Duck Jerky

Cut the breast into strips like you are making fajitas.  Use seasoning plus curing salt ( I use the kits from Hi Mountain  Seasonings) and let sit in fridge 24 hours.  Then smoke at 200-225 for a couple hours and you have duck jerky.  Tasty treat to take to the blind for the next hunt!

12/23/11 Duck Blind Hunt

We have finally got rain and it filled up the beaver pond and sloughs.  We hunted the beaver pond without expecting a whole lot and got a nice surprise.  3 man limit by 9:30.  Gadwalls and Wood Ducks.  No mallards in the area yet so hopefully they are on the way down and will find this hole.  NNW wind 5-10mph, 46 degrees, low overcast with some fog.

The view from the day before when I had about an hour to throw some brush on it.  The old barnwood I used helps make it look like its been there for years.

The water should come up about 4-6 more inches so the blind is about right on height.  The brush job was a quick one and still needs lots of work, but it was good enough for the Greyducks! (You know, Gadwalls!)

Green Machine Upgrade

I finally got around to building a removable bed for the GM to help carry extra feed around.  It has already come in handy filling feeders and doing some other work.

A Few Days in the Panhandle

Here are some pics from my annual trip to the Texas Panhandle.  It was a tough hunt this year with not much deer movement.  I was only able to find one mature shooter deer and he had broke off his whole right main beam past the brow tine.  We think the rut timing was a little late this year too.

Mule deer cull one of the guys got.

These guys come flying over frequently on some sort of low altitude training.  There are as many as 3 or 4 following each other closely and when you are sitting on top of a point you can virtually see the pilots!

I finally saw some geese.  They are late this year too.

Duck Blind

Building some duck blinds since there is no water.  Maybe very late in the season or at least next season we will be able to hunt out of them.  Can deer hunt out of them until then!

Still need to finish this one out and brush it in but looking good.  Using old wood from a barn we tore down last year.

Also took a few minutes to replace this broken throttle cable on the green machine.

10/29/2011

No shooter deer but I did stick another pig.

Acorns starting to rain down from the trees.

10/15/2011

Filling feeders and doing some late scouting.

Duck marsh still bone dry.  I should be standing in about 4 ft of water here!

Dry wood duck hole

Found a nice rub while checking out the duck holes.  I put up a couple cameras and found the buck that probably made it.  Needless to say I've hung a couple extra stands to try to catch him slipping by.

10/10 Evening

I had to be in Gilmer to work Tuesday morning so I went up Monday night and sat in a treestand over a feeder to see what was moving.  I had seen a pig here a few days earlier just driving by.  He showed up again and gave me a perfect quartering away shot and I drilled him.  I was looking forward to making some more pork jerky!  He took it like a beast though and went over 100 yards before I lost the track in some nasty thick stuff in the bottom.  Never recovered him but at least its one less pig on the place.  Also saw a doe, yearling, six pointer, and another unidentified buck.  Great hunt for ETEX!

Stuck at home with the boys

Hunting from the boys' play room since I had some business to wrap up from the week and was stuck at home being Mr. Mom.

Archery Opening Weekend 2011

For the first time ever I shot a deer with my bow on the first morning of the season.  Had a great hunt and saw about 12 different deer.  Got busted trying to draw back a couple times but finally got to full draw and let this one have it!

You can never have enough stand locations so we put together and set-up a couple more tripods.

"Ain't Nothing Easy in East Texas" Dove Hunt

Had a great time and even had a pretty good dove hunt for around here.  We killed 26 birds Saturday morning, 21 Saturday evening, and got rained out Sunday morning.  No hogs but there was a buzzard killed with a head shot at about 200 yards, a "long-tailed" bob cat, and coyote.  The weekend lived up to its name as well.

Snapped axle shaft on Elan's Jeep. Also not seen is a broken throttle cable on the green machine.