Rabbits, Buck, Ducks, and Catfish! End of 2013 and Beginning of 2014.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and Holiday Season. The week of Christmas we went to Traverse City, Michigan and stayed there till Friday. Every few years we’ll travel somewhere there is forecast for snow so the kids and family gets to have a white Christmas like in the post cards and stories. Living in Mississippi we get excited about any snow and a 2 plus inch snow is a once in a 4 to 5 year ordeal around here. It snowed everyday while we were there so we had a blast. Even skied with Santa on Christmas day. Well needless to say I didn’t do any hunting while on the Christmas trip. While I was gone I did have two friends hunting my property here at the house. Christmas evening Chris Watkins of Brandon shot at a good buck but wasn’t sure of the shot. He waited till the following day to track him with the help of Joey Wescovich from St. Martin. Good thing he waited for some help because when they finally did track the buck down he was sitting in the big creek still alive. Joey came across him and put the finishing bullet through and Chris was able to harvest his personal best buck up to date. The following morning Joey was in the exact same stand and killed a nice buck himself.

Along with big deer hunting news…….a co-worker was hunting with his daughter on some private land south of Jackson. Brian Weeks and daughter, Maddie….aka Goo, was able to bag her first buck!

Did get in one duck hunt worth sharing. David Irby invited me back over to his place for a hunt once we got back. His son Sam invited his friend Ashton Swartzfager and David also invited Russel and his son, Jack. We got to the hole right on time. As soon as we were set the ducks started dropping in like rain! I was hunting down on the end of the hole with Ashton and Sam. On the way in Ashton wanted to try and swim a little so he dove in….. Needless to say his gun wanted to jam after that. Sam somehow got mud stuck in the end of his barrel. I went down to make sure he had it cleared safely as to not have an incident that I may could have helped avoid. Once I got back to my spot and set up I noticed I wasn’t quite in the hot spot. Sam and Ashton however were. I watched as ducks landed all over those two and jammed guns and slow reaction times saved many ducks for later. Sam would call that duck conservation and leaving some seed for tomorrow….lol I did however manage to kill a duck. No lie, gadwalls came in and landed almost on top of Sam. Sam aims as they flush and BOOM! They fly over Aston, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, while Sam adds BOOM, BOOM! They then fly over David and Russel, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I finally have a clear line of fire, BOOM BOOM……DUCK FALLS FROM THE SKY! I don’t know about y’all but letting everyone else have a shot before I took my shot is about as gentlemen of a hunter as I can think of to be. The fact that I was the only one to drop one of the two ducks that flew in and landed that everyone else shot at too…..well I’m not going to talk about others lack of shooting……or did I just do that in a round about kinda way? These guys are a blast to hunt with regardless of whether we kill anything or not. Jay, Russel’s son, did bag him a nice ring neck!

I did get in one good Combo hunt on New Years day. Tray has been hounding me about a combo hunt. Well New Years day was a little warm and I told him that it would be the perfect time to give it a shot. Sidney Coke joined Tray and I as we brought along Tray’s little sister and my middle daughter, Alex for her first combo trip. We baited and laid out 10 jugs around the island we were going to hunt. Once we got the jugs out we made landing on the Island and turned the beagles loose for some running. It didn’t take long till the beagles struck and the race was on! We had just unloaded and gotten the guns out when the rabbit broke for it and ran through one of the few clearings there were available. It was a little too early in the hunt/race and with 2 young dogs down on the ground we didn’t shoot. Never did see that rabbit again but it was the right thing to do in that situation with the new dogs added to the race. While they were still running that rabbit Tray noticed one of the jugs dancing. Sure enough we had a fish on! I didn’t want to leave the race so I told Tray we would wait till another fish was on before going and running the jugs. Not 2 minutes later Alex says, “yep, there’s another fish on”. The kids and I left Sidney on the Island with the dogs/rabbits race. Kinda worked out because by the time we got to the closest jug and looked…….all the jugs were dancing with a fish on them! All 10 jugs had a fish on them!!!! Needless to say, pictures always tell the story better than I can but I will say, we caught some good fish and by the time we got back to the Island, Sidney had bagged the first bunny of 2014! It was a great day to start off the year for sure!






I think Alex had a big time and Tray did as well.
Hope your 2013 finished with a bang and your 2014 started with one too!
Remember to be safe, have fun, enjoy the resources God has blessed us with, share our passion and play it forward in the outdoors next time you head out. I know I sure do get a blessing from it personally!