My goodness! I apologize for it being so long since I have posted up. Our internet connection at our new place in the country is NOT what I would like it to be. With a cell phone plan being the only way to get on with any regularity, it cuts into how many photos we can upload and download and still stay within our plan.

Anyways.......on with the good stuff!!!

Shed Hunting and Goose Training.......

We had a good shed hunting season, finding a total of 21. Goose made some great "finds" on her own. We have been very happy with her progress. Kable was also able to find his first shed. We covered a lot of new ground, and met a lot of great people along the way. Our honey hole from last year did not produce this year. I attribute it to there being almost all beans in the fields this year compared to all corn the year before. The winters were comparable, along with the snowfall here locally.

Here is Kable proudly holding up his first shed find of several:



Goose just laid down with her first find on her own. She didn't do a very good job at bringing me back the sheds she found, because she tended to find some whoppers that she could not carry! She will be all grown up by next year, and should be ready to cover some good territory searching back and forth for her "bone".

Her searching ability has been very impressive to me. She has a lot of pheasant hunting past in her blood, and it shows by the way she works over a piece of ground.



Here is a photo of our best day in the field this year. It turned out to be a great afternoon. We only searched for about 2 hours in a standing bean field.



We searched that field fairly well, but decided to go back five days later to give it another look over. Goose hit a spot a little ways up on the hill where she would not leave. It was near a really nice rub. I told her "mush" which means for her to continue on, but she just sat there, and started to whimper. I told her again, and got the same response. Well! I guess I need to be listening to HER more! Look what she was guarding for us! Our biggest matching set ever! Goose was sitting in between them, knowing she wasn't going to move them, and at the same time, knowing what she had! I found one other small 2 pointer in the field also. We came back to the field several times after that, but never found another antler in it.



Goose's color is going to work out great for us during our waterfowl adventures in the fall and winter. Check out this photo I picked up of her standing infront of this stump! GOOSE! HIDE! HAHAHA!



Speaking of waterfowl training, since we have not been finding any more sheds, we have switched her training here at the house over to a more structured approach so she can hopefully be ready to bring us back a duck and a goose or two late this coming fall. I have collected random bones throughout our shed hunting trips this past winter, and I have thrown them in the woods and in the grass where we take our walks away from the house. When we go on our walks, she is allowed to roam as she would shed hunting, and she is able to find these bones and bring them back to me for the fun of it, rather than it being a structured training of shed hunting. Remember......a bone is a bone. The trainer needs to weed out what is an antler, and what is not, not the dog.



Working up some wood......

I was inspired by a decoy carver this spring to get myself in gear, and make my own turkey decoy. I drew out a form , and cut it from the board. I then copied it two more times. I hollowed out each piece to remove weight from the design, and then began my painting. After being in the field watching real hens, I have realized I want the head on this decoy to be more grey than blue, but she produced quite well for us this spring. Birds came in to range to check her out on more than one occasion. This first version was awefully crude, but turned out just like I wanted it to. My next version will hopefully consist of three demensional feather patterns, as well as a three demensional look overall.





I've also taken the opportunity to make a few deer grunters this spring. I enjoy turning wood more than any other type of wood working, and making calls out of the turned wood just makes it that much more fun. I hope this lineup of grunters produces some good memories for folks this fall.



Turkey season is coming to an end as I type......

We had one heck of a spring here in north Missouri. Numbers were down overall, but the farms we had to hunt were still holding the birds. Early season was tough, because the gobblers were still hanging out with very large groups of hens.

Kable was not able to connect with a bird on his hunts, but Tristen was able to bag two birds, and so was I. Holly also came through with her first bird also!

Tristen's second bird came on a hunt where he was able to do the complete setup and calling on his own. He was very proud of himself for being able to accomplish this at 15 years old!



I did not have any photographers on hand during my hunts either, but I made the best of the situation.





I proposed to my wife in the turkey woods five years ago. I hoped for that morning to be a successful hunt, but it was not. And we struggled until this year to get her a turkey she could call her own. We were overfilled with joy when this gobbler came into range and fell to her 20 gauge. What a morning it was! Luckily, I had the camera handy, and was able to catch the excitement as Holly approached HER bird!



To say it was cold that morning would have been an understatement. We wore a lot of our late season deer hunting gear, and it was still cold up on the hill. The birds didn't care though. They worked just like we wanted them to.



Bringing five turkeys back to the house has given Goose a good opportunity to look them over, and see what a big bird is all about. She enjoys rolling around with them, and likes when I pluck out a feather for her to play with. She doesn't bit the birds though, and doesn't cause any damage to them. I saved wings for her to work with this coming summer before we switch over to live pigeons.

Other hunting adventures........

I was told by my neighbors when I moved in, there were feral hogs in the area. One evening while I was setting up to clean a few crappie we had caught, I looked in the back yard, and found an over 200 pound sow rooting up my grass! I quickly ran in the house and got my 30-06, and we had bacon! It is my understanding that I will see more around as the crops start growing this early summer.



Missouri Disabled Sportsmen hosted a youth and disabled pheasant hunt this spring in north central Missouri. Kable and Tristen both wanted to attend, so we loaded up the car and headed east.

Both boys were successful during their hunts! Kable was able to take his first rooster with a great shot that our friend Robert caught on camera while I was looking on!



What a great time! I know everyone at the event went home with at least one bird, and most folks got several!



Fishing.......a Spring to be Remembered.......

Man oh man! What a spring for the crappie! We have been managing a small pond over this way for the past five years, trying to get the size of the fish in check. You really shouldn't have crappie in a body of water under 100 acres, because you can't keep up with their reproduction rates to keep the fish in a smaller body of water healthy.

We have been removing fish out of this pond every chance we have had, and this spring, we finally got it to the point where every fish that came out was over 9 1/2" and the average fish was 11 to 11 1/2"! THAT is a good average! Two of the fish were 14 1/4". And even with fish that size, we have still caught hundreds out of this small pond.



While fishing below the dam at Smithville Lake one afternoon this spring, I was able to hook this great walleye on a crappie jig! It was a pleasant surprise!



Records are Made to be Broken........

This last Friday was a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I have been trotline flathead fishing for several years now, and have found some great success over our trips to the bigger lakes in Missouri such as Mark Twain and Truman. Those bodies of water hold some REALLY big fish. We've caught a lot of flatheads in the 30's and 40's, with a few showing up on the scale in the low 50's. We have boated one 52, two 51's and two 50's recently.

Friday, we caught a fish like no other fish I have ever seen. My buddies Chris and Jason were with me for the adventure. We had spent the week catching our bait and setting our lines with little success. Our biggest fish of the week had been 31 pounds.

I had a spot that had not produced yet, but it was a wonderful location last year. As we were pulling our lines on Friday, we found this monster in that spot, waiting for us on the other end of the line.

When we boated the fish, we knew it was a bruiser, but we didn't know HOW big it was. We had left the scale in the truck. I knew it was going to be my biggest fish. I was just hoping for it to be a 53. As I looked it over more, I thought it was going to tip my 100 pound scale at 57 or 58.

When the held up the fish for pictures though.......it got bigger.......and bigger.......

When we finally got it to the scale, our jaws dropped. The fish weighed in at 70 pounds, 2 ounces. WHAT A MONSTER OF A FISH! My personal record by far, and the same for Jason and Chris!

We're going to have a hard time beating this mark, since our previous mark was 18 pounds less!

Keep in mind, Chris and Jason make the fish look REALLY big like it is, since they are normal sized folks. Me being 6'7", 310 really doesn't do the fish the correct justice!