Feathers and Fins

Well sat out at Beaver this evening till Dark, the hunt will be postponed till a little later in the day no doubt the roads will be dangerous in the morning so we will wait till 8am to go. I do not think it will matter though saw plenty of birds coming in from the North this evening adding to the rafts already on the water. They were large flocks coming in from HIGH. Looks like at least a few days of real good gunning ahead. The long lines are loaded. Hey Ducky hows the #6's working out for you?

This guy is still kicking but had to take the picture. Dont worry him and his buddies will be dealt with tomorrow

Ive seen plenty of the scaup this year, even saw a raft of about 5000 on the big muddy Sunday and what really is suprising was seen large flocks on small slews down home. Pintail numbers are way higher than what they said I can promise you that had one res pond that was covered in them my guess would be 8 to 10 thousand just on it and all the rice fields had more pinnies than skeeters for a change. This front finaly brought in birds. Marty has a tendancy to make peoples mouths water lol. I can say this I am tired of killing geese though we hammered them on the farm all through the christmas break, limits on Specks and Snows, I swore I wouldnt do that to snows again but hey we had plenty of kids for cleaning duty so all the big kids had to do was shoot them lmao.

Missed an oppertunity on some Cans yesterday, Had some guys comming at me in blaze orange and a small boat that flared them out. Tomorrow its going to be on though Chris, You should come on over.

Yes I have to login everytime and posting or sending PM's is taking forever, I tried posting a pic this morning and it kicked me off several times.

Goldies, Greenwings and Mallard. its about time.

Beaver has a few birds and a few less

That they are, I sent some to my father in Cali and he has been beating up the big FL Strain's on them, he says you cannot find them out there and he is outfishing people around him Texas Rigged, I hadnt thought about using them way the 1/4oz jighead seems to work best here just slowly ticking the bottom. I did hear a rumor of real nice walleye on them 2 days ago from the back of rocky branch in 8fow

I might be crazy but im going with 22.0 if someone finds the fish I had been catching, most were 4lbs with a few 5's mixed in. The temps might have shut it down however I think a good angler locating them could do 20 to 25 if they stay on them and dont get frustrated and go running and gunning. Derek I still havent thrown an A-rig yet its been to good a bite on cranks and slow crawling keitechs to even worry about it chucking the heavy creature.

I have to say it doesnt affect me at all. I love to hunt and fish and thats what i do for mental health. I dont care if its a small creek and the smallest of whatever is in it or a big lake and its monsters of the deep. 2 hours fishing clears my head of all problems and refreshes me and that CANNOT have a price put on it.

Made it back home today after a nightmare of a drive through Littlerock, Hunted this morning from the backyard at dads house and had snows and specks flying over for an hour nonstop, Pulled the specks out fast and then shot snows till momma called us in for breakfast. Snow line pushed birds right to us and it was great. 4 day total for the family was insane bucks,ducks and geese. I can say I love being down there for how lazy the goose shooting it is and make no mistakes it pure pass shooting as they come out of the field over the house at 10 to 30 yards or bumrushing fields for them. The ducks Papa has a oxbow off Coon Bayou that holds ducks but with two inches of rain yesterday it washed all the left over grain into every slew and bayou and those birds were piling in took us 5 minutes for 12 guys after breakfast to limit. Now its back on Beaver tomorrow to see about some diver action.

Boys I can tell you this. Geese are in Arkansas but VERY FEW DUCKS, I ran many farm roads today and at most saw 5 to 7 thousand ducks. Arkansas County, Drew County and Desha Counties these arnt just farm roads any jack and joe can ride but locked roads you have to have the key to get through and some prime duck hunting lease land. The #1 duck was Spoonage followed by Teal and then Gaddie. On the Goose front there are more snows and specks than i have seen in many years. Birds are north or on duck parks north. My brother hunted Beaver and said he saw 15 to 20 goldeneye and a couple buffleheads and that was it. Im just glad i like making geese die. Will be running some areas with my cousins tomorrow to see if we can scratch a limit of ducks and that is horrible to say that when normally all i should have to do is walk down to the 300 acres of rice behind mom and dads house and be done 10 minutes later. There just arnt birds down and what is here is concentrated in a few spots.

