EF2’s 2020 Fall Hunt

[seeth07]

My wife took our twins to appointments for 2 outpatient surgeries each today, and I took our daughter fishing. Chance of thunderstorms, but I figured I’d keep an eye on the sky and make a day of it.
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Five mins after this pic the sky got dark and a front blew in with heavy straight line winds. We took shelter under a bridge for about an hour, then went back to fishing. No bites but she had a lot of fun wading, splashing, and throwing rocks.

A 30-min drive home and we found our neighborhood got hit far worse.
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News said it was 99mph winds. Between 3 roofs, gutters, siding, deck, x5 widow maker branches removal, and limb-impaled central A/C unit I’d guess $30k in damage. I patched a fist-sized hole in the roof so we don’t get a waterfall in our living room.

Today I am thankful for insurance, the power just coming back on, BIL who came out to help clear debris off our windows and doors, an adequate emergency fund, no one in my family was hurt, and now only half as many leaves to rake during hunting season.

Ouch man, sorry to hear that. We were fortunate up here in East central Wisconsin as it all passed just south of us. Looked nasty to our south and hearing lots of reports from family and friends that are in the same boat as you. Take care and best of luck with insurance and clean up

 

[LCH]

Dang, glad you're covered and were safe.. But.. IS THE CAT ALRIGHT??

 

[Pucky Freak]

I went ahead and ground up the last of my venison and turkey to free up some space and clean my freezer.

Before pic of the clean chest freezer

 

[Pucky Freak]

Checked to see what the derecho storm did to my private land hunting spot. Treestand was intact. Natural blind had blown away and I rebuilt it. Also an unexpected benefit of many fallen trees and limbs for additional deer cover.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Took the day off Friday to float the river, and do some dove scouting. I was a little too ambitious in how far up river I put in during a drought. Avg water depth was just 4”

No eagles along the first 5 of 6.5 river miles - a hint as to where the fish were not. I didn’t get a bite all day. Water very clear again due to no runoff. Deepest holes were only 2 1/2 to 3’ and I spotted maybe 100 fish, mostly suckers and small bass, and almost all were after I started seeing eagles. Some fish had visible scars, possibly from avian predators. A half mile before the take out a large tributary increased the flow, and I bet a few miles downriver there were some deep spots packed with fish. A stashed bike let me peddle back to where my truck was parked.

It ended up being a nice day for birding - tons of killdeer, plus herons, wood ducks, geese, 2 pheasants, 12 turkeys (6 hens, 6 polts). On the mammal side a squirrel, raccoon, and a homeless guy camped on the bank.

Later in the day I looked over 4 dove plots. This one with sorghum and sunflowers had zero doves at 1PM, but an hour before sunset there were about a dozen feeding.

A similar plot I counted about 60 doves in 20 mins, which will be the destination Tues.

Ended the day with a public land pigeon ambush. They have to fly out from under a bridge and cross over a corner of public to shoot, but I spooked six of them and they took off in a different direction.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Waited for the thunderstorm to subside, then headed out with my buddy for doves about 2pm. Plenty of birds and only one other guy on the public piece. They liked to alight on this dead tree and we shot one off there.

I ended up with 8 including my first Eurasian dove, and my buddy got 9. We recovered all except the last bird. Went to pick it up an hour after shooting, there was plenty of blood, but it flew off! Buddy was holding both guns, and it escaped to become raccoon food.

Unsuccessful pigeon ambush from the other day.

 

[MN_Bowhunter4]

Awesome way to start the fall!

 

[Pucky Freak]

Squirrel opener today, but hunting will have to wait for a while. Derecho repairs with my free time for the next 3 weeks.

 

[mdeerjunkie]

Waited for the thunderstorm to subside, then headed out with my buddy for doves about 2pm. Plenty of birds and only one other guy on the public piece. They liked to alight on this dead tree and we shot one off there.
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I ended up with 8 including my first Eurasian dove, and my buddy got 9. We recovered all except the last bird. Went to pick it up an hour after shooting, there was plenty of blood, but it flew off! Buddy was holding both guns, and it escaped to become raccoon food.
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Unsuccessful pigeon ambush from the other day.
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That’s awesome!

 

[Pucky Freak]

My wife was occupied with the twins Monday so I got to “sub” for my daughter’s preschool/homeschool for a couple hours. We picked leaves for an art project, and I brought along an unloaded gun to normalize for her walking around in the woods armed. She heard a squirrel chatter quite a ways off and said, “Dad, you get after him.” I told her maybe another time.

