Been running at work for tha past 3 weeks (yes, my business doen't close for ANY holiday), So I was glad to spend a weekend hunting.
Saturday morning it was a blistery, frigid 63 degrees here in central Alabama, over cast, hot muggy, great day for hunting. I was going to leave Friday to go deer hunting, but when the call came to go duck hunting in "the Green Swamp" the 132 mile trip will have to wait until I was finished duck hunting. We killed 9 grey ducks and a woodduck with 2 hunter. An absolute awsome day in central Alabama. I got home unloaded the Poke boat and tossed in 2 gun cases, deer hunting stuff, change of clothes and headed south with the A/C on high.
Saturday afternoon we drove into the property and it was sooo hot and muggy I didn't even want to hunt. My friend is young and gung ho so I went to the cabin and he and his father were going hunting. I asked his dad where was his gun and he said, he was just going video taping. I said no, if it's brown it's going down. He said he use to shoot a bunch of pistol comp. so I just smiled and got the 2 gun cases out. I gave him his choice and he took the .308 Encore and headed off to the woods. I had an area I wanted to scout and grabbed my 7x30 G2 and eased off into the rain. Not a lot of fun to sit there in a slight drizzle, 74 degrees, figting mosquitos and call it deer hunting. Saturday evening was a bust like I thought it would be, but it was great to be out there.
Later that evening we went to hand a stand watching a scrape line and we drove up on a owl. When we drove close, he would fly 3 foot off the ground with what I thought was a woodduck in his tallons. He didn't want tot leave it and he finally dropped it in the road and flew into the tree above us. I looked at his prey and was amazed to see it was a hawk. That was cool and made the trip.
we hung the stand and went to bed. My friend and his father got up the next morning and headed off in a frigid low of 63 degrees and rain. I rolled over and went back to sleep. I did get out of bed to make it to the recliner for a couple of hours before heading out. I hadn't gone 100 yards thinking about where I was going when I jumped 3 deer. 9:30 in the morning. I slipped into the woods and did a little stalk hunting. About an hour later I slipped up on a doe and a small yearling (our fawns don't drop until Sept) so I let her walk. When they walked off I headed back to the cabin soaking wet from sweat and rain. My fiornd and his father didn't see a thing.
Well it came a gully washer for about an hour and they were fired up and wanted to head out into the woods again at 1 PM. I told them to knock themselves out I was going to watch the football game and maybe would go hunting later that afternoon. I bummed around the cabin until 3:15 and then started easing up the road, still undescided where to hunt. The wind was swirrling and it was 70 degrees and muggy. I figure I would stalk through some oak flats. I was finally getting in the grove slowed the pace way down. Suddenly I heard the whop, bang, right from his dad and the .308 Encore. I just grinned and then went back to my own section of woods. I was moving slow, cover 100 yards in 30 min staying on a road looking both right and left into the water oaks for deer. I had started up a little rise in the road and heard the water fall of some limbs close to the ground, my first thought was a squirrel, then as I turned I heard the limbs crash and saw the rack and buck running back across the acorn flat. I was dumbfounded. I had stalked within 15 feet of the deer in a blown down tree and he never moved. He had to have watched me for 20 min. The rut in that part of Alabama is going wide open so he had the same idea of watching the acorn flatt as I did. I am guilty, I didn't think to look too hard at the blow down, I was in a mind set for looking for feeding deer. I don't know even if I could have seen him from my apraoch, but he was there.
Here is the kicker, I had a double bull blind set up 20 yards from where he jumped. I may have had a shot at him if I had gone to the woods with my friend and his day. Then again "If bullfrogs had wings........."
I set up for the final 20 min of daylight on the edge of a foodplot and then the wind shifted and wouldn't you know the deer would want to walk out on the trail direcly behind me. nothing like deer blowing to finsh your hunt. His dad did connect on a nice doe at 60 yards and it was hard to get my gun back from him. He's hooked now.
This morning we went goose hunting alabama style, we layed out in our x-landers with hardcore and real geese decoys in a cut cotton field. Alabama white new year. The geese are feeding on the green grass growing in the field. Four of us killed 8 and then I came to work.
Woods Goat season in Alabama runs through the end of the month and the runt in 98% of the state won't kick off for another 2-3 weeks. Anyone want to come hunt?
Not a bad way to bring in the New Year.
