Feathers and Fins

So i get home yesterday and find a STORE MAP in my mail. How nice of them to point me to the right areas to save time. To bad I will be out hunting opening weekend, but hey I figure in a few weeks after the crowds have settled down I will go check it out. But this is hunting season and with Goose, Teal then Deer season it will probably be close to October 1st before I get the chance. Priorities come first and momma wants roast goose for dinner

Have no fear 7 and a wake up and the geese will be turning into something useful like jerky or sausage.

facebook big time.....i know its payback for striper porn.

I mix my own bait that works great on cats and carp. 8oz dry dog food, 4pc of white bread and 8oz of corn starch add water until it is the same texture as power bait. Been using it for years and always catches fish.

Had some time this morning so went out to Lake Atlanta for some fun.

With the C&C shirts i can hide my full size Glock with no problem, before them though it was a subcompact and i hated it. Its the old Person see's a small gun they just look at you strange but looking at a full size with a lazer on the chest they will probably not want to push an issue. The best self defense is not the use but the percieved danger of forcing the carrier to use it.

Have you seen some of the new loads for a 380? I wouldnt call them pea shooter loads anymore!

Glock 22 in 40cal, Its a you never know what will happen tool. Never pulled it for self defence but have used it to finish off a few road hit deer.

Based on where it was I would Guess a RAIDERS fan made comments about a 9ers Fans girls tramp stamp and a fight or two broke out. Cali is nuts my friends it takes nothing to get a fight going from that age group with a few spirits added.

Yes I have done well in the evenings, Just be sure to find the flight path as it will be more of a pass shoot then decoying I have found. Not sure why but evening teal hunts remind me more of dove pass shooting. They still decoy to a degree but comitting is not normal its more a pass over look see.

With a bow Justin.... I hate to say it but just walk up and shoot the geese..... Now if its teal put out some goose decoys on the grass and a dozen mallard decoys just at the waters edge. The wonderful thing about teal is they will decoy to anything, even seen them come to old tires a few times.

Its that time of year I start looking for teal and geese. Friday I had to run up to Pitt to look at a job and stopped off at a few local haunts looking for birds. Teal were deffinately on Shawnee but anyone who has hunted it knows the place will be a zoo on opener, I did find decent 30 to 50 bird flocks on a few of the other stock ponds in the area. The resident geese were in several fields and looked to atleast doubled in numbers over the summer. Yesterday I scouted Beaver and found plenty of geese and real strong numbers of teal near any mud flat. My brother went out last night and reported back in he was finding teal and geese around areas as well. Talked to a couple local friends down in OK on the river and they said there is teal around fort smith to sallisaw. Looks like teal might be a good bet this year. Geese is going to be easy again but its hard not to have a good resident season unless you just cant shoot, Remember it is ILLEGAL to heard wildlife so dont try and push the birds offshore or corner them into coves with a boat.

Bill take the pics on your phone and upload to Facebook it will resize it for you, then when you get home copy n paste the link to hear and its done makes it pretty simple. If you want hi-res pictures set your camera high and then when you get home ues Photshop and reduce them (size) to 640x480 and save then upload.

White = early morning, Rocky Branch, Crappie are in the same area in 20 to 25 fow. Walleye are on the flats in the same area. This is all as of yesterday but with temps falling it can change fast. Be ready to use the electronics and move around. I suggest starting with trolling Rapalas or hot n tots 150ft behind the boat so they can reach the target depth and then when they are found use minnows to target the fish. Bites was over by 10:30am yesterday.

Lord it felt good to be back on the lake. I hit the 12 bridge islands at 06:00 this morning and tried for some Walleye, only manged to catch a few Kentucks and Blacks, I got bored with that and decided to go check on some of my goose spots for the opener a few weeks away and found plenty of material for Jerky and Sausage Hit Rocky branch and there were several boats in the area so I decided to troll around and see what I could find. Appears my training of the stripers has paid off they were very happy to bite some rapalas trolled at 22fow managed 6 of them, nothing big mind you just 12 to 15pnds, Picked up some nice hybrids and a couple little whites as well as 3 short walleye and one nice 5lb kitty kittty. Kitty was invited home for dinner tonight. Not a bad day I was off the water by 11:30 just as the crowds started showing up. The magic number for fish is 15 to 25 fow with the majority at 22fow. I was marking stripers in 30 to 35 fow but didnt bother to get bait yesterday to mess with them. If you want cats they are certainly in the area, I was running in 4 to 7 fow looking for hazards come duck season and kept spooking cats, nothing monsterous but perfect table size 3 to 7 pounds max over just about any mud or pea gravel.

Trot Line, the biggest thing is be sure to leave 30ft from the front weight to first decoy you can always pull it up on shore more if you need it closer, and minimum of 50ft on back end weight so you can drop it in deep water. even in shallow marshes this is a quick easy way to set out decoys. On cold days its nice to pick up the weight on shore and start winding them in instead of walking around in cold water. This is how it should look when set out Thats 12 dozen set out, from 10ft offshore to 30 yards and visable a long way off.

