23 more days!

Pray that the Good Lord will bless me with a chance to take one of these big boys in the coming months!

Work in the Woods continued... Food Plot

Could this be Ryegrass and Clover? Maybe even some Brassica (although I have no idea what brassica looks like.)

Going to try to put a camera on this over the weekend.

Work in the Woods!

Several weeks ago the three little boys and I decided to do a little work in the woods. The idea was to put out some mineral licks, move a trail cam or two and maybe even take down a few stands. My first mistake was thinking that I would actually get any work done with all three of them in tow! None the less we had a great time.
Groceries

Mineral site

Trail Cam

Then we cam upon this spot, and the wheels started turning.

Wonder if I could turn this into a food plot? I can’t get any equipment down here to work the ground so I would really have to do some improvising. I decided that I would start working on it the next weekend and I began to devise a plan.

I started out by weed eating the whole area.


Next I used my brand new patent pending food plot rake to clean up all the cut grass.


Now, take same food plot rake and add a little weight.

This is what you are left with.

Planted with Evolved Harvest Throw & Gro Seed and hope for rain!

I will try to post pics if and when it starts to grow. Not sure I was able to remove enough of the existing vegetation to allow this to work but it was definitely worth a shot. If It does come in I will repeat the process again late summer and try planting a forage that will last through the winter.

That Color of Green

Although I have never been asked this question, I have seen it in people’s faces. Why do you hunt? I could come up with many answers but today I chose this one. Have you ever looked at a Mallard Drake up close? Most people haven’t. The color of green in the feathers of a drake mallard are simply amazing and most likely impossible to duplicate. Now I know what you are thinking, “I could go to a farm and look at one”. True, but it would not be the same. Wild ducks born of the prairie regions in the Dakotas and Canada have colors like no other, colors that have been bread out of tame ducks years ago. These ducks come into this world at a huge disadvantage. From day one they are sought after by many predators, coyote, skunks, fox, birds of prey and in some areas even large fish. They grow and become strong over the summer in preparation of the yearly migration south for the winter. During their migration, they experience some pretty harsh winter conditions. Some say that these conditions add to their inherent colors. The orange in their legs gets oranger and the green in their heads gets greener with every freezing mile they fly. Now these are strong birds. They have to be to withstand these conditions and cover the distances that they do. “Why would you want to end the life of something that has worked so hard and overcame so much to get to where it is at”? At this point there are several arguments, one being for the nourishment of our bodies. Many will dispute this but I have 4 boys at home that will argue duck makes pretty good table fare. Duck breast sliced thin and marinated in a lemon and garlic sauce, placed on the grill with a slice of white onion….well let’s just say it will not last long on our table. That is how we do things in our house. We feed our family with meat and veggies harvested from the land, things that we have grown or hunted by our own hands. But let’s take this even one step further and look at another reason. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt I have seen and felt things while duck hunting that you will not find any where else in this universe. Sun rises so beautiful that you can almost hear them and sun sets that Da Vinci himself could never duplicate. I have seen stars so clearly in the darkest sky, a darkness that you can’t experience any where close to human structures. All these things God placed here for us. I can’t even begin to explain the feeling of reverence and respect I feel when I hold one of these birds. You can’t help but feel gods love and that he had something really special in mind when he created That Color of Green.

Alligator and Elk

I have found something to love about this time of year. It is the opportunity to dream! You see the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission release applications for special permit hunts around this time every year. That's right, the chance to dream of alligators and elk! Faithfully each year I fill out the application for these 2 hunts just hoping for the chance at one of these very limited permits. Both the alligator and the elk are on my list of dream hunts and what could be more satisfying than to have the opportunity to hunt them in my home state. Sure I could spend thousands of dollars to pursue the mighty elk in Colorado or New Mexico but what fun would that be? The fierce alligator is easily sought after and taken in Florida where they roam in abundance but is much more elusive here in our own back yard. Yes I know, my chances of being drawn are like 1,000,000,000 to 1 and yet I still keep trying! Maybe its not even the chance for the hunt any more but just the chance to dream.