Frank's outdoors...

Thanks to my good friend, Mark, we have another spot to hunt this year after the much maligned loss of our lease at season open last year. We are up in Crockett, TX and have a solid 1200+ acres.  This piece of property has some elevation changes and is used as a privately owned timber property, so there are selective cut lanes throughout.  The timber company grades roads after a cut, so access in and out of the property is pretty easy. At the moment, I have 2 box blinds and 2 tripods setup.  One of the tripods is a bow blind for the coming season and will be my first go at that.  Will post on that at a later time. Below is a pic of my big box blind looking down a lane, and it has 5 directions to really keep an eye on.  2 in front, 1 out of both sides, and a lane directly behind!  I only have one feeder in front 70 yds at the moment. My son is silly!

Here are the highlights... a write-up of the setup soon.

My good friend and hunting buddy, Mark, took me to a sweet spot on the last day of the season!  Not 20 minutes from my house.  He told me there was a small pond surrounded by trees in a 12 acre cow pasture that he had access to.  He told me there were tons of ducks piling into that spot.  My waterfowl luck hasn't been so great in the past few years, so I wasn't all that optimistic, but I am always game for a hunting opportunity! Well, to say the lease, we hammered them.  We were done 30 minutes after shooting time began.  It would have been sooner if I was "on" at the beginning.  All told, we each took limit, totaling 12 birds (6 wood ducks and 6 gadwalls).  The pond we were hunting on was shallow on one end (up to the waist), and way over your head on the other end.  As we didn't have a dog, Mark brought his "retriever" (aka fishing pole with a  top lure) that we used to get the birds!  Brilliant!  Took us a little bit to ge...

Had a fun hunt on our annual post Thanksgiving shootout!  Not as many birds in the area, perhaps because it wasn't cool enough yet.  We still took 5 geese and totally whiffed on an 8-pack of pintail and only took 1 of them.  So, 6 birds in total.  Interesting about the pintails, there were 8 of them.  It was about 9am, sunny, and partly cloudy with a mild front moving in.  The stubble wheat field was DRY as a bone, and they came in locked & committed without any calling.  Our guide was calling in some specks at the time, so possibly they keyed on  that, but still, they sat right on us. We love hunting with Ryan and Butch from Butch's Guide Service, but anyone know of some good guides down in the Eagle Lake, Garwood, El Campo, etc???  We have had a few slow years, and looking at other potential operations for guides. 

My crew and I experienced another amazing hunt with Don's Guide Service in Glen Elder, KS!  Don and his wife Cheryl are wonderful hosts and got us on wild Kansas pheasants. We got there on Sunday evening right as the first real cold front was moving through northern Kansas, and it was in the upper 20's at 4pm.  Dinner was on the table and the drinks were in hand.  By Monday morning for our first hunt, it was 17 degrees with a 15mph wind!  It did warm up to the 40s each day, and in the low 50s on Wednesday. We had 7 hunters in our crew.  7 hunters, 3 days, 4 birds per day limit... so we were shooting for 84 birds.  We came up 1 short for the hunt!  Great hunt! Enjoy the photos!

Found out last night that the property owner has committed a sale on our lease.  The buyer asked for us to be completely OFF in 3 days!!!  Are you kidding me?  Well, our lessor successfully negotiated us to have 2 weeks...  how generous.  So, we get to hunt opening weekend, and attempt to get ALL of our stuff off the property ASAP.  I am pissed.  That is all.

As it seems to happen every year on my lease, the bucks come out RIGHT before season starts.  You don't see a hide or hair of them on camera until literally a few weeks before season.  I have never had a picture of a buck in velvet... ever. But, they aren't disappointing... they are back and ready to rut.  Lots of pre-rut activity on camera, including a great "exchange" between a nice 9pt and a small spike!  Spike got his butt whooped (shocker). Enjoy the pics: