Burnin' them down...

When most people think of Thanksgiving, they think of turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc. I must be the exception to the rule. When Thanksgiving rolls around, I think of cold mornings, hot coffee, whistling wings, and the boom of my shotgun.

For the last several years, the wife and I have made the pilgrimage to Western Oklahoma to see her folks for turkey day. I try to squeeze in a few days of duck hunting with an old college buddy while we are out. He kinda has a monopoly on all the local property in the rural Butler are which includes several farm ponds and government watershed ponds. They tend to hold a lot of waterfowl, so we tend to hunt them and kill a few.

Mr. Ramsey and I decided to hit up one of our holes that we don't hunt much in order to save 1 of our honey holes for when we has another gun or two in the blind. The first morning was pretty slow, birds just weren't flying around very much but we scratched out our 2 man limit with some diver ducks and a few gaddys. Got to see a hawk try to pick off one of my mallard hen decoys late in the morning as well. It was quite the sight. Afterwards, we made a quick scouting run around to our other holes and found the birds huddled up on bigger water. Thanks to deer hunters though, those holes were tied up till rifle season is over. Talk about a kick in the sack...

The next morning, we hit up our honey that always pulls a ton of puddle ducks to it. I'm talking mallards, pintails, and widgeon...oh my! They were there alright. They poured into that sucker all morning, just not into our decoys. We got enough birds to come in or give us a passing shot to knock some down. It was a good morning, getting to see all those birds come in and work. Very cool...

The last day was a wash for us. All of our other spots were tied with deer hunters so we had to hunt the same spot, 2 days in a row. Not very good odds for us. We moved across the pond to the timber and got set up. The birds never really came for us that morning. We got a few Greenheads and Sprigs to commit as well as a few Mergs. They died. We waited out the ducks but called it quits just a few birds shy of our limit. It was good times standing in the timber, drinking coffee, and BSin' with Mr. Ramsey.

Not a bad way to spend the Turkey Day holiday...

On a side note, we did go fishing the other day. DonnyB and I loaded up the skiff to go do some streamer fishing on the lower Illinois tailwater. It was a crap shoot. They didn't generate any water from Tenkiller Dam so we just wade fished. The lake had turned over so the river was nasty. We threw eggs, caught dumb rainbows, and took it to the house.

Streamer season is just around the corner...

We got some brown on the ground...

We had the crew out all over the state again over the weekend. Most were hunting, others were fishing....all that matters is we got out. Rifle season has opened up for deer which has most of the guys out in the deer woods.

Crik and Squatch went out west to Crik's grandpa's place to chase some whitetails. Squatch had a rough go of it after missing 2 deer due to not hunting with his own gun as his is at the gunsmith. Crik was successful in his pursuit and took down a fat doe as well as a decent buck. I forsee lots of venison for our future camping trips. That's what I'm talking about...

Cole is also out west chasing whitetails in hopes of bringing down a big buck. As of today, there is still not a deer down on the ground. All in good time though, he is hunting some primo land out there.

As far as the fishing goes, DonnyB and I loaded up the boat and the streamer rods on Sunday morning to go fish the Lower Illinois tailwater. Our hopes for floating were dashed when we arrived at the dam to low water. So much for a projected generation schedule. We geared up and hiked in away from all the people to a nice stretch of water that rarely gets fished and ripped some stocker rainbow faces. It wasn't pretty, water was very dirty from the lake turning over so we were chuckin' bright meatballs (eggs) under a thingamabobber to get any eats. It worked though and we were content...

Thanksgiving is upon us this week and that means I will be going out west myself for a few days of duck hunting. The old college room mate has the monopoly on various ponds in the Butler area and we usually end up killin some waterfowl. Can't wait...

Happy Turkey Day everyone if u don't hear from us...

How to tie a Sex Dungeon

On the water and in the woods...

CTD was all over the grid this weekend, in pursuit of all things with fins, feathers, and fur. It was a successful weekend for us to say the least. Corey and Joey were chasing the brown trout spawn on 1 of our local tailwaters, DonnyB was in SW Oklahoma with his smoke pole chasing whitetails, and Chris and I were looking to the sky for all things fowl. It was a good weekend to say the least...

Corey and Joey hit up the less famous Beaver Tailwater (White River system) over a couple days and got into some nice browns that are upriver for the spawn. Beaver isn't a favorite amongst us but sometimes it can really shine if the water and weather is right. I forsee a streamer trip to this piece of water sometime soon if we can get some generation. The boys did well...

DonnyB took his annual trip home for muzzleloader season to put some brown on the ground and get some venison in the freezer. Luck was on his side as the 1st morning out he put down a pretty decent buck and filled his tag. Then a few days later, his hunting buddy got a shot on a 150"+ buck but sadly missed the big boy. 325 yards is pretty far for a muzzleloader, even for an Encore. There is meat on the freezer though, that's all that matters...

Chris and I hooked up with the rest of our duck hunting crew for opening day in our part of the state. Sadly, waterfowl numbers was way down this year for opening day. It took us all week to find any birds to make it worth even going out. We were able to scrounge up a few ducks on a new lease we picked up the week before. Having 23 ponds to choose from has its advantages! We didn't have a stellar morning but we were able to put down some birds before calling it quits on Saturday. On Sunday, we found a few birds on one of our local holes and just a few us got after them for a couple hours. Again, just a few birds were put down but it was worth showing up. Got some redheads in the bag which is kinda uncommon for our area. We were content...

Lots of options to fish or hunt at this time of the year in our area, so get outside and go get 'em! You know we are...

T-minus 24 hours and counting...

Tomorrow morning, the other "dream" for a few of us starts. Duck season opens tomorrow and the anticipation is almost killing us. Although, up until this morning, we couldn't find any ducks at all on any of our normal haunts. We were beginning to get discouraged and was contemplating other activities (streamer fishing, deer hunting, etc) but thankfully we found some birds on a new lease we just picked up this week.

Things are looking promising for us so we r gonna give it a shot. I will apologize in advance if the blog suffers due to duck season, it is the only thing that will make me put away the fly rods for an extended period of time. Look for posts of ducks and fish in the coming months.

We r gonna do some filming this year too, so I might be tossing up our first hunting video this winter sometime. On the topic of videos, still have the MT footage to edit and work on so please be patient. We have some really good stuff there...