Fitty's Angling Ramble 7.0

[storm1507]

LOL... Speaking of Corn...

I set up a bird and squirrel feeding station for the Fall/Winter/Spring outside of one of my ground level office windows and then put two kitty beds in front of it so the cats could basically watch the forest animals like TV. They've been having a great time and all that. And I've even gotten to the point where I can recognize the 4 squirrels that visit the feeder regularly. (And of course named them)

I can guess 3....breakfast, lunch, supper. What did you name the 4th?

[lhprop1]

This is the 1st year Ive been remotely serious about ducks. Calls, dekes, and such. Its addicting and expensive.

Wildfowl is like the go-to publication for duck and goose hunting. There is some really good info in every issue. It ranges from basic stuff to some pretty advanced stuff.

The biggest thing about luring ducks to their death is to learn how to read the birds. A lot of times, less is more when you're calling. You have to sweet talk them.

[storm1507]

This is the 1st year Ive been remotely serious about ducks. Calls, dekes, and such. Its addicting and expensive.

You ain't a duck hunter until you get a lab...preferably chocolate.

[HairyScandinavian]

The biggest thing about luring ducks to their death is to learn how to read the birds. A lot of times, less is more when you're calling. You have to sweet talk them.

Yup. I can swing a flock of puddle ducks as well as the best of them, but we don't even call at all to the Redheads. Gotta know your ducks and which ones respond to what. I use my Pintail whistle more than anything else down here and watch the birds circle into my spread while the guy 200 yards away is whaling like Daffy Duck on his Mallard sequence.

You ain't a duck hunter until you get a lab...preferably chocolate.

You also aint a duck hunter until people in traffic have stared at you wondering what kind of pipe you're smoking and why you're blowing on the pipe in the car. You get some strange looks while practicing a duck call driving back and forth to work.

[Nainoa]

You ain't a duck hunter until you get a lab...preferably chocolate.

My buddy who's gotten into duck hunting in recent years has a Black Lab / Golden retriever cross... The thing LOVES the water. I think June through August the thing spends more time in the water than on land.

He got it when it was 9-10 months old and was bragging the dog up about how it was going to make duck hunting so much easier and it was sure to be a master at fetching ducks.

I don't know IF he even trained it or what... I certainly never saw anything.

Gets the dog in the boat... and they tuck into the reeds not far from the dock.

My other buddy who was just at Duck camp with his dog to hang out and have drinks takes his dog for a morning walk.

The first line of ducks comes in... My buddy in the boat starts shooting like he's in the forest scene in the movie Predator! The Black/Golden cross freaks out... Dives in the water and swims towards the dock.

Meanwhile my other buddy with the Yellow Lab/Husky cross is watching his own dog jump in the water... goes out and gets the duck and swims it back to the dock where both dogs shake off.

Ironically, while the Dog got the Yellow lab's instincts but the Husky's mouth. I guess the duck was just hamburger and feathers!

[storm1507]

My buddy who's gotten into duck hunting in recent years has a Black Lab / Golden retriever cross... The thing LOVES the water. I think June through August the thing spends more time in the water than on land.

He got it when it was 9-10 months old and was bragging the dog up about how it was going to make duck hunting so much easier and it was sure to be a master at fetching ducks.

I don't know IF he even trained it or what... I certainly never saw anything.

Gets the dog in the boat... and they tuck into the reeds not far from the dock.

My other buddy who was just at Duck camp with his dog to hang out and have drinks takes his dog for a morning walk.

The first line of ducks comes in... My buddy in the boat starts shooting like he's in the forest scene in the movie Predator! The Black/Golden cross freaks out... Dives in the water and swims towards the dock.

Meanwhile my other buddy with the Yellow Lab/Husky cross is watching his own dog jump in the water... goes out and gets the duck and swims it back to the dock where both dogs shake off.

Ironically, while the Dog got the Yellow lab's instincts but the Husky's mouth. I guess the duck was just hamburger and feathers!

All dogs are different and need training. My first lab...Thunder, male, had an extremely tender mouth. He could fetch a styrofoam cup and not put a mark on it. However, he was so laid back. He was a great retriever, but lacked in the flushing dept.

