Thomas Jefferson

I got an E-mail today about Thomas Jefferson and the man was def. motivated to say the least and it would appear very wise. He studied under his cousin at age 5 and that would be a bit early today I believe, but  by nine he was also studying Latin Greek and French, now that is quite a accomplishment. By 16 he was enrolled in the college of William and Mary and studied law at 19. Now I don't know about you but at Nineteen all I had really accomplished was wrecking my car twice and enlisting in the navy as a welder. Not Thomas he was a lawyer at 23 and retired from his practice at the ripe old age of 31, heck I am 55 and retirement is not even on the horizon! He accomplished much in his life time and wrote the Declaration of Independence at the age of 33 not bad but what were we all doing at 33, here was a man who was shaping a new nation. At 55 he was the active head of the Republican party, and at 57 was the 3rd President of the United States. At 60 he put together the Louisiana Purchase doubling the size of America, now that was a pretty good real Estate deal. At the age of 83 he and John Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He had some neat things to say also and some are true today  here are a few:
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
I predict the future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Personally this is not a political blog but this man had some pretty good things going on and I found the interesting and wanted to share with the thousands of readers of this blog

it's all frozen over

Well all the ponds are frozen over and there are just a few spots of open water and those are drawing in some ducks and the occasional goose. So what is a person to do? Well geese like to rest on open water in fact just check out any place with water open and a hundred geese are in a 10 by 10 area, but they do leave to eat and that is the ticket for harvesting your limit of geese. Like deer hunting your chances for success increase the longer you stay in the blind and with it frozen over the field is where they want to be eating left over beans and corn. If it has snowed you can put out some straw in front of your feeder decoys and by kicking the snow back and exposing the dirt it appears that they have been eating and pulling up clumps of grass. This past week I had the opportunity to hunt over some stuffer decoys and two of them were locked in and cupped up on rods about 5 feet over the spread and that really added to our layout. Keep your sentry decoys to the front rear and sides feeders in next and if you have any resting they should be more toward the center. I mean you never saw a resting goose sitting on the edge of a flock. Now I like a U shaped pattern or a V and I always start by setting my decoys on the perimeter, then I set one sentry out about 40 yds out in front of the  blind so I know when they are in my shooting range. I will set a few alert decoys and some feeders in front of the blind out about 15 feet and fill in  leaving a nice landing area in the center. Try to keep the wind at your back or even better set up so when the geese decide to set they are setting across your field of view and not looking directly at you when they commit to land and coming to your house for dinner. If you ask 10 people you will get 10 different explanations on setting decoys so my thing is to do what works for you at that particular time for that situation.

First Goose Hunt

I love to shoot ducks and geese but if you have been following this site then you know I gave up hunting from a boat and now I am happy to hunt the fields. This past Sat I had the opportunity to hunt with a group of new guys in their blind and I had a real good time as well as a successful hunt. Now we did not slay them but we did bring home meat and that is just a bonus on the hunt.

These guys had the best blind set up and it held 7 of us in comfort with no one being crowded out. Basically it is four  8 foot 2x4s and a 2x10 A a ridge pole. Some light weight corrugated plastic from a huge shipping crate acted as the walls and then covered with wire to attach the marsh grass to. A very nice and cozy set up especially if you have a small heater to heat up some beanie weeines or something on! It was cold around 18 degrees and the ponds were frozen over but the river was flowing having had a barge late that evening and there were geese flying. We managed to draw in two bunches of geese and had about four come by and check us out  just not to close, then five came in and checked out our spread. "We waited till take em" time and they fell like a cheap suit. All in all we had a very successful hunt and I met some really nice guys who hopefully I did not talk them to death and they will invite me to go again. All in all I had a great time in a great blind with great guys on a cold sat morning. It just does not get better than that does it?

What is that stuff?

Well it started snowing today around 11 where I was at and they shut the job down early and who knows what tomorrow will bring, But one thing that it will bring if it is not snowing and blowing is predators. When the weather is nasty that is when foxes and such feast best, and guys like me who like to shoot em look forward to those still cold mornings or evenings where the snow is shining bright. Foxes and coons show up so very nice  in the scope and even late afternoon shots are a little easier. Last big snow I made a snow camo suit and it blends me in with the edge of the woods really well so I am able to see them from a long distance. But I will have to admit that sitting in the cold is not quite as appealing as it used to be!

Whats been going on out amongst em?

Recently I have had the opportunity to take someone hunting who had not been taught by people who liked to hunt   My cousin who lost his father when he was just weeks old never had anyone to take him and teach him how to hunt and when he asked me to go with him and give some pointers  I was overjoyed of course. Being a teacher as my profession any time I can share with someone some knowledge I might have I always will sometimes weather they ask for it or not!  He has a beautiful piece of property of 100 plus acres with field surrounded by woods and every hundred yards there is a ditch that comes out into the field by about 150 yds. making some excellent shooting. So the first night we walk his property and take in  where the deer are coming into the field, and he has corn out in one corner. I observed a lot of activity where some ditches came together and some fresh deer crap telling me this was a prime spot.  So as we work our way around a edge of the woods there stand three nice deer feeding on soybeans and not real interested in us as the wind was in our favor. However my cousin did get a lesson on noise and how those huge things sticking off of the side of their head were about 50 times bigger than ours and worked real well. A snap of a branch and the deer worked their way into the woods very quickly not giving time for a shot. As it got too dark for him to shoot comfortably we made our way back to the truck, track soup again tonight, and discussed some things that he should always keep in mind, wind direction and noise control being the most important. And we talked about his blind sitting in the middle of the field just popping up on Friday evening after work. Like you and I we may not notice when the wife puts up a gnome in the garden, but let her put a new sofa in there and it will get our attention, a little natural vegetation goes a long way in concealment. The following weekend we hunted over at my property and I put him in a spot not far from the house in a big ol comfy chair sitting 5 yards in the woods camoed up nice and he did not see any deer well neither did I, but he had a chance to get out amongst em and watch the sun come on up and what could be better than that?

This week

Well it is the rifle season in Maryland and I have been busy naturally. having to work two nights this week I was kinda wore out some but I did manage to get a hunt in on Wed evening. A friend of mine is wanting to hunt some so I am going with him and helping him get into the groove. He is shooting a 700 Remington in 30-06 scoped and from a ground blind. This past Sat we hunted over at the beach I set him up on a long field and I went and overlooked a field on the backside. Opening day the place was loaded every stand was occupied and this week no one was out there. Of course I saw absolutely no deer at all in the fields and only one on the opposite side of the river, however there are some monster sign still around just very nocturnal now that they have been shot at. Hopefully things will calm down and I will get another chance to take the big boy I have been chasing for the past few years.