 

[Pucky Freak]

I'm up to around 130 hours spent on repairing storm damage over the last 3 weeks, mostly evenings after work and weekends. I did the work myself because between the deductible and several things that insurance didn't cover, I thought it would be too cost prohibitive to hire out the work. I'm still aggressively pushing for a secondary settlement that I believe will go in my favor on at least a couple of items. I had several people help out here and there with the work, including neighbors, friends, and family, plus I hired out helpers for a couple days of gig work. I ended up burning about 8 vacation days that was supposed to be for hunting, but the good news is I still have plenty of time on the books for this fall since I had a ton saved up before the storm.

The house and garage have completely new roofs and gutters, and my siding is fixed. I also brought my garage roof up to code with ice/water barrier, roof vent, and soffit vents so I can later insulate and heat the garage (next year). New central A/C unit installed (hired out). Still on the project list is shed roof, ceiling drywall (water damage), minor deck repair, replace TV antenna, and arborist limb removal (partially hired out). When it's all said and done I'm guessing I'll have about 6k leftover in my pocket from being my own handyman contractor, plus some new tools, so it's a mixed bag I guess.

 

[Pucky Freak]

I keep hearing all these people wanting 2020 to be over already, like it's just one bad thing after another. I am forcing myself to be an optimist. Each year ends with my favorite season, hunting season! Which is now starting to kick up for me finally. Another setback though - yesterday I had this weird sensation start in my chest, which I just brushed off and ignored. Today it got worse. I finally caved and called my doctor, got evaluated, and the short of it is I developed "ectopic rhythm." From what I've been told it's a minor heart condition that is basically annoying as f---, but harmless. Heart has an extra early and forceful beat about every 8 beats, then no beat at all for 2-3 seconds. I am getting blood work and have to wear a heart monitor for a few days to gather more info, to see if there is something that can be done to fix it. I'm just kind of ignoring it but my wife is kind of (unnecessarily) freaking out. I guess I got to live the first 36 years of my life with almost zero health conditions, so I've been very blessed.

 

[Pucky Freak]

So after all this screwing around with the house, and zero bow practice I am getting serious about shooting my bow regularly. At first I was godawful. I changed my anchor point from mandibular notch to the string resting 3/4" off the corner of my mouth on my bottom lip, and this seems to help with consistency. I had to adjust the windage on my sight to compensate, and I'm dialed in now. The first day I was making 6" circles at 20 yards, but now after about 5 days and 100 arrows I'm back to a silver dollar size at that distance. I've noticed that my first arrow of the day is oftentimes the worst shot. I'm considering shooting a Block when I get out of the truck and before hitting the woods to get my one bad shot out of the way, and not have it be on an animal.

 

[Sytes]

I've not sent a single arrow this year. In fact... I've not pulled my bow from it's case. This year has been a tough one all around. Look forward to how your hunt pans out!

 

[Pucky Freak]

Goose opener is tomorrow and I was able to scout a few spots the last 2 evenings.

The first spot was oxbows, some of which were on public and some on private. The flock landed on private before dark, so it didn't look too promising.

The second spot is 2 large ponds near a lake that is not open for hunting. No birds on pond 1, and on pond 2 saw three sandhill cranes (pic). I think they have the coolest call. Anyways, no birds on either, but 250 geese on the lake. About 15 geese flew over the pond and over my head, and all the rest of them took off in the direction of pond #1. I drove back to that pond (2-3 miles), but they were not on the water. I don't know where they went...

In the morning I'm either going to pond 2 hoping some geese visit when the start flying in the AM, or...Take a gamble and hunt a large wetland area that I didn't scout at all, but had plenty of birds last year. I'll decide in the morning.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Down to 10 mins to decide. Ponds where 250 geese hang out but none spent the night, or wetland which is a big ? Hard to leave birds to find birds, but the wetland has so many options to check if I don’t find them right away.

 

[Pucky Freak]

Picked wetlands and it was a bust. More like “drylands” with the drought as the only water was in the river channel. Another armed hike in the books


Hard to see, but there was a beaver in there deciding if he wanted to hold tight or take a dive.

 

[duckhunt]

Either way that's a good morning. I'm working today.

 

[mdeerjunkie]

Picked wetlands and it was a bust. More like “drylands” with the drought as the only water was in the river channel. Another armed hike in the books

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Hard to see, but there was a beaver in there deciding if he wanted to hold tight or take a dive.
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Looks like fun at least!

 

[Pucky Freak]

Oct 1 archery opener - not sure I’m going to make it out tho (?). In the ER for acute heart problem.