Showing posts with label outdoors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label outdoors. Show all posts

Saturday, March 24, 2012

2nd Annual Upland Bird Hunt

BO and his phesant.

BO and his pheasant

Today all the guys at Briary River went on our 2nd Annual Upland Bird hunt at Spring Grove Preserve.  It was Bo’s first trip with us and we had a ball.  It was a chore to get the weather to cooperate with us today, but in the end, it was a great day.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Why Tonto was so Skinny

Maybe I am crazy, maybe I am to much like my daddy.  I don’t know.  I just like a challenge.  Most guys hunt with a rifle and I like that too.  Sometimes though I just want to use the bow.  Its  the challenge of it.  Anyone can drop a deer from 40-200 yards with a rifle, but to get them close, to draw without being busted and to make the shot where you can watch the arrow fly.  Now that is just awesome.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

First Deer of the year… Or several for that matter.

Well Last week Buckman broke his curse and killed a good 7 point.  Saturday morning I followed suit. 
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Its hard to see but there is an 8th point

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

The Weather is Fine

The past couple weeks the weather has been perfect. The nights have been cool, the mornings brisk, and the day time temperatures have lingered around that point where you wonder if you need something more than a t-shirt. It’s the perfect weather for a sportsman. Deer season opened here September first. With any luck the weather will stay this way. The water temperature will start dropping, the fish will start biting and once again be good to eat. All of this is fine except…. I am a teacher and a football coach. This time of year, this most wonderful time of year for sportsmen, is all consumed by football. Sunday through Friday teaching and coaching eat up my day light hours.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Food Plots

Deer season is here.  Well for most of us it is here.  I could have been hunting since August 15 but lets face it is just too hot for that.  However we did get the food plots planted. 

Monday, August 1, 2011

Last Days of Summer

Last week I alluded to the fact that summer was drawing to an end for me. Last Monday Joe, Coach, Bo and I took the day to take the dogs up to the H. Cooper Black Memorial Field Trial and Recreation area in Chesterfield County. This is a public facility run by the state of South Carolina Parks service. It is set up for dog and horse events.

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Thursday, July 28, 2011

The First Deer

First I would like to say that I am sorry for not posting in a while.  I don’t want to make excuses but I just was not feeling it the last couple of weeks.  Now I'm back. 

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.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Geese

They are big.  They are slow.  And for some reason I can not seem to kill one. 

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Great Hunting Guns

When I think back to all the years I have hunted there are a lot of good memories there. Memories, mostly of people, places, and dogs, that have been a part of my hunting past. Also embedded in my memory are the guns that I have been lucky enough to own and hunt with. These are not the fancy high dollar guns that you see in the hands of big name hunters on TV shows, they are the common guns owned by a common man.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Fathers Day

We here at Briary River would like to say thank you to our dads and to all the dads out there that are teaching or have taught their children a love for the outdoors.

 

Driving the tractor with Papa (My dad)

 

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Sporting Clays at Springrove

Saturday June 4th was my birthday. So in celebration of me getting older the guys and I returned to Springrove Preserve for a round of sporting clays. It was a great day.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

The Monkey

Today Buckman and I are going to try something different.  We are releasing two blogs together on the same subject at the same time.  We are doing this to give you both sides of the situation.  Let us know what you think.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

For the Good of the Child

My six year old son Bo was expecting to go fishing Saturday. He had been good all week long in school. He said I had promised to take him fishing if he was good in school that week. I remember no such promise, but it didn’t take much to convince me to take my son fishing regardless.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Why is it that as soon as I decide to go Turkey hunting there are no turkeys to be found.

 

I know it is a little late for turkey season.  But With PASS testing going on I am brain dead and this was all that I could think of to write about. 

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

He Thought He Could Walk On Water

He just did not have the faith.

Let me first explain that we all have our fears.  Mine is spiders and most of the guys here at Briary River are terrified of snakes.  I respect snakes but I am not afraid of them. 

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Between Seasons Drag

I noticed a couple weeks ago that the between seasons drag was back. It never fails. We have all kinds of big plans for what needs to be done. After duck season ends Joe is always gung ho about getting everything done right then. After a couple weeks that passion fades and the amount of things getting done slows down. This year it took the slow down a little longer to start. The excitement of starting something new pushed up a little farther than normal.

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.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Food and Fellowship

I’ve hunted for as long as I can remember. As my brother so eloquently put, “It’s all I know, it’s in my soul.” What I’ve noticed the most over the past ten years is how the things I enjoy most about hunting have changed. Years ago it was the thrill of the hunt itself that I most enjoyed. However, over the past few years it has been the fellowship of the hunt that I find I enjoy the most.

The beauty of enjoying fellowship is that it does not have to end with hunting season. We have found through the years that food brings fellowship. In our area sportsmen have certain signature foods that they cook. We get together throughout the year and cook. We enjoy cooking the local sportsmen’s foods, and we have also added a few new things to the line up of things that we cook.

Here are the things that you can expect to learn how to cook if you keep up with our blog:

Purlow: A food found almost exclusively in the Pee Dee area of South Carolina. It is a rice dish not to be confused with chicken-and-rice or chicken bog.

Bar-B-Que: If I make you mad, then so be it. If it ain’t red, then it ain’t Bar-B-Que. If you base your sauce with anything but vinegar, it’s sacrilege. That’s just the way it is around here. I’m not saying that there is nothing else cooked on a grill that is good to eat, but I am saying that I wouldn’t call it Bar-B-Que.

Low Country Boil: This can be called by several other names, like Frogmore Stew. This combination of shrimp, sausage, corn and potatoes satisfies the seafood lover in you.

Dutch Oven Delights: We had never cooked with a Dutch oven until Joe introduced us to one last year. Nothing fosters fellowship like sitting around a fire on a cold night with the scent of cooking corn bread or cobbler lingering in the air.

All of these foods foster fellowship. Unlike duck hunting which can only be done during hunting season, you can cook year-round. Year-round fellowship, that’s the Briary River Way.

Buckman

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