Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ducks. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Water Glorious Water

Well again it has been a while but I think it is about time to get started back up hard and heavy.  Last week Buckman and myself walked out to check the pond and we have water in it.  Now it is only a little water but with it being as bad as it was, this is a vast improvement. 

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Christmas Eve Rice Rocket

It is a Briary River tradition to hunt the Beaver Pond on Christmas Eve. We have done it for years. Most of the guys here will tell you, Bo dictates where I shoot ducks, in one way or another he picks the blind. The first year he hunted with me he was too small to go to the blind, so I pulled my truck up in the corner of my yard and let him sit in the truck while I shot ducks outside the truck in my yard. He didn’t have a choice about hunting with me most mornings, you see, Saturday morning was usually the only morning I had to hunt, and his Mama works on Saturday, so Bo had to hunt with me, that’s just all there was too it. Then there were the special mornings when I was off for Christmas break when his Mama didn’t have to work. On those mornings I got to hunt the pond.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hunting the Swamp

Years ago I was a member of a local deer driving club. Most of the members were family. Many family members joined the club because our family had hunted there for so long, even though they didn’t hunt very often. It was a great club. Between the land my family owned and what we leased from timber companies, we had more than four thousand acres to hunt. The time we all spent hunting there was great fun.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Hunting the Swamp

Years ago I was a member of a local deer driving club. Most of the members were family. Many family members joined the club because our family had hunted there for so long, even though they didn’t hunt very often. It was a great club. Between the land my family owned and what we leased from timber companies, we had more than four thousand acres to hunt. The time we all spent hunting there was great fun.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Duck Pond Etiquette

There are rules and etiquette to hunting anywhere.  A beaver pond is no exception.  In fact private land is where they are the most important because it can cost you your hunting buddies

.

We all know the guy.  The one no one wants to hunt with because he is a pain in

the butt.  He always wants the best blind, he always takes the wrong shots, and he kills every bird he points his gun at (or at least he thinks he does).  Well this is your chance to not be “That Guy”.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The Perfect Season

You always hear of the perfect storm, the storm that happens when God decides to line everything up perfectly to show you a glimpse of his awesome power. Hunters are always searching for a perfect season, that season when God’s grace lines everything up for you perfectly, and you have an awesome season.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Kids and hunting

Bo and Cindy after a hunt.
The sun was up the dogs were running (just not to us.) Daddy and I were sitting on the side of the middle road (a dirt road on the hunting club)and he was teaching me how to whittle.  We didn’t kill any thing that day, I don’t even remember if we even saw a deer that day but I was hunting and that was all that mattered.  This is one of the earliest clear memories I have of hunting.  And one that will stay with me for a long time.

I remember waking up, going into my parents room, waking my daddy to ask if it was time to go hunting.  I returned to my bed disappointed and tried to go back to sleep but the anticipation was killing me.  Being a young boy I was unable to tell time and it was only 12 o'clock (this was only one of many trips to their room that night to ask that question).  Some of the fondest memories of my childhood involved hunting with my daddy.  In fact it is still some of the fondest memories of now, and hopefully still to come.

I started hunting with my dad when I was just a little boy.  I could not have been much more than five, probably younger.  I learned many lessons there and created many memories.  I learned to sit still and listen (although I still struggle with that, ADHD and all) how to safely handle a gun, that you only kill what you are going to eat and much more.  These lessons helped shape me into the man that I am. 
To many kids hunting is a foreign idea to them.  Many of them will not learn to love spending time in nature.  Nor will they learn to respect nature and firearms the way we did.  From a very young age I knew what a gun was and what it was capable of doing.  I was not scared of it but I knew not to mess with it. Partially because I knew what my daddy would do if I did mess with it.  But he taught me to respect it.  This generation is enveloped with video games and computers.  The only thing they know about guns is what they see on Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty. 

This is why we have to take the time and introduce hunting to kids.  Our sport is a dying one.  It is also the sport with the biggest target on its back.  Without kids learning to hunt and fish it will not last 50 more years.  Besides can you think of a better way to spend time with your kids than to take them hunting.  To be there and enjoy Gods creation with them.  To teach them the lessons they will carry throughout their lives.  To see the excitement on their faces when they see their first animal that they are hunting.  To witness their first kill.  In doing this both of you are making memories.
 
BO with Mallards from one of his first hunts.
It may not even be your child.  So many kids these days are growing up without fathers to take them hunting.  They have no one to tech them these lessons and show them how to enjoy nature.  And they so desperately need it.  Without this, they will grow up not knowing what we hold so dear.  And they very well could be the ones that grow up and try to take it away from us.  Or worse they could become the guy/gal in the tree not far from you who has no clue what he/she is doing, using their rifle scope as a set of binoculars to see what you are doing.

Over the years we have taken many kids hunting with us.  We have watched them grow from kids who have very little knowledge of the outdoors into true sportsmen.  They learned how to handle themselves and how to be safe.  Yes when we first take them hunting it means that we have to miss out on some of the action ourselves but it is worth it.  I would rather watch a kid kill a duck than to shoot one my self.  To see how their eyes light up and the pure awe on their face.  If you have never saw that then you do not know what you are missing.

Even if they are too young to hunt themselves they are amazed by what you do.  Buckman takes his son BO with us regularly.  Now BO is too young to shoot a gun on his on but he loves to watch his daddy shoot ducks.  In fact Buckman says that it is the only time you can get him out of bed without a fight.  And he is learning fast.  When we meet in the morning we ask him where he wants to sit.  He always answers “I want to sit at the fish pond, Daddy shoots better at the fish pond”.  He has also learned how to watch for ducks and that I am the resident duck caller ( I never said I was any good, I just got stuck with the job).  When he sees ducks, and with his young eyes it is usually before us he starts calling out “Blow Joe Blow”.  And at the end of the hunt he can always tell you who killed what.  Except for the green heads he normally claims those for himself.

As you may know, all of this started as us chronicling what we are doing to improve our duck pond.  What you may not know is why.  Yes we want to shoot more ducks.  But more importantly we want a place where our kids can learn to hunt ducks.  BO is already on his way to becoming a great duck hunter but we want to make sure that Bernie's girl Heyleigh and my daughter Molly as well as any other kid we pick up along the way has a place where they can learn to love the outdoors as much as we do.

I the end it does not matter what game you are chasing or what method you are using. All that matters is that we bring a new generation to the sport and make memories.  So take a kid hunting because if you don’t teach them, you never know who or what may.  That’s the Briary River Way.
Joe