Watching my children become duck hunters has renewed my enjoyment of waterfowling. Seeing the world through the wondrous eyes of youngsters is like experiencing it all again for the first time. Only better. Wintering songbirds that flit in the adjacent brush, frogs that occasionally share the pit, stray feathers or raccoon prints along the muddy shoreline, Dad slipping in the gumbo mud and especially incoming waterfowl: nothing escapes their keen observations.
4/07/2008
Rio Grand Turkey Hunt
What a great weekend hunt. Lots of Rio Grande gobblers.
The first morning was a comedy of errors. Lunchtime was quiet back at the ranch; no one had fired a shot. Which is not to say the morning's hunt was uneventful: Johnny had a longbeard and its entourage of jakes in his lap for a spell but they had somehow gotten the drop on him and he couldn't shoot; O.B. was within about 35 yards of an about-faced strutter, ducked down to slide off his vest to crawl a few more feet and when he peeked over the bushes *poof* the bird and his harem of hens had quietly vanished; Big Joe had seen 6 longbeards at several of the morning's set ups and in each instance, cattle had wandered in and "because cows are bigger than turkeys" pushed the turkeys out.
The first morning was a comedy of errors. Lunchtime was quiet back at the ranch; no one had fired a shot. Which is not to say the morning's hunt was uneventful: Johnny had a longbeard and its entourage of jakes in his lap for a spell but they had somehow gotten the drop on him and he couldn't shoot; O.B. was within about 35 yards of an about-faced strutter, ducked down to slide off his vest to crawl a few more feet and when he peeked over the bushes *poof* the bird and his harem of hens had quietly vanished; Big Joe had seen 6 longbeards at several of the morning's set ups and in each instance, cattle had wandered in and "because cows are bigger than turkeys" pushed the turkeys out.