2021 Hunting roundup

 I meant to post this earlier, I really did. In fact I meant to post some of this during the season, then I got distracted and so on.

Anyway hunting season this year started with a green wing teal the Saturday before the moose hunt. This was the first duck I shot with grandfather's Remington Model 31 16ga.

I'll admit it, I'm a filthy water swatter but a duck is a duck.

The next week was spent driving the north Maine woods looking for, and mostly not finding, moose.

We did find some spectacular scenery, this was in Garfield plantation and it definitely felt like we were on the top of the world.

The weather was against us for moose hunting, it was warm and the moose were mostly hanging out in the swamps. Considering I was hunting with a mostly elderly crew, it was my uncle's moose permit, we weren't going to be tramping through many swamps.

Warm weather was good for finding partridge.

I managed to bag 13 in the week which is an all time record for me. Grandfather's 16ga worked overtime. I wish I had a picture of the one I bagged at 50 yards, tight choke on that gun...

One night Angie made us partridge nuggets. She cut the partridge into chunks, dipped them in BBQ sauce and then rolled that in pretzel breading. Boy were those good.

Strangely I don't have any pictures but in 2021 I got to go on my first goose hunt from layout blinds. It was a typical "You shoulda been here last week" kind of day but we got 6 geese. At one point the birds were trying to land on the blinds which was a crazy feeling...

I kind of bungled pheasant season. The picture above is the second day I hunted and I managed a hen and a cock with my 20ga over/under. I decided that was too "easy" so I didn't hunt for a week. I don't think there were as many birds stocked this year, there certainly weren't as many out. Alternately its likely a bunch of hunters found the field I was hunting and there wasn't as much cover this year either.

In last year's hunting roundup I mentioned that I was working on an article for "MuzzleBlasts" and would you believe it actually got published. Check out the October 2021 issue for the whole story.

Back in August I wrote about the Ward shotgun I'd gotten. It got a chance out on the pheasant field too. This one was probably the best shot in the air I've ever made. The bird jumped up in front of me and flew right by me, I swung around and knocked it out of the air clean.

I wish I had better pictures but this was my first solo wood duck and the first duck I was able to successfully jump shoot. I stalked in to a little pond Ben and I have been hunting and got within about 20 yards of this guy. Woodies are really jumpy so if you can stalk in on one you're doing a good job. The old 16ga really rocked him, he dropped right where he was.

Finally I managed these two buffleheads. We'd originally thought they were geese but up close I could tell the difference. These are the first two ducks I shot from the kayak although I did get a goose a few years ago.

Deer season was such a cluster I don't even really want to talk about it. I missed taking a shot at a buck on our first day in Maine and never recovered. I had a shot on a doe but no doe tag and that was the only other deer I saw all season...

Anyway, it's February, only 2 more months until turkey season opens.

Hunting 2020 - the finale

Okay I know I've teased this one enough but one of the real reasons for these posts being slow is that Google Photos is just KILLING me. It uploads what it feels like uploading when it feels like uploading it. I've got a ton of pictures in my hunting album that it just will not upload. Then it gives zero error messages, just "Nope, I don't want to upload that." I made a negative review yesterday and Google basically said "It's not us it's you." which, combined with a bunch of other negative recent reviews makes me think they know they have a problem but don't want to admit it. *Sigh* the Google Photos to Blogger workflow was so good...

Anyway after I came back from deer camp I had a couple weeks where I was working nights, class started at 7pm and went until 2am. This left me with a bunch of time during the day so I thought I might go see if I could find some pheasants. I went out once early in the season and while I found other hunters I didn't see any birds. This time I tried a different spot and the foolish things were waiting in the road for me when I drove up.

That's my grandfather's Remington Model 31 shotgun in 16 gauge. I've always had a soft spot for 16 gauge, its a little unusual. The 31 is commonly regarded as the smoothest pump shotgun ever made. I really like that its light and easy to carry, although that first bird was really easy I still spent a bunch of time stomping around looking for birds.

When I was a kid my uncle Reg (really my great uncle) told me that sometimes deer would step out of the woods and look at a truck driving by, so if you were following a truck you should leave a big gap so you could catch that deer. The second day I went out I didn't see any birds in the field but as I was leaving I paused and let some bow hunters out in front of me. As they drove out this pheasant stepped into the road behind them. By the time I got out it had retreated into the ditch but I'm not too proud to shoot a ditch bird. ;)

Having gotten a couple birds with the 31 I thought I might try my 11ga side by side muzzleloader. You might remember this from some previous posts. Its a fine old gun although its long so its not a great bush gun. It was fine lugging it around in the field though which is really what it was intended for.

I actually shot two birds with this gun, the only time I managed to get two in one day. I'm working on a story that I'm going to try to get published in "Muzzleblasts" which is the periodical of the National Muzzleloading Rifle Association. If that happens I will, of course, let you know.

So anyway I ended the season with 5 pheasants which we can add to 5 ducks and 5 partridge and zero deer. Yes, there, I've said it, I got skunked. It was a tough year, we had some snow early in the season and then nothing toward the end. It got really cold, then warm. The deer didn't move the way I expected them to and pressure from other hunters took them out of the honey hole I shot my late season deer in last year. So it goes, better luck next year.