My next lab, Windy, female was the exact opposite. She was go getter (until older) and made a great flusher and retriever (if you were at the edge of the water and could take the duck from her ASAP...lol).

My last one Misty, I didn't hunt much w/ her. But, she was my 2nd love. Wifey and her were very jealous of each other.

[HairyScandinavian]

LOL Noa, that's classic. Busy right now but I'll type another funny story about somebody's dog who tried to hunt with us and a shock collar later.

I trained the hell out of my old lab (she's going on 16 years old now!). She would pee on command, take hand signals, you name it. My current lab I swear I've spent 15 minutes in training over her entire life. She sits with us and stays quiet until we shoot, then goes and gets the ducks, and sniffs them out when told "find it" and that's about all I can ask for. We just don't hunt as much as we used to so no need to take it any further.

[Nainoa]

All dogs are different and need training. My first lab...Thunder, male, had an extremely tender mouth. He could fetch a styrofoam cup and not put a mark on it. However, he was so laid back. He was a great retriever, but lacked in the flushing dept.

My next lab, Windy, female was the exact opposite. She was go getter (until older) and made a great flusher and retriever (if you were at the edge of the water and could take the duck from her ASAP...lol).

My last one Misty, I didn't hunt much w/ her. But, she was my 2nd love. Wifey and her were very jealous of each other.

Yeah my buddy Spazz is one of these guys who thinks "I saw my Dad do it in 1983, so that means I'm an expert at it." So watching his Dad train a lab when he was a little kid just didn't genetically pass over to him or something.


Now he's got some princess little dog with pink bows tied in it's fluffy ears (Girlfriend's choice even though it's a boy dog!)

He still brings it to camp and we rip on him endlessly.

[Hartski]

Hartski's Law: If you stay up late drinking because you KNOW they will shut down the plant for the blizzard, they will leave it open just to make you miserable.

[Nainoa]

Hartski's Law: If you stay up late drinking because you KNOW they will shut down the plant for the blizzard, they will leave it open just to make you miserable.

LOL... Yep... I've made that mistake before!

[HairyScandinavian]

OK so far as duck dogs and backyard dogs goes, we had something funny happen while hunting long ago.

I used to hunt with a friend of mine and this old guy that was a co-worker of his at these walk-in public land marshes. Basically you pull up your truck to a number, then walk out through the marsh to the matching number post and setup and hunt there. Pretty easy system and some decent hunting if you're willing to walk out to the further spots because the close spots get shot up, and we were always willing to take the extra walk.

This old feller loved my dog, I mean loved her more than I did. We'd stop at the store and he'd wait at the truck with the dog and feed her snacks or whatever and any time we stopped he wanted to let her out and throw the dummy and love on the dog. He'd brag to everybody at their office about how awesome the dog was, etc... Dude was a really nice guy and was obsessed with this dog.

So we head out one morning on a Sunday and we were the only ones there, all the close spots shot up so people go elsewhere but a front had just passed through and we were hoping for some fresh birds. We park and trek out to the furthest spot on the marsh and setup our decoy spread and sit back. Old guy sets up his chair next to the dog and breaks out the coffee mug and we wait for sunrise/shooting time. As the sky is just barely starting to turn orange we hear the loud cutting of gliding wings over our heads and though we cannot see this sound makes all the hearts race, even the dog is looking up as she knows we're in for a good day.

About the same time as that first flight of birds buzzes overhead we hear an awful commotion coming down the old dirt road leading to the parking area, there is a truck absolutely hauling arse down that bumpy road. We see in the distance faint headlights pull in and hear a bunch of banging around and can barely make out faint yelling voices, we're about a mile away from the parking lot so no way to hear but they were obviously in a hurry.

So we get a few more flights of birds and it's getting close to legal shooting time. We can hear a whistle, constant beep beep beep BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP going on. We've got birds sitting in the decoys and more buzzing overhead and my alarm goes off... BLAST 'EM. Bunch of ducks go down and my dog grabs them all. Old guy is loving on the dog after bringing in the ducks. We keep hearing this whistle and it's getting louder, we hear yelling and hollering and screaming. We all stand up out of the reeds and we can see one guy probably 200 yards behind us walking toward us blowing that whistle and we all kinda laