November 13 off Route 99 Ellicott City

This was a great day to be in the woods. I got started off on the right foot by leaving on time. Sunrise was at 6:49. I was at my tree by 5:45. As I was climbing I heard movement in the woods near me. This was the first time I have been in this spot and did not spook while getting to my tree. I put two wicks of Trails End 309 out about 20 yards from my stand. I had all the gear out today doe bleat, grunt call, and rattle bag. At just about light I hear some movement to my left. There are 2 doe far away pushing through and a relatively wide 4 pt checking them out. He moves away from them and looks like he was creating a scrape and he caught a whiff of my trails end. He moves in he was a very nice young deer with great potential. I chose not to take a shot on him. He was milling about under my tree for about 10 minutes. It was just too dark to get a picture or a video of him. I have heard there is a big 12 pt in the area so that is the buck I am looking for but my ultimate goal was to shoot a doe or two for the landowner. There were deer all over the place just not close enough to get a shot on. There was a decent 8 pt that came into range that i took a pretty good video except you have to turn your head to the side to watch it and they seriously reduced quality uploading it

It was a very successful day for me...I did not get a shot but I learned about there travels in the area. I did not spook any deer, no deer heard me, smelled me or saw me. I will look forward to going there in the future. Get your shotguns ready next Saturday is opening day of goose season.

Opening Day Mckee Beshers

Saturday October 16th First Split Opening Day for ducks at Mckee Beshers

Hunted the marsh for ducks in the morning. Weather was beautiful a cool morning with plenty of sun followed by high 60's day.

We got there early to grab a spot because there are usually a lot of people there. We were in the flooded timber by 545-6ish. We have about an hour to kill before shooting time. There was a decent bit of water in there but not as much as last year. About 3 minutes to shooting time there were flocks and flocks of wood ducks flying over us and we couldn't shoot them. They were so close you could almost grab at them. I would guess there were at least 100 that flew right before shooting time. Shooting time comes and there were a lot of volley's going on. You couldn't load fast enough. I was not having a good percentage shooting day. I probably shot 20 times and maybe hit 5 or 6. It ended up being a good day with a limit of 6 ducks. 2 Wood Duck hens a hen mallard and 3 green wing teal

Not a bad opening day but I need some practice. I will be going next weekend to the same spot. Who is in?

Mixer

Ever wonder why when registering at Bed Bath and Beyond we had to have that Kitchen-Aid Stand mixer?

You know the one that costs an arm and leg that only gets brought out during Christmas time to make cookies.

Well now you can make it worth while. It is a wonderful meat grinder. I know there are better ones out there but if you go to Kohl's get the meat grinder attachment for $59.99 it will be cheaper if you get the 30% off coupon you can't really beat it. It works well with Deer and goose' the motor is powerful and as long as you make nice cubes and trim most of the fat off it does the job.

Saturday is the the opening day of Duck season. Where will you be headed?

Deer from 10/2

October 2nd was the opening day of my bow season. Spent the summer shooting and getting dialed in. My shooting setup High Country Archery TSS, Tru Glo Sight, Quality Archery Designs Drop away rest, Easton ST Axis arrows, and NAP Spitfire mechanical broadheads.

An Ellicott City evening hunt. Temperatures in the mid to low 60's. I got setup in a Poplar tree overlooking a huge white oak that had dropped a ton of acorns. After i get setup i'm looking through my binoculars (Nikon Trailblazers 10x42) and I see some movement sure enough 150 yards away 4 deer grazing. They are making their way over towards my area about 50 yards away when three of them head into the woods out of range. For some reason one deer decided not to follow and headed straight for my shooting lane. Was this going to be my first shot on a deer? Needless to say my heart was racing. When it was behind some brush I drew once it was in my lane, broadside, I made a noise to stop it and wham arrows away. I have never shot a deer with my compound bow before only my 7mm mag and 1 with a crossbow. Normally with the 7mm mag its lights out on the spot no running. So i see the arrow pass through it mule kicks and takes off for the woods as it is running away i see a spot on the left side that is dark. I felt confident about the shot but never shooting a deer with a bow i was a little uneasy if i made a kill shot. So now i'm shaking in the tree, ansy and I want to get down and look for the deer but it is only 4:45 there could be more deer out there. I look down where i shot and my arrow is laying there covered in blood so i was excited about that but still anxious because i did not know if the deer was down or not. Since we were on a property that the owner is looking to get deer off his property we were prepared to shoot a few deer. Not 10 minutes after I shoot here comes 2 doe. They pretty much stayed out of range until one of them smelled something and was headed right for my shooting lane. She was on the perfect path for another shot so i drew there were branches in the way of the breadbasket so i was holding then she saw my arrow and stopped on a dime and went no further. She turned around and headed up the hill to where she met her doom with another guy we were hunting. Not even 2 hours i have drawn twice on deer in my first day hunting this year. I hang my bow back on the hanger and sit down. Down the field about 100 yards I see a buck and 2 does just grazing then they lay down together. As I am watching them through my binocs I hear some commotion to my right in the woods. Out of nowhere an 8 point is headed right in my lane of shooting. I was told to shoot when I could and he was going to give me a better shot then the first one. I draw he walks into my lane, I make a noise to stop him just like i did with the other one and this time without hesitation he bolts about 30 yards away. He stops looks around and heads right back to me. Same shooting lane everything I draw again this time i let him keep walking and I release......same heel kick as the first one. He starts running left then turns around and goes back right where he came from as he is running away i see my fletchings of my arrow sticking out. I do not see or hear him go down but i am confident i put a good shot on him. I wait until dark to get out of the tree and go over to my first arrow, its covered in good blood and a blood trail leading into the woods. We are looking around and I see the front half of my second arrow and what looks like a murder scene of blood leading into the woods the same way. We follow the second trail to the woods and sure enough about 50 yards into the woods he is down. The first one i shot was a little harder to track the blood stopped just about as it entered the woods. Luckily there is a large creek that runs down to the road so we just followed the creek all the way down and sure enough there was a deer laying there. I go up to it and of course its a spike. I guess i was so caught up in trying to put a good shot on that i didn't even notice the small antlers that were popping through So the first day out i put two decent shots on deer and get them. I can't shoot another buck this year but i'm happy shooting does Maybe this year will be a good one. Pictures to come in a bit.

Spring Break Fishing

I was on Spring Break last week and decided to do some fishing. Went to the Tuckahoe river on Wednesday 3/17/10 to do some yellow perch fishing. The river was way flooded so I could not get to the spots I wanted to go to. I found a hole that produced about a dozen yellow perch all males and a few white perch. Only one keeper yellow perch. I was a little late for the spawn. On Thursday Rob and I tried for yellow perch in halls creek on the Pax in his boat. No luck with yellow's but a few white perch, mud buddies (catfish), and an eel. Sunday 3/21 Kerwin and I went to the Belle Grove ponds off the Patapsco for yellows. No yellows but I hooked into a huge catfish that i brought to the shore but could not get it out with my 4 lb line.

Goose Hunting Video's

Trail Cam Pics from Rich's House

A few Nice pictures from Rich's House

WV Firearms Season

Monday 11.23-Wednesday 11-25

West Virginia Firearms season has come and gone. Final counts Team .270 (Tom and Brian) 2 does. Team 7mm Mag (Rich, Mikey, Rob) 1 6pt Buck and 1 Spike.

Monday Upper 40's Cloudy. Early Morning Rich shot his Nice 6 point. He said when he saw it he was shaking then when he noticed it had antlers he was shaking more.....everyone knows what this means......a gut shot.

The Afternoon it started to drizzle/Rain I went up to the bowl above the shooting pond. I did not see anything. Thrash went around to the Jeans and Tom was at the back of Michael's property, nothing for them. Early evening Rob, Rich and I sat in the barn overlooking the fall food plot. Nothing came in until last light. I could not see it but Rob could and he took it down. A 3pt with a 3 inch spike and a double. Against the rules but who's counting.

Tuesday was cloudy in the morning but warmer then it got really warm mid 60's in the afternoon. In the morning I went to my perch above the Frog pond, Rob went above the shooting pond, Tom went above Michael's pines (i think) Thrash went to the Jeans and Rich went above the house. Early morning I saw three Does that either Rob or Tom spooked. They ran right behind me but they looked very small and it was early so I did not even think to shoot them. Other than that that was my activity for the morning. In the Afternoon Rob dropped my off on the county road above the house to walk the backside of the property. It was in the Mid 60's and sunny. I walked for about 2 hours before I saw any lifeforms. I was in the back right of Michael's pond overlooking a ravine. I heard something coming so I was looking through my scope and what I saw come through shocked me....it was a black bear. I thought to myself no one is going to believe me if I told them I saw a bear. I took out my camera and video taped it. No one from the area has seen a black bear so I was the first to see it and capture it on video. Anyway that was my activity for the day. Thrash shot a nice doe at the jeans while Rich missed twice with his 44 mag. Once at the head of a doe and the second shot he missed......yup you guessed it the guts. Tom shot doe above the barn during the evening.

Wednesday Morning was warm low 50's and then it decided to rain hard. Rich and I went to the Jeans saw one doe that was on the county road that got spooked by Bill's sneak machine. After it started to rain we decided to walk around. We spooked about 7 does but could not get a good shot on them. Then we spooked about 4 more over on Hamburger Hill no shots. We got back to the house and everyone was already back. No deer for me this season as of yet. I will get one

Mckee Beshers 11.14

Saturday 11.14 Opening Day Second Split of Duck Season at Mckee Beshers

Last Minute I headed out for Ducks instead of going deer hunting with 2 guys from softball. Saturday morning was overcast with highs in the mid 60's. We were headed down 495 then traffic started backup up from and accident. We did not get parked until 6:10 legal shooting time was 6:20. We got all of our stuff together and walked into the marsh about 10 minutes. To my surprise there was a ton of water. Just as I load my third shell into my shotgun a group of about 10 mallards get up we shoot 2 of them. After that for about 30 minutes it was ducks galore. We saw around 300 ducks, woodies, teal, mallards and a small flock of buffleheads. Overall we shot about 12-15 but it was so thick we could only find 6 of them. It was upsetting that we could not find more. After looking for the birds for about an hour we saw many a wood duck going down about 100 yards in front of us. So we decided to trek through the swamp to see why they were going down. What a terrible idea, it was so thick there was no good path to take. I was making my way through and i tripped on an underwater log. I was falling forward, submerged my gun, then the water starting coming into my waders. When I righted myself I ejected my shells into the marsh turned left and headed for the woods wet and pissed. As I was headed to the woods i heard what sounded like my cell phone dialing I thought nothing of it then i heard it buzzing. When i got to the woods I got my cell phone out and yup it took a swim with me.

6 birds-- 2 hen mallards 2 wood ducks 2 teal 1 ruined cellphone and soaked clothes What a great day!

Rockfish

Rob caught 15-20 rock off of chesapeake beach yeaserday ranging from 18 to 36". Mostly trolled in 45-30 ft of water off the shore from the "domes" (the satellite towers at the naval base) south to Parkers Creek. Picked up a couple in the morning, it slowed down during mid-day and then when evening hit we couldn't keep them off the line. We "had to" stop 2 times on the way back to cast to breaking fish which were surprisingly in the 22-25" range. Chartreuse umberella rigs seemed to be the way to go with a 4-ounce in-line sinker on a 10ft leader.

Steelhead Fishing

Tried my luck at the Lake Erie Steelhead run for the first time.  We set up at the Manchester Hole at 5:00 am.  We started off with spoon spinners until the sun was up with no luck.  Once it was light out we switched over to the fly rods and used just about every set-up you could think of.  Despite seeing tons of good looking fish move by we didnt catch a single one (Jan had one big hit and I had one small one. but both fish broke of quickly).  As we walked back to the car at 11:00 we passed about 300 people over a distance of 300 yards and only saw about 10 fish on stringers - a true case of lock jaw.   

Will definitely try again next year.

Kerwin

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Pics from Trail Cam

There is some activity over in Ellicott City. Only thing i have seen are does. Last saturday i had a great shot on a doe and I missed. Yup thats right shot right over her back. I think i rushed it but who knows. Hopefully this weekend is better

Saturday 10.24

Sykesville, Morning Disgustingly warm and humid

Got setup around 7 waited waited and waited took a little nap then waited some more. Finally about 10 am I got sick of waiting and I got down and went to take a look at another spot on the property. There is a feeder setup with a timer and a trail cam. There were 101 pics on the trail cam. So there are definitely deer there but I have not seen any. When I was walking towards the other stand there were two doe bedding down in the pines near the pond. That is the extent of the deer that I have seen on this property. I am not giving up hope. I am taking some corn up there this week.

Friday 10.23

Scouted out a new spot today in Ellicott City off route 99. 5 acres mostly a wooded hillside into a stream bottom that runs into Patapsco state park. I am really excited about this spot the land owner has told me he has seen some really nice bucks grazing in his yard. There was a heavily traveled path from the stream bottom to across the street to the gas line. The path was rubbed up pretty good. Will this spot get me on the deer? Stay tuned. I will be going there on Wednesday for my first hunt there.

Wednesday 10.21 Evening

Old Ellicott City Evening Warm north east wind.

Got in the woods late spooked two deer setting up my stand. Wind was not cooperating was blowing right where the deer are supposed to come from. Thats all to report didn't see any deer after that except when walking back to the car saw them all running from the meadow back into the woods. I am hoping to get a shot on a deer sometime this year.

Monday October 19

Sykesville, MD afternoon 70 degrees

Thought I would be hunting over my corn that I put out 2 weeks ago. Nope no corn something ate it, was it deer? I have still yet to see a deer in my stand but they are telling me they are there. Only thing I saw was a fox. I may be the last thing he saw. I am still waiting for my deer there.

Crabbing Sunday 10.11.09

Only a two man voyage this time. Colder then last week. There was a guy already set up where we were last time so we decided to go across the river and run two lines of about 11 pots in one line and 14 in another. We dropped the pots going in the creek near the Airport in a range of 9-12 feet. First run we got three then averaged 3-4 crabs per line. Best run had 8 in it. Only got blanked on 1 run. 4 females and about 8 or 9 small ones we threw back. Ended up with 61 crabs probably 2 dozen over 7 inches. They were very tasty. I think that may be the last crabbing run. Time to get into the woods. Deer hunting should be getting good.

Crabbing 10.4.09

Sunday Morning 7 am Middle River Maryland Weather Sunny mid 60's

Greg, Kerwin, Deuch and I set sail on the S.S BigHead Sunday morning. We left the dock around 7:15 there were a few boats already set up crabbing. I thought it was a half hour past sunrise but maybe not. We ran 18 pots in 11 feet of water. The first run the first pot there was a crab so we were thinking this was going to be a good day. First run 2 crabs each run after that 1 crab. We tried to go shallower with another string but same luck. Wind started blowing really bad and the ravens were coming on so we headed in around 1145. Ended up with 18 decent sized crabs and Greg ran over 1 pot. We are going to try again this sunday.

Wednesday 9/30

Evening 55 degrees Ellicott City, MD

Got set up on a known path that deer take in a poplar tree about 20 feet up. The tree is in a bottom area with a creek that runs behind me down around to my right side. There is a tree directly in front of me and my only shots would be to my left as there are branches to my right. On my left side about 30 yards from the tree is a hillside that wraps around the property. The wind was not to my favor as it was blowing from behind me to my front right. This is only my second time in my climber so I am still getting used to it, I'm still unsure how much I can move around so that it does not fall. Sit there for about an hour and around 5:45 then I see some movement coming from my front right on the wood edge (directly where the wind is coming from). I see 1 small body doe leading the pack followed by another deer that is the size of Bella. Behind that one was another small doe followed by a small bodied 5 point buck after him was another doe. So the the lead deer is walking to my left definitely in my kill zone (if i had been standing up and ready to shoot) She is walking, sniffing the air, looking around I met eyes with her once or twice. It looked like she went directly to the base of my tree and was looking around she knew something was out of place. She circled behind me then back to my right while the smallest deer followed her. The other doe's and buck went around to my right that's when I saw he was a decent 5 point. By decent I mean I would have shot him had the opportunity presented itself, not a trophy by any shape of the imagination. The third doe walked all the way from my front right to back left while the others congregated to my front right. The lead doe started stomping and snorting to get its attention almost like saying "hey dummy we gotta go" I was covered by the tree branches and leaves so I started to stand up and see if I could get into position to shoot. As soon as I start to get up the doe that is behind me hears me and looks directly at me I was busted. She trots back to the herd and they move to my far left and start walking up the hillside out of range. So I sit for another hour and do not hear or see anything, climb down out of the tree and go to Double T dinner for dinner. Not what I wanted to have happen for the day but I cannot complain. Hey I actually saw deer this time. This is my first time in my climbing stand that I had deer in my area. It was a great learning experience for me. Things I would have changed or done differently. 1st thing is maybe I could have used more scent away, 2nd is changed the way I was sitting in my tree stand. I was sitting really scrunched down so it took a lot of effort to stand up. I knew this the whole time but i was thinking to myself if I move a deer is going to see me and will not even come within eyesight. Third, when there is about an hour and a half of light left Stand up and be ready. I also need to fashion some sort of Bow holder so I do not need to hold onto my bow the whole time. A lesson learned for the next time...hopefully Saturday.