Im a constant opptomist Marty you know that lol. I really think the birds will be here and in large numbers, I think many guys will feel like there wont be hardly any birds and give up soon which is good for those who work to find birds or have larger stock ponds. There is plenty of food around for birds when ponds get low, might actually be even better as birds will go to them for feed and the fields but then back to big lakes for roosting and give people more options if they can zero in on the pattern.

Early teal is hit and miss on most years, one day here one day gone. It all depends on cold front timing most years, this year we had teal breed on Beaver and I have seen them in good numbers all year on Beaver and the White below the dam so it could be a good year. Our goose numbers are very impressive and with dual licenses its possible to hunt dove in the am and geese or teal in the pm or reversed lol. Its pretty neat when regular season gets here to be able to limit on waterfowl by 9am and then fish the rest of the day. Our winters are just right that it makes it possible. Don't get locked in to the big lakes though, there are tons of MDC lands that hold waterfowl and we still are lucky enough to have landowners that give permission to hunt their small stock ponds. It is a great way for you to learn the area and see some pretty neat places. My wife loves going scouting with me as she gets to see some of the old historic downtown areas not to mention she loves waterfowling as well.

Doubt it, Not much comp on big waters and even the MDC areas if you stay off the major ones its little to no presure. But in worse case scenerio there is always the MAV and Papa's farm sits right in the middle of it

JD, I have seen the same things. But will have to say drought means GREAT DUCK hunting. It compacts the ducks, part of our problem in most years is the ten billion farm ponds and strip mines etc that spread them out. Less water means those birds will be where the water is and that = great waterfowling.

The birds move off the smaller lakes and farm ponds to the nearest creek, some of the best creeks are small ones with a nice size pool. The lakes here dont freeze over so what birds that dont go to creeks go to them. Also there is a fair amount that use them constantly. Decoys I use standard size ghg decoys, they are fine and cheap to replace when they get holes put in them. Check out Rogers sporting goods and Macs Prairie Wings for decoys. Rogers is best on price and customer service IMO http://www.rogerssportinggoods.com/62-avery--ghg-decoys/63-floating-duck We are blessed to have great game here and Deer on the smallest of creeks are sometimes the big bruisers so always glass before going down, I mean they are on creeks. Now we do have deer on the lakes especially on islands but they get heavily hunted.

Jeff nothing decoys as great as divers, The high vis of the goldeneye suck in the other ducks as well so 90% is decoying birds average shot is under 30 yards. Jeff we have local birds mostly mallard and woodies and some teal. Most of what we get is migration birds. Numbers are dependant on year. last year sucked year before was best i had in over 35 years hunting. Mic Blinds most the time. I will jump shoot if im low on time and see a bunch in one spot that is the rare occasion. Also always bino the creek first you may want to grab a bow or rifle and say forget the ducks when a big buck is sighted

If you Hunt Beaver or the Rock. You will need to go with longline rigs, most the guys I see hunting the lakes are using typical decoy sets with 6 to 8 feet of line and that limits their ability to suck in ducks and geese. Long lines are simple and your spread is 100 times more visable to ducks. To do it simply buy 12 slot bags. Place 12 barrel swivels on the line and slide them down it a little, attatch a 12oz to 16oz weight to it and pull off 30 ft of line and tie the first swivel add the decoy and place int the bag. repeat every 3 to 5 ft untill fisnish then pull off 50ft of line and tie on another 12oz to 16oz weight take the weights and place them on something and reel the line around it. I like using coke bottles flattened out as the cone on them seems to allow line to spool off easy. When you get to your spot place the 30ft line on shore and let the boat drift off shore untill all the decoys are out then unwind the 50ft weight and throw it out behind you as far as you can. YOUR SPREAD will now start at 10yrds offshore to 30 on average and highly visable. For decoy selection I suggest 2dz goldeneye be in the spread for visability to birds and boaters other than that mix them up, its typical to see goldies buffle redhead mallards and gaddies all mixed togeather and their is many scaulp in the area.

Justin, NOTHING is better than an 870 My grandfather got his in 1953 and I still shoot it to this day. Go to 2 3/4 shells and it will help. To answer the question everyone i know who has bought one has sold it already for Brownings or Remingtons they just dont like them and I have seen 5 jam frequently.

Jeff several of us do very good waterfowl. Beaver has an enormous population of Geese and as a rule produces limits of ducks daily but Big Deep water requires a diffrent type of set-up. There are some great post in the forum from last year. The Rock can be very good as well and there are plenty of areas that you can still knock on doors and get permission to hunt farm ponds. Tack on the MDC areas and you will quickly find plenty of birds. A big well kept secret is if we get 3 days of freezing temps hit the creeks they can produce some awesome hunts. Last year was horrible in compare to most years but we still had a blast.