Goodbye Duckin' 2012

This past weekend marked the last day of duck season.  As most 'fowlers have reported, numbers have been fairly low in the area and has made it difficult to find birds.  Nonetheless, it's been a great season.  Saturday morning marked a mild, bluebird sky morning. Seven of us climbed down into layouts and it wasn't long before ducks were dumping in.  Before the geese started flying, we had four mallard drakes in the bag.  The geese were flying early and throughout the morning we watched a couple hundred birds skirt our location with no intent of dropping in.  We did have a half a dozen groups work into our spread to a rude awakening.  We ended the morning with ten geese.  After the hunt we realized, much to our surprise, one of the mallards was a federal banded bird.  What a way to wrap up the 2012 season!

Mississippi Delta Deer & Duck Hunt

Stuart had the privilege to hunt with his good friend Gaines Sturdivant in Mississippi.  Gaines and his uncle Sykes guided Stuart on their family farm in the delta.  On their fowl hunt, they bagged gadwall and mallards.  On the last afternoon hunt, Stuart harvested this massive mainframe ten pointer with a green score of 148 inches.

Ducks Unlimited 2011 Banquet Hunt

Saturday marked the 2011 DU Banquet Auction Hunt and Bob Butterworth was our guest for the morning.  It was also our first hunt of the season and man did it feel good to be back in the layout blinds!  With a mild winter so far, migration has been minimal, but the number of geese has been on the rise the past two weeks.  We ended the morning with a dozen geese; one banded goose, and five mallards; four drakes, one hen.   

  

Martin Strikes Again

As most of you probably recollect, we captured footage of this brute in early October.  We had him pegged until his velvet dropped.  Like most mature bucks, this big eight went into stealth mode and was not seen for the first several weeks of the season.  After dozens of hours hunting this specific buck, he never presented the perfect opportunity, but has been seen numerous times.  Carrington took a crack at him during muzzleloader and with a 35 yard chip shot last Saturday, Will passed him up....  This morning, this deer and another monster buck walked out.  After several sightings without presenting a shot, he disappeared into the woods to pop up downwind directly behind Martin's stand.  The rest is history!  Click Here To See Scouting Footage of This Buck

      

2011 Duck Season Begins

With much anticipation building, the beginning of the season arrived Saturday.  The rest of the gang was unable to hunt, so Will, Martin and Will's brother, Luke decided to hunt the James River.  With it being fairly early in the migration, several dozen ducks were spotted, but very few geese.  Mostly mallards and one decent group of teal. The "first light flurry" surprisingly did not exist.  One mallard drake worked right into the middle of the spread just after first light and the other sat down upriver to finally flutter into range.  The one woodie drake was killed late in the morning, flying alone.  We would love to hear your hunting reports throughout the season.  Send hunting reports to thegarhole@gmail.com. Good luck!