Im sitting at my mother and father -in-laws house watching the morning news when what do i hear but the sound of specks and snows. The gun was packed with tender care sitting in the truck in the driveway waiting for such a clank. Out from the house I did spring and bound only to see skies filled with geese. Out came the gun with a bang and a bang 2 less tundra munchers did fall to the ground. The old blind dog she did retrieve as if she still had the sight of a 9 month old. I know its wrong and im bless to be able to do it. But watching and guiding Sam to two more geese was the best gift i could have gotten.

Mayeb a few times lol. But also been known to throw the fly at them

Al, short of armed guards at all entrance's you cannot secure a school enough to prevent this and even with armed guards I dont know if you can. A determined Killer will find a way and what if it was multiple shooters? My wifes a teacher but neither her nor I am worried about it happening at her school and if it does we both know the best she can do and others is lock the doors and hope LEO gets there fast enough to minimize the death toll. I have been following polls on teachers CC at school and almost all of them are 50/50 this nation is so divided on so many issues its sad. I like many have seen the picture of the Israel teacher with the AK on her back and Ive read the stats to go with it. Problem here is our teachers were not in the Military first and trained in combat tactics nor would we ever accept some kids in cross fire acceptable.

Blowing 20 to 30 with gust to 40+ aint no way im trying the big lake today but tomorrow morning Im going to give it a shot. Justin, there are more geese down there than i have seen in many years, birds that were there are stale as 10 day old bread left in the sun, if new birds came in it should be good. My buddy said two days ago they had swore a spoonie was sitting out in the pond with a range finder giving them the finger as he was running land control for other ducks. They know the range from the blind. If you have a field with green in it shoot the specks.

Go with Farmers Ive seen how they take care of the clients at least on the home end durring major storms... Patrick Burton is Johnson is a good guy.

PS, Santa you use reindeer to get around on Christmas Eve and if we dont have birds we might mistake them for a DUCK. Signed I sure will miss Rudolph

Psst guys, when they make the run this year think skinny water anf flies.

That was the pattern, shad were pancaked on the bottom most the day you could pick them up and then about 330 they came up in massive balls.

And here they are http://gfp.sd.gov/hunting/waterfowl/counts/week05.aspx not down by much, take into account all the refuge and wma counts and the birds are STILL ( sighhhhh) up north. I just hope the PPR gets tons and tons of rain this spring and we have a even better hatch so when we finally get a real winter we can get in on some historic gunning.

Mitch to me the ZONE is just being out there. Everything else is years of experiance and being able to put them all togeather to find the tool that works for that given moment and be adaptable and smart enough to know when to search for the next palce or pattern based off those years to accomplish the goal. Hunting, Fishing, relationships or even work it is past experiance in a "zone" that will produce the pattern of success.

Or just take a picture of the screen with a camera. Its much faster lol. Sorry Its how i do it I got tired of all the bull with the screen capture.

Oh ya we caught them, 12 to 17pnd class fish, That ball actually blacked out the graph for 30 seconds and was about 100 yards long. It was only 1 of about 10 balls that size all of them had those nasty arches on them. We had Looney on the graph a few times ourselves he is just so dam neat to watch. We were using BIG brooder minnows HLS had some great ones yesterday, no way to castnet those shad in the wind yesterday or I bet we would have caught tons of stripers. I had the side scan on and saw many schools of stipers in the area it kept switching between it and the up and down to target the shad balls.

Bushwacker is a fun lake to play on. stick to the south end timber, there are many little pothole ponds people dont even know about in SWMO that are open to public. I explore many of them never expecting a bite and when i get one i call it a great day.