the pines, was a slight hill covered in poplar trees.  That went all the way around to the right and eventually lead to the creek.  A nice trail split the two areas.  We headed directly up the trail.  The dogs split to both sides.  Within minutes a grouse flushed from our right, crossed the trail and cruised unscathed into the briars.  We opted to head off the left to pursue this grouse through the pines.  We headed through the briars and got another flush.  This one hit the ground at the first shot from the over and under.  Dad made a great shot.  Sally ran over and proudly brought the bird back to him.  We continued down through the briars.  Lily was working beautifully.  She was crossing between us at about 25 – 40 yards.  Lily found three more birds in a short time, but our shooting percentages were dropping quickly.  We quartered our way towards the hill of poplars.  Right at the edge of the pines, Lily pointed and this time my 12 gauge was successful.  Within seconds, Sally retrieved the bird and brought to me.  She was proving to be highly effective on dead and crippled birds.  We turned to the right and walked down the split of poplars and pines.  It wasn’t easy walking, but the area was perfect for grouse.  Lily went on point again.  This time the bird headed towards the poplar but dad’s 20 gauge knocked him down.  Unfortunately, this bird went down very alive.  Both Lily and Sally went in looking for it, but after 20 minutes of no luck and disappointed we moved on through the poplars.  About 300 yards down, we encountered our first woodcock of the day.  We fired simultaneously and the bird fell to the ground.  We continued down to the creek and Lily found two more birds and Sally found one.  Only one of the three found the bag.  I have to say that if you have never hunted grouse or woodcock, you have no idea how tough of shooting this is.  Often you are slipping, falling, bouncing the gun off a tree as you try to make a shot.  I think the birds wait until you are in the most contorted position to flush and then laugh at you all the way to the next county.

We took about two hours to circle back to the truck.  Sally was tired and trotted quickly to the truck.  She was definitely showing her age, but we couldn’t ever stand to leave her behind.  She looked shocked as we passed the truck, but she followed anyways.  We headed back to where we earlier lost the grouse.  Along the way, we flushed another grouse that escaped the wrath of the four shots.  Arriving back in the general area of the lost bird, the dogs seemed to sense what we were up to.  They dove into the brush and started searching.  Lily moved fairly quickly across the hillside.  She had already lost interest.  Somehow we had lost track of Sally trying to keep up with Lily.  We turned around to look for her, when all of a sudden we heard this crashing noise coming across the hillside.  Sally came jumping over a downed tree in hot pursuit of a running grouse.  Running with the energy of a pup, she finally caught up with the crippled bird after about 50 yards.  She carried the bird down to us.  She was carrying it so softly, it was still alive when she made the transfer to us.  Completely amazed with her new-found skill, we headed back to the truck to give her and us a much-needed break.  The senior dog needed a boost to get into the Bronco, which we gladly gave her.  We enjoyed lunch on the tailgate and then headed to our next spot.

The memory of Sally in her later years in life racing across that hillside on the tail feathers of a grouse is one that I hope never escapes me.  She had limited moments in the field, but when she did it was always special and this one topped them all!

Driving home this afternoon, I noticed that the fall colors are starting to show.  The weather finally feels like fall; glad to see that the colors match.  Last year for our anniversary, we drove up to Cherokee, North Carolina and enjoyed a little cheap gambling and a great meal at Paula Deen’s.  On the way up and back, we knew that we had to come back in October to see the colors.  Once the cooler weather hit, we drove up to the mountains and decided to turn it into an adventure, which isn’t uncommon for a road trip with me.  We stopped at the Georgia start to the Appalachian Trail.  We picked up some new maps and looked at the signs of locations of the area.  The one that caught our eye this day was Brasstown Bald.  Along with several other areas, Brasstown Bald claims to be the highest point in Georgia.  The drive to Brasstown Bald was beautiful along a two lane highway filled with twisty turns through the mountains.  The first stop was an old grist mill.  It was a short, flat hike back to the mill.  The building was very old, but very fascinating.  We went through all three stories and then walked along the creek back towards the truck.  We continued down the road and eventually found the road heading back towards Brasstown Bald.  It was an extremely difficult drive.  We arrived at the parking lot to find the shuttle closed for the day.  Okay by me, but not so much for the wife.  She has been on my adventures enough to know to question me before we start.  I told her that we hadn’t come that far to drive home without checking it out.  She knew what that meant, but she loves me and followed me anyway.  We headed up the trail and almost immediately passed a gift shop.  She asked if we could just get the t-shirt and go back to the truck.  She knew better and continued to follow me.  This path was paved, but it was extremely steep.  We moved slowly up the trail.  Everyone passing us on their way down the hill said it was worth it, but then again, they were walking downhill.  We continued up the trail.  It was slow going but the views from the trail were amazing.  Every 1/10th of a mile there was a bench.  We stopped at a few of them, but I really wanted to keep us moving as much as possible.  We were almost to the top when we stopped and talked with two park rangers.  They informed me that all around the trail were grouse, but most of the bears were further down the mountain.  After a short conversation, we continued to the top.  At the top was a concrete 360* viewing platform.  We walked to the top of the platform and were disappointed to see how cloudy the day was at this elevation.  We could still see for miles and the colors were as amazing as expected.  We took our time at the top to look at the lakes and houses that we could see in the distance.  Apparently we were looking at North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  We could only see a few small cities but millions of tree tops.  We came down the platform and walked the circle around the bald.  No grouse were seen, but you could tell that this was an area that they would like.  Thick cover, steep elevations, berries and fruit trees along the mountaintop.  We headed back down the trail.  This was a quick, but more difficult walk than one would expect.  It is a weird angle to be walking on for your knees and ankles.  No complaints though; down was much easier than up.  After the two and half hour round trip, we arrived back at the gift shop.  We stopped by and made our quick purchases…always need a t-shirt and two much needed bottles of water.  We got back into the truck and enjoyed the drive back to civilization always wishing that we could stay where we just came from.

