Stache's Blog

Lucy Killed The Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Mar 2014 00:41:00 +0000

It has been almost a year since my last post. Seems like it is harder and harder to find the time these days. Here are a bunch of pictures from this duck season. I can say without hesitation this was the best Virginia duck season I have ever had. We limited out twice this season at our marsh and that has not happened in my lifetime.

Mase Dog lookin tough. We killed our limit this day. We had a mix of Mallards, Blacks, Gadwall, and Teal

Uncle Kelly, Mase, and Greg with the all the birds from Friday evening and Sat morning.

Beautiful drake black duck from first afternoon hunt with H-dog. We had a slow afternoon but we finished it off with two black ducks that decoyed perfectly. H killed his first black duck that morning. He is getting it mounted.

H and I had one hell of a morning. We killed our limit of ducks and geese. We couldn't shoot straight the day before, but tightened up on this morning and the birds were cooperating.

This was Dad and I from early in the season. We had a great shoot from #3 and Dex did a great job as usual. The old man is at about half speed and he can't get around in the mud very well but he still gets it done.

Beautiful sunrise on the last day of the season. The river was frozen solid and we got skunked. Only saw a handful of ducks after Taylor and I walked out on the ice and cut a hole with a chain saw.

Making goose sausage

Vlad, Billy, The Don, and I got together and cranked out a bunch of wood duck boxes

Mase and I got out on the water the Friday before Curtis's wedding

Went on deer drive with some friends from work

Uncle Kelly shot this banded hen mallard. She was from Quebec and was hatched in 2010. This is the first federal band we have taken at the marsh in a long time.

Solid Mallard swat in somerset. Doc is looking good

JaCurtis love fest 2013

Now it is time for Turkey Season!

"The Don" strikes at the Brick Yard

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:28:00 +0000

We have hunted the brickyard every Saturday of the season besides the week I went to SC, and every time we have hunted from about an hour before sunrise till noon which until this weekend was the legal shooting limit. Every day we have had a lot of action and multiple close encounters. On opening day we had a long beard come in silent behind us, the second week of the season we got a bird hot at about 11am and had him come to about 80 yards and hang up, and last weekend we had 3 gobblers talking to us and one came in to about ten steps but would not show us anything but his head. Needless to say we had a blast on every one of these hunts, but the thought of the season coming to an end with out putting one of these gobblers on the ground was starting to haunt us. Fortunately, The Don stepped up and hammered this bird at about 40 yds.

When we were walking into our spot we bumped three different birds off the roost, and it was starting to feel like a bust. About 45 minutes after we set up,I watched three birds come off the roost about 400 yds away on the opposite side of the bowl we were hunting. Earlier in the season we had seen birds work from the bowl into the corner of the field we were set up in. We only heard one bird gobble and he was not on the property we were hunting. I called sparingly, and the birds from the bowl slowly worked their way into our field. It ended up being two jakes and one long beard. As they were working their way towards us a hen came off the roost and flew into the field with them when they were about 100 yds away. I thought for sure that she would take them away from us and the hunt would be over, but fortunately she broke off on her own our three birds did not pay her any attention. These birds got to about 50 yds and the long beard hung up and sent the two jakes in to about 20 steps to check us out. They seemed concerned and started putting softly, but never completely bugged out. The Don was set up to be the gunner and he made us sweat it out. I probably would have pulled the trigger at 50 but the bird worked a little closer and The Don dropped the hammer. It was his first bird ever, and it was a nice once. He was definitely a three year old bird and he had inch long spurs and a 9.5 inch paint brush. Redemption is sweet! Time to let the brick yard rest.

Power Line Revenge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:53:00 +0000

Went down to visit my buddy Ragsdale in South Carolina again and once again he delivered the goods. This bird started gobbling early and often which helped us set up within about 75 yards of him without getting busted. He almost gobbled himself hoarse in the tree, but as soon as he flew down he was on a rope and he got it in the face at about quarter to seven. It was about as text book as it gets. I am disappointed the footage is so lousy. I was really hoping the audio on the gopro would pick up his gobbling because he had to gobble at least 157 times before he flew down.

This bird had a double beard with the main beard at 12 inches and the second at 6.5 inches. He also had 1 1/8inch spurs. He is the biggest bird I have ever killed and ties for the longest beard ever shot on the property, and Rags and crew kill A LOT of turkeys.

2012-2013 Duck Season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

This season was the toughest that I have had in a long time. Even though it was colder than last year we did not have any ducks or geese show up until after Christmas. We can normally count on killing geese but this year they seemed to stay in the fields and not move to the creek until later in the day.

This was the take on the last day of the season. This was 4 guns and we hunted till almost 3pm. We had to break a whole in the ice and we ended up fighting the ice all day. We also had some gapers show up 30 minutes after shooting time that pretty much made it impossible to kill anything until they left. Dad and I should have limited out but neither of us were shooting straight except for on this one mallard that I sky busted. I got a go pro for x-mas and I am trying to figure out how to get good footage. I need some tips from my buddy Will James with the Gar Hole Crew.

Lil Kelly and I hunted the second to last weekend of the season and had a decent hunt. We hunted #3 with a south wind that was steady. We spent half the day scouting a spot further up the creek. Check out the wing feathers on that spec black duck.

I ran down to SC to team up with Huston, Ragsdale, and Fairy and the Ragsdale's treated us to two spectacular hunts. The first morning we hunted the impoundment closest to the house and limited out quickly on wood ducks. As you can see H-dog did more whiskey killing than he did duck killing. The picture below is from our Sunday morning hunt. We had approximately 15 guns and we all limited out on ring necks.

Bob, Uncle Kelly, Dad, and I all hunted the first weekend in January and it was really slow. It was a bluebird day and we managed to scrape out 1 greenhead, 1 black duck, and one goo.

Mase and I joined Uncle Kelly and Greg on their post x-mas hunt and managed to scrape a few out in mediocre conditions. Mase and I spent more time fighting motors than we did hunting. The birds we killed decoyed perfectly.

On opening day Vlad, Gordon, and I managed to smack 4 geese all of which did it right. It was bluebird and we barely saw any ducks.

I hunted a handful of other times with Oakey and the Kings but the results were pretty mediocre and I have no pics to share. We did pretty well at the Kings. We had a group of ten geese do it and they all died. I think Will has dome decent footage of that, he will have up on his blog. Here is some footage of two geese going down. Notice all I have to do is point my gun at them and they fold. If I had pulled the trigger Carrington's ear's would still be ringing.

Spring 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Time to do some quick catching up. I had a pretty solid spring. H-dog and I started off turkey season by making our annual pilgrimage down to South Carolina to hunt with out buddy Ragsdale. As usual we had a bunch of great hunts culminating in these two birds. Ragsdale pretty much serves them up on a platter. H-dog and I did everything we could to mess it up, but still we both got a bird. There were almost too many birds around this year!! Rags and his dad are doing a bunch of predator management this year and I am excited to see how it affects the population.

My friend Steve Mclean invited me to one his honey holes the second to last weekend of the season, and he shot this bird about 20 minutes after we sat down. This place was loaded with birds, and we were really lucky to get this bird because we bumped 3 off the roost and we were late getting to our spot. We never got a good picture of the bird in the woods, and Steve had to rush off to a meeting so Dex and I decided to show off his bird for him. He was a HOSS. 10.5 " beard and 1 inch spurs.

After Steve took this bird it was still so early we decided to hang this bird in a tree and try to set up on another. It only took about another 30 minutes before this big female coyote came running right to Steve. We think she was smelling that turkey, and Steve laid the smack down on her. These things are hell on turkeys so we were pumped to get it out of the population.

Mase and I headed to the Jackson River to try to get an elusive mountain turkey. We got worked by the birds in the morning, but had a stellar afternoon on the river. These are just two of the nice fish we caught. There was a great caddis hatch coming off and we caught a lot of fish sipping in the flats. I caught the fish in this pic on a double bunny before the bugs started coming off.

My friend Chris Smythers is a pro bass fisherman and he took me out on the Potomac and we wore the fish out.

Caught this thug on a crank bait in the weeds.

This is one of the first fish we boated and Chris got him on top water.

That my friends is a Potomac River Snake Head and they are fowl!! This thing has teeth going all the way down its throat. I dropped it shortly after this pic and Chris and I were both dancing around in the boat like a couple of teenage girls trying not to get bit.

La Redfish Video

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:12:00 +0000

This is video I just got back from Louisiana. This is the footage I talked about in an earlier post that led to the big fish below. I fished with Captain Christian Yergens and Shallow Water Expeditions. As you will see I blew the first cast but this generous fish gave me another shot. The video at the bottom is footage that Christian put together.

Last Hunt of the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:02:00 +0000

On the last day of the season Dad and I managed to kill a limit of geese and one red head. It was another blue bird day with absolutely no wind. The only time I can remember the forecast saying O mph.

Dex at attention

This red head sucked into the decoys all by himself and got hit with a load of BBB's out of a full choke at about 15 yards.

Mase Dog and Lil Kel

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:11:00 +0000

The Mase Dog and Lil Kel and I managed to scrape out a limit of geese on a blue bird day late in the season. Every bird we killed had its feet down which was nice, but it did not come easy. We did not get out of the blind until mid-day.

I felt a big ole knot in the neck of this honker when I pulled him out of the boat and decided to investigate. He has been eating well somewhere.

Dex is mad I made him pose staring into the sun.

Mase and Lil Kel

Hdog and Rags Come to Town

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:31:00 +0000

Half way through December Huston and Rags flew up from Atlanta to hunt with me at the marsh. When I picked them up at the airport it was 63 degrees and by the time we got to the cabin at about 10:00 it was still above 60. I have never in my life been down there when it was that warm. The stink bugs and wasps were out in big #'s and we had to open all the windows and the front door just so we could have the fire going and not be sweating. We got there on Thursday night and fortunately a little bit of a front rolled in and we had some decent weather in terms of wind and cloud cover. The first day we hunted # 4 and managed to get a handfull of mallards to do it right and Huston "HairyHead" Green laid the smack down on at least 3 mergansers. We were all pretty hungry for blood since it was early in the season, and there were a handfull of very effective water swats dolled out. The next day we moved to # 2 and put out a big spread. We hunted all day with a steady wind at our back and ended up killing 8 greenheads and one handsome drake gadwall. We all thought the hunting was going to stink because it has been so warm, so we were pretty psyched about the final tally.

Big Red

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:29:00 +0000

Was down in New Orleans for a conference in October and stuck around afterwords to do some red fishing. I fished with Christian Yergens from Shallow Water Expeditions. The first day was one of the best days of fishing I have ever had. The conditions were perfect and the fish were cooperating. I am itching to get back down there and give them a go.

Christmas Eve River Swat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:13:00 +0000

On Christmas Eve I ran down to the James River with the Gar Hole crew. The King brothers and I hunted one hole and Scotty, Martin, and Will ran further up river. At first light we had two mallards work the spread but it was super dark and as soon as they dropped below the horizon we lost them. About 20 min later we had two black ducks that only gave us one pass before they sucked into our laps. One of them literally landed at my feet and unfortunately almost got ripped in half. Should have waited on the shot a bit longer. While Stu was in the boat picking up our ducks another black duck showed up, and to Carrington and I's surprise got in the elevator and dropped right in. We had one more green head do it just right before things shut down, and Chester had an impressive retrieve in fast water. The river was charging and we all thought it was going to be super slow so we were pumped about our morning. The group upriver ended up having a good morning too.

Opening Day of Duck Season 11-12

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:16:00 +0000

Taylor and I headed down to the duck marsh for opening day. We had pretty much everything going against us as far as the conditions were concerned. We had wind out of the south (sets up crappy for most of our blinds), falling tide, full moon, and a balmy 55 degrees. Despite the lousy conditions we managed to scrape out 5 ducks including a canvasback, which was a first for Taylor and I at our marsh. About 20 minutes after shooting time, we had a group of what we thought was about 7 ringnecks dump into the decoys and we killed 3. The last duck Dex brought us out of the three was the canvas back. Next we had a lone ringneck sneak up on us and then we had a pair of wary mallards work us and we reached out and touched the greenhead. Taylor brought Cash who started off a little shaky but ended up settling in nicely after watching Dex go and do his thing.

The Mighty Shenadoah

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Time to play catch up. It has been way too long.

This summer Taylor and I went fishing with our buddy George Cox on the Shendoah. The flow was good and we did not catch that many fish but we caught a handful of really nice fish. All the big fish we caught were large mouth which is kind of crazy for river fishing in VA.

Notice we are pimping lots of cool gear from our friend Mase Dog's company Howler Bros. Check them out they have lot of great products for those of you that like to be outdoors.

Spring Gobblers in South Cakalacky

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:57:00 +0000

Blogger has a new format that I am trying to figure out so please bare with me. I need to get this whole new layout worked out. It has been a while but I am back with a bang.

Here are two pretty incredible hunts from last spring. Will James from The GarHole was generous enough to help us with editing the video footage we sent him and putting together these clips. Will has a really impressive blog, along with some other buddies of mine, that gets updated much more frequently than this one. Be sure to check them out. You can subscribe to their blog on the right hand side just below the goose if you click on the hyper link above.

This was the first hunt on the first morning of a three day turkey hunting marathon. I drove down on Thursday evening from Richmond to meet Ragsdale and Huston at Ragsdale's family plantation near Georgetown, SC. I got there about 12:30 AM and Rags and Hus got in from Atlanta at about 2 AM. We got up after a couple hours sleep and Rags took us over to a spot they call the 700 acres. We set up near where Rags had seen a big bird go to roost the week before. Right after we sat down Rags let out an owl hoot, and we heard two birds gobble off the roost way off to our left. We sat tight for about 15 minutes and listened to the birds gobble a couple more times before Rags decided he knew exactly where the birds were, and where they were headed. We jumped up and literally sprinted through the woods to be sure we got to the spot before they did. This video starts pretty much right as we sat down. It only took about 15 minutes for these two gobblers to come in and they were talking the whole way. We have it condensed here down to two minutes. I won't name names, but I think the camera man had a little accident in his pants, when I pulled the trigger. I think he was expecting me to let this bird hang out for a while, but I had an itchy trigger finger because I was in the middle of a multiple year slump without dropping a bird. Fortunately for me and Rags the cameraman did not document the excessive man hugging that took place after the shot. Notice also I let that other long beard go so we could chase him another day. I would like to pretend I let that bird go because I am a true sportsman, but it is really because I was fully aware of the beat down I would have received.

Click on the bottom right hand corner of the video to expand to full screen.

After the first hunt we ran to the store, grabbed some breakfast, and got right back in the woods. This time I was on the camera and Huston was the gunner, while Rags called them in. The video pretty much tells the story, but the jist of it was that Huston's gun misfired twice and I could not stand to wait for a third click. Fortunately it was really windy out and we had good cover so the birds did not spook at either misfire and they did not see me reach for my gun. This hunt took a bit longer, we sat for a good while and I was settling in for a nice mid morning nap when the first bird gobbled behind us. It took about 30 minutes, which seemed like forever at the time for these birds to come around the corner and work into range. Fortunately, Will cut the footage down so the video below gets right into the action.

Huston and I are glad this concludes all the action that was caught on film. We came out of the gates hot but the turkey's ended up getting the better of us for the rest of the weekend. We had a great time, and I would like to give special thanks to Thomas, Smith, and Charles Ragsdale for creating such awesome turkey habitat and sharing it with Huston and I.

Last Hunt of the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 18:34:00 +0000

Oakey and I wrapped up the season with a bang. We got to the marsh on Friday afternoon with only about an hour and a half to hunt and #1 creek which is right out in front of our shack was totally jammed with geese that were trying to stay out of the wind. I have seen them sit in the mouth of this creed a bunch but never pile in all the way up in the marsh like they were this time. We decided to hunt double ought which is the oldest blind in the marsh and named that because my grandfather once dropped a deer with double ought buck shot from the same blind. This was the first time we hunted this blind all season and we were not sorry. We quickly killed our limit of geese and swatted 3 wood ducks which was a total surprise. We usually only see woodies in the first part of the season. I sky busted one goose but everything else had its feet down. The next morning we hunted #4 and it was pretty much the same story. We had a group of about 4o geese do it just right and we dropped our limit out of that one group. We ended up scraping out 4 mallards and probably could have dropped a couple more if we were on our game at first light but I think we were both over served the night before and not firing on all cylinders at first light.