I just checked the weather for Wisconsin.  Snowfall over night with a low of 30.  I remember the first year that I made the trip to Wisconsin.  I was so used to the fall weather of Kentucky and to see snow that early confused me.  We had arrived overnight and were getting breakfast at the local cafe.  We were going to hunt the mid-morning after a few errands, have lunch and hunt the evening.  Much like today, a front was scheduled to come through.  The mid-day hunt went well and we had several early flushes.  I was thrilled to find Wisconsin as good as advertised.  We had lunch and then headed to a location that had been passed down to us from a friend and fellow bird hunter.  The area was a gas line.  There were hardwoods and popular stands on either side.  In the evenings, the grouse would feed in the edges.  As the evening went on and the number of flushes climbed, it began to snow.  The snow started slow and then increased in speed as time passed.  We were getting a light dusting and decided to head back.  Coming back up the gas line, we were amazed to find the ground quickly becoming dusted in snow.  We loaded up the dogs and made our way to the main road.  It was a little sketchy for the first mile or so.  When we arrived back at the cabin, the snow was really coming down.  We made dinner and watched the snow through the picture window.  Crashing early, we rose before sunrise to about an inch of snow on the ground.  A beautiful morning along the river, I took a walk down to the dock.  Geese came down the river and settled in the turn of the bank 75 yards aways.  I watched them enjoy the early winter as they splashed and chased each other around the bend.    Walking back up to the cabin, I couldn’t believe that it was so early in October.  Even the dogs looked confused.  We dressed warmly and headed over to the cafe.  We were informed that this happens all the time and most locals have their snowmobiles ready by late September.  By the middle of the day, the snow had melted off and the temperatures were back in the mid 50s.  That first snowfall in Wisconsin just amazed me.  Hopefully some hunters are taking advantage of this beautiful weather and early snow this October.

I miss the fall turkey season.  GA DNR has us killing three toms in the two month spring season, but neglects us in the fall.  Fall turkey season in KY was great.  It opened on October 1st and ran through the end of the year.  This was an archery only season, which made difficult hunting near impossible.  Turkeys flock up in the fall, so unlike the spring you can’t call them off the roost and get their attention with subtle, sexy hen calls.  Fall season takes a little luck and some weird fun.  The recommended way to hunt fall turkeys is to break up the flock and try to call them back together.  How often is a hunter encouraged to run at the game, flailing their arms, and screaming?  This is the way to break up the flock.  You can attempt to stalk and take a shot at a bird, but with between 15-30 sets of eyes roaming the landscape, good luck going unnoticed.

The farm that I hunted had a good size fall flock that I encountered on many occasions.  I had won the spring battle taking a quality tom after a two-hour song and dance with a bird that should have won.  In the end, I outsmarted him (later story).  The fall victories went to the turkeys though.  I lost arrows, scarred my knees, and almost fell out of a tree stand in my attempts to harvest a fall bird.  The best opportunity was the day that I turned the corner in the open field to see the entire flock standing at 30 yards.  I stepped back, drew the bow back, and jumped out shooting quickly.  Unfortunately, in all the confusion of the birds scattering when I came around the corner, I don’t think I ever picked out a target and the arrow went sailing over all their heads.  No scattering the flock this day.  They all took off running in the same direction and off the property.

One morning I was sitting in my tree stand deer hunting when the flock came through.  The closest birds were coming down the trail at about 40 yards.  I don’t shoot with sights, so this was towards the end of my comfortable range.  I drew back and took aim on a jake.  I shot right on-line to see the arrow, once again sail over his back.  The flock began to scatter.  I grabbed another arrow from my quiver.  I turned back to see a turkey flying towards me.  I swung on this bird and released the arrow to watch the bird change his mind at that exact moment and drop to the ground.  The arrow buried itself into a tree about 15 feet above the ground.  I lost my balance and slipped off the top step of the stand.  I hated this stand, so I always sat on the floor board and put my feet on the steps.  I landed on the floor board and took a few seconds to recover.  I decided this tree was not for me.  I climbed down, bruised both from the slip and the ego from two missed opportunities and went to find the one arrow that was recoverable.  I headed to the truck and declared the turkeys the winners.

Finally, late in the season, I thought I had them.  The flock was coming through the hardwoods and towards the field and I decided to follow the advice of the locals.  I set my bow on the ground and took off running after them.  Turkeys were going every where; it was great.  I kept running determined to break them up completely to give myself the best opportunity to call them back together when oomph!  I hit the ground face first.  Well that was fun.  Running in hunting boots and winter gear was not in the books.  I picked myself up and wiped the blood from my face.  No big deal, just a small cut and some more bruises.  I am not sure how the turkeys continued to bruise me, but nothing else beat me up this bad.  I went back and got the bow and headed to the fenceline to set up.  I waited until I heard calling and then I answered.  We called back and forth for about an hour.  I watched as all the birds gathered back together about 200 yards away and off the property.  Turkeys win yet again.

We battled each other constantly over the next 3 seasons with the turkeys winning each and every one of them.  Finally KY decided to open a fall gun season and I moved to GA.  I am sure that the turkeys aren’t beating everyone now that the hunters are cheating, but they had my number.  Some day when GA decides to open a fall season, I will get my revenge on them but until then the score looks like a Cubs game…

Kenny – 0 Turkeys – A LOT!

Many people like Indian Summer.  Indian Summer frustrates me.  We have had the cooler days and colder nights and then bam! Warm weather returns.  Not to stress though.  October meant grouse season in the Mid-West.  It was the first workout of the year for the bird dogs and time for us to head north to Wisconsin.  I saved my vacation for this week to ten days each year.  We would head north up I-65 through Indianapolis and Chicago.  Once you hit the border it was two lane highway through about 20 small town USAs.  We normally arrived in the middle of the night.  The fishing “resort” we stayed at would leave the keys to the cabin in the mailbox for us.  We would unload, take a short nap, and head down the road to a small cafe for breakfast.  Across the street was an outdoor store that we would pick up our tags.  Down the road about a mile was the location of the DNR office.  We would stop by and say hello to the local game wardens.  Extremely friendly locals everywhere we went were used to a handful of out of town hunters that came through each season.

The leaves had begun to change.  This area tended to have more yellows than the other fall colors.  There would be stretches of gravel roads that had yellow canopies covering the road.  It was beautiful and a warm day was 55 degrees.  Perfect weather for grouse hunting.  We would head down the logging roads and start the hunts.  Those stories are still to come.

When we returned to KY in the middle of the month, Indian Summer normally had ended and it was cool enough to get into the deer stands.  In Georgia, the entire fall feels like Indian Summer.  Today the rains had ended, but it was humid and warm.  I will wait until next week when the temps drop and then I will get back into the woods.  Grouse season hasn’t started yet in Georgia so it will be bear and deer hunting until November.

It has rained all day.  Not a little rain…serious rain.  The kind of rain that when you drive down the road you think you are crossing creeks and not driving on city streets.  There are only so many hours you can spend walking around the outdoor stores before you want to go.  Even though I had the evening off, I opted to stay home.  I think it was the flooded garage that made me think twice.

Thinking back, rain hunts have typically been good hunts.  Not necessarily during the rain, but immediately after seems good.  I remember as a child being told stories of the guys that stuck through the hurricanes, just knowing how good the hunting was going to be the next few days.  That might be a little extreme, but who doesn’t like extreme?  Last year, I raced out to get up a tree before an early fall front came through.  I picked a good tree and started up it with the climber stand.  I was set and ready when it hit.  Wow did I regret this decision!  25 feet up a tree with lightning, rain, and the wind swinging the tree had me holding on tight.  I would have lowered the rifle to the ground if I was willing to let go of the tree, but as it turned out I had become a tree hugger.  After 45 minutes of questioning my sanity (which happens often during hunting season), the storm let up.  Now was why I was up there.  The sun began to shine through the trees and the temperatures were dropping.  The woods began to have a strange glow.  Somehow the mixture of rain and late evening sunlight, was illuminating the woods.  As the time passed, here came the deer.  They were moving from the bedding area to my left and working their way off to the hardwood stand to feed.  The first doe knew something wasn’t right.  She was being overly cautious and keeping plenty of brush between the two of us.  The second deer had no clue.  I decided to try to take her.  She was working through the brush, but I saw what appeared to be an opening.  When she stepped into it, I pulled the trigger.  Unfortunately, I did not get the reaction I expected.  There was a branch that had gone unnoticed between the rifle and the deer.  It came crashing to the ground.  Deer scattered around me.  Dark was approaching quickly as I watched the first doe try to sneak back past me at 75 yards.  I wasn’t interested in shooting again.  The third deer that had stayed out of sight before the shot came walking up from behind the stand.  It was a spike buck.  He decided to come up and sniff the rope that was hanging from my stand.  After 10 seconds of smelling the rope, he reversed his way down the trail.  I waited until after dark to come down the tree.  Just in case, I took my flashlight over and checked the spot where I had shot.  No such luck- clean miss.  Some hunts go this way.  If I had stayed at home in the rain, I would have missed the strange glow of the woods that night and seeing several deer acting very odd.  Don’t miss going or you may miss out.

Sometimes when I haven’t been in the woods or on the water in a few days, I start to think back to days that I have been.  With September wrapping up and October starting, it quickly becomes my favorite time of the year.  Although once again this year I did not take advantage of early goose or duck seasons, that wasn’t always the case.  When living in Kentucky, there was a 5 day stretch that I would never miss.  Starting on a Wednesday around the middle of the month was wood duck season.  I am sure that there were many hunters that capitalized on this better than me, but I took this as an opportunity to break out of the summer slump.  Fishing by the end of August has slowed down and I never cared to hunt for squirrels.  When that Wednesday rolled around, it was time to get back out.  Many times someone would talk me into putting a boat on the water and sneak back into a creek with a half-dozen decoys, but this wasn’t my favorite way to hunt.  I had a WMA area that I been shown over the years the location of a string of ponds that were left off the maps.  Growing up I had read about map makers that were outdoors people who “left” areas off the maps.  This was definitely the case with this area’s map for which I was thankful.

There were 5 ponds along the trail.  The first one was located about 100 yards off the road, but barely noticeable.  It was about 3/4 of an acre and almost always had a pair of wood ducks on it.  With a little sneakiness, it often led to a quick shot.  Then you had to hike about a half mile down the trail.  This is why I would hunt here.  You could begin to scout for deer season.  We would often drift off the duck hunt to scout the hardwoods for signs of deer.  Once back on the trail, you would find a pond about 1/10th of an acre.  This one was nearly impossible to sneak up on.  The ducks would flush long before you even thought to begin the stalk.  One time I saw as many as a dozen ducks flush of this tiny pond.  It was an amazing little spot.  About another mile back you would find the last pond on this side of the road.  This one had an old fence to one side of it.  I knew several guys that would sit along this fence late in deer season and find the deer moving through like it was a highway.  The pond never had ducks on it, but I would always walk the extra distance to look at the deer sign.  It was amazing to never find ducks here since it was only a 1/4 mile from the main lake.  There was a fox that frequent this area though and wood ducks don’t like foxes.  That hike would normal take about two hours.  When getting back to the main road, you would cross it and find the trail on the opposite side.  Once on the trail it was only about 200 yards to the fourth pond.  Deer tracks lined the edge of this pond.  It was only 25 yards long and 15 yards wide and never had more than a foot of water in it.  I am never sure why I even walked up to this pond other than to look at deer tracks.  Sometimes you would find a nice sized track that would go unnoticed by the untrained eye.  With two weeks until the start of deer season, this would just stir the urge.  Moving down the trail you would eventually find the largest of the 5 ponds.  Located in the back of a field that was planted every season for doves and quail, was this beautiful little gem.  Rarely were there ducks on it, but this one you carried a fishing pole to instead of the shotgun.  Just over an acre in size, it held quality bass, bream, and catfish.  Always a fun little spot to take half an hour and throw a roostertail.  Most people wouldn’t make the walk, therefore you always had the place to yourself.  As I have found true of most things I do in the outdoors; it isn’t necessarily about the success as much as it is about the experience.  This was always just a great day to kick off the hunting season.