Dex did great as usual but he let one cripple get away that he definitely would have caught up to two years ago. The old man is starting to slow down a little bit but is still no softy as you can tell by the ice in his coat. He still has the fire in his belly

2nd to last hunt of 2010/2011 season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 18:55:00 +0000

Bob, Dad, Taylor, and I all headed down to the marsh for the second to last weekend of the season. I was pretty psyched because it looked like the weather was going to cooperate. They were calling for 10-15 mph winds out of the west and the temperature was suppose to dip down in the twenties. The last time Bob came down it was bluebird and we only killed 1 goose and 1 scaup, so I was hoping we could show him a better hunt. Unfortunately the weather only cooperated partially. It got cold but as you can tell in the sunrise pic below it was dead still until about 1:30 in the afternoon. We also had a low ceiling which was nice but the wind would have helped a ton with the ducks. Dad and Taylor hunted the point blind and limited out on geese almost immediately. They had a big group do it just right and 3 birds did back flips, and then they filled their limit on a single. It took Bob and I hunted #4 and it took us a little longer but we had our limit of geese by about 9:30 and we snuck in one green head which was nice because he did it just right. We saw a bunch of ducks fly early but they did not even give us a look. The water was like a mirror and our dekes looked ridiculous. The whole crew left me after the morning hunt and I had to call in the reserves to hunt with me in the afternoon. Mase, Duncan, and Merrick joined me for an afternoon hunt and the wind finally showed up and the tide got full. We killed 4 more geese and 3 greenheads. All the ducks we killed and one of the geese decoyed perfectly. We had one green head drop straight down from at least a hundred yards up with his wing tips almost touching. All in all it was a good day I just wish that wind had showed up sooner. As is becoming pretty standard this season we all could have killed 10 geese per gun in the morning. They are every where.

Cash came down for his first trip to the marsh to get a lesson in Duck Doggin from Dex.

We had a beautiful sunrise those ripples are wake from our john boat. We had absolutely no wind

La Paloma Sola

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:44:00 +0000

Over new years we went to visit our family in Texas. We have been down to Austin a bunch of times now, but this was my first trip to the ranch in South Texas. The name of the ranch is La Paloma Sola(Lonesome Dove) and it is about 3,000 acres of white tail heaven about 3 hours south of San Antonio. Although I have been deer hunting a handful of times in my life I have never actually killed one, and my brother in law John is literally a pro so I was super excited to learn what it was all about. We got their pretty late on Thursday so we just had an evening cocktail cruise while spreading corn around the main loop. I was completely blown away. These deer were all substantially bigger then any other white tail I had ever seen in real life. I think this place is where Field and Stream comes to get those cover shots that I always assumed were fake. The next morning we hunted a blind they call pin wheel. There was heavy fog at first light but as soon as the fog lifted there were at least 20 deer within range. About 6-7 of those were all really impressive bucks. They were impressive to me anyway but I think most of them were pretty run of the mill for the ranch. Anyway the morning was action packed we saw two 10 point bucks fight until one got its butt whipped and took off. We also had a young (2.5 year old) 10 point walk right in front of the blind. I got some really cool video that I hope to post soon.

John explained that my first deer should be a doe so we waited for the action to slow down a little bit and then he picked a nice size doe that he wanted me to shoot. Fortunately despite my shaking I dropped it like a sack of potatoes which was kind of surprising. I just assumed it would run a little bit. That afternoon John and I went over to another part of the ranch where John had seen some cull bucks(4-5 year old dear with what Texans consider unimpressive antlers). The idea is that you get these guys out of the breeding population and leave the bigger deer to enhance the gene pool. That same afternoon we hunted a blind called W7 and there was a lot of action but John did not see the deer he wanted me to kill. I must admit that I was feeling pretty trigger happy and it was hard to lay off the handful of really nice deer that we saw. The next morning we went back to the same spot and to my relief one of the deer John wanted to take out of the population showed himself. Despite the fact this deer was only an 8 point(but with several tines broken off from fighting) he looked like a bruiser to me and had a much bigger body on him than a lot of the younger deer we saw with massive racks. He also was covered with scars from fighting and had a really pronounced dark red forehead. Here are some pics

This is Bob trying to help John get rid of his hiccups. We were all pretty well lubed up at this point. I think there is video of this as well.

This deer let us get pretty close in the truck and Bob got some great pictures.

This is a gang of 5 long beards all running away from us. We saw a gang of about 50 birds in another field and of course did not have the camera with us. We will have to go visit in spring sometime soon.

This is the whole crew

This shows most of the buildings on the ranch. We stayed in the white buildings off to the right.

The first night we got there we had an incredible sunset and Bob got these amazing pictures.

More from La Paloma Sola coming soon as soon as I can get my video editing software working again.

"I DON'T WANT NO GOOSE"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:04:00 +0000

My Uncle Kelly and I got down the marsh just before all the snow showed up and did some damage despite the fact that we had absolutely no wind. Kelly killed a goose the afternoon before I got there and the next morning we limited out on geese and killed 3 gadwall, 3 mallards, and another drake pintail. None of the ducks decoyed just right because our spread looked pretty fishy after some junks of skim ice tangled up a bunch of our decoys and the tide took a couple away. Also Kelly stoned a goose at about 50 yards right above us that landed directly on my new robo d and smashed it. We got em to come in and take a good look though which ended up being good enough. For the most part we shot straight and Dex did a great job on a couple tough retrieves. We had one mallard sail on us and land on the other sided of the river and swim up in the marsh. Towards the end of the day we took Dex over to the other side to let him hunt the shore line even though we did not think there was much of a chance of finding the bird, but Dex found it within a couple minutes. All in all a good day in what is turning out to be a pretty solid season down at The Marsh.

I stopped at the Rayzway on my way home and one of the ladies behind the counter asked me if I had any ducks I could share with her. I quickly offered one of the 4 geese I had in the truck, and she looked at me like I had just offered her a fresh dog turd and exclaimed "I DONT WANT NO GOOSE!!!" :)

"Cash" Arrives

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:48:00 +0000

Yesterday Sarah and I drove down to south west VA with Taylor to pick up his puppy "Cash". These folks have some really good looking dogs and Taylor got the pick of the litter. He is a male with a black nose just like his daddy "Beau Brooks". "Brooks" is one of the best looking yellow labs I have ever seen. Here are some pics.

Sarah with one of Cash's cute little sisters. It was tough for us to get out of there with just one puppy, but cooler heads prevailed.

That's Cash on the far right catching a nap with two of his sisters.

Cash with his new Dad

Cash up close

This is Beau Brooks showing off in his pen. He looks to be about 80-85 lbs and handsome.

Brooks just hanging tight

He is a beef cake for sure

"I like DAT DUCK"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:03:00 +0000

My brother Taylor and I had a pretty good swat yesterday morning. It is amazing how much difference a good cold front and a little breeze makes. We hunted two weeks ago on opening day and it was 60 degrees and dead still. We scraped out 1 goose and 1 ring neck but it was pretty slow. Yesterday we had a great mixed bag with 2 pintails, 2 mallards, 1 ring neck, 1 teale, and 3 geese. Here are some pics

My dad stole my chest waders and left them in the back of his car which is in the richmond airport parking lot so I borrowed his hip boots and ended up filling them which sucked!

Taylor with his new hunting dog

The first bull Pintail I ever remember killing down at our marsh. He did it just right with his girlfriend. Taylor and I both shot him in the face and then Taylor got sloppy and shot the lady in the ass

Me and Dex. Dex did a great job yesterday and he is still passed out. The old man is slowing down a bit unfortunately

Taylor and Dex in front of the blind

Our birds hung up at the cabin

New River Part Deux

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:22:00 +0000

Taylor, Mase and I went and did an overnight on The New the last weekend in July and despite the fact that it dumped on us for a solid 6 hours on Saturday we had a great trip. We did not catch a ton of fish but we caught a handful of really nice fish each day. I personally had been on a record setting dink streak so it was exciting to catch some good fish. We also caught every single one of these fish on the surface with big white popping bugs. Most of the fish except for Taylor's monster ate in real slow water near the banks and the takes were super slow and subtle just like a big ole trout.

This was the biggest fish of the trip. A solid 19" measured on the cooler. It ate in fast water and put up a hell of a fight. Taylor did a hell of a job just to land this fish. About 45 minutes after this fish I had a bigger one slurp my popping bug charge me, jump out of the water so we could see him, and spit it right back in the boat. He still haunts my dreams

Hard to see how fat this fish is but he is a hoss.

Honeymoon

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 01:44:00 +0000

We went down to Belize for our honeymoon and it was incredible. I have not done a ton of saltwater flyfishing, but I have fished The Keys, Mexico, and the Bahamas on several occasions. It is safe to say that Belize is now at the top of my list. Belize hosts more Grand Slams (Permit, Tarpon, and Bonefish) then any other country in the world, and after fishing here it is easy to see why. Our first morning we spent in the mangroves fishing for Tarpon and Snook, then when the sun came out we ran out to the bonefish flats and caught bonefish till the tide got right to chase Mr. P. That same day I caught a Tarpon(dink), Bonefish, Snook, and Barracuda all on the fly. My wife also landed 4 bonefish on her very first saltwater fly fishing expedition. We owe much of our success to Captain Eworth Garbut, who is the best guide I have ever fished with. Typically I end the day chomping at the bit and wishing we could stay out for a couple more hours but Eworth (pronounced Euort) had me begging for mercy at the end of both days. His passion for fishing, knowledge of the area, and ability to get the most out of his anglers with the perfect balance of optimism/encouragement and criticism/instruction are unparalleled. We can't wait to go back!!

Go Fish with Eworth and his Brothers!! also we stayed at Turtle Inn

New River Madness

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:41:00 +0000

For my bachelor party 10 of us headed west to do an overnight on the New River. We had an amazing time and while the fishing wasn't exactly red hot we ate and drank well and the scenery was spectacular. We also managed to catch a couple nice fish. Including probably the biggest fresh water fish any of us will ever see in real life again.

Dinner

My buddy Mcnair landed this 44 inch 24.6lb tiger muskie on a 5wt fly rod with 2x(9lb) tippet. It took him almost 30 minutes to land it and almost as long for us to revive it. The outfitter we were fishing with who has been guiding on this river for 28 years says there is no doubt in his mind that this fish was the largest muskie ever landed on such light tackle.

Last Two Weeks of the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:46:00 +0000

We like to start em young in the commonwealth

2nd hunt back in VA

Last day of the season we hunted in a full on blizzard. I saw two accidents on the way to the duck hole

This pic does not doe it justice but Dex was completely coated in ice

My buddy Troy who hosted this mission with Dex and a lot of Green

Last Trip Out West and Virginia Come Back

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:50:00 +0000

Captain commander pooty tang with Boudreaux and Dex (behind him). This pic is from our first hunt in town. We killed our limit in about 2 hours. 13 wigeon and one green head.

Poot and I had an unreal hunt on our 3rd day. We set up in a new spot with a strong wind from right to left. When we first set up it was clear and sunny which is great for this section of river. It was slow for the first 45 minutes until we had a group of 40 mallards do it perfectly. 3 greenheads dropped in from about 200 yds up like they were coming down an elevator shaft. We let the 3 land and the rest of the group took one more pass and came in about the same time that the 3 green heads on the water spooked. Poot and I killed 5 out of the group. One of which was the double banded bird below with a $100 money band. It ended up getting really foggy which we thought would be a deal killer but we started calling alot to help the birds find us in the fog and it only took us about another hour to fill our limit of mallards.

This picture is from the boat ramp on the way out after hour last hunt of the trip. It was 33 and rainy with a 15mph wind all day. Unfortunately the hunting was good enough for us to fill our limit but it took us all day and we were soaked to the bone and miserable by the time we got out of there.
This pic is from my first duck hunt back in Virginia. My buddy invited me to a beaver swamp he has access to about 45 min from Charlottesville. We shot a green head that sailed into the woods beyond the swamp and we assumed it was lost, but at the end of the hunt I walked over to where I thought the bird went down and sent Dex on it and to all of our surprise he found it.

Oakey and I went down to the Marsh two weeks ago on a Thursday evening and the next morning we killed 10 mallards/blacks in about an hour and a half which is the best hunt I have ever had down at our marsh. The whole river was frozen up except for a chunk of open water in the middle of our marsh. We walked to the hole and tossed out a handfull of dekes and the birds worked perfectly. We ended up hunting the river in the afternoon as the ice moved out with the tide and killed 2 more ducks to fill our limit and 3 geese just one shy of a limit. This one is permantently burned in my mind. Pretty much everything was perfect. The ducks worked perfectly, we shot straight, and Dex was absolutely perfect. Without him we would not have been able to get to or find any of our ducks.
Dex was so tired he fell asleep in the fire. :)

Dex helping dad drive.

Dad and Taylor joined Oakey and I on Friday evening and on Saturday the ice made the hunting a lot tougher but we ended up scratching out 4 ducks in 4 shots. Taylor folded a black duck at shooting time followed up by a triple by Oakey later in the day.

Yesterday the King brothers treated us to a great goose hunt out at their place. Thanks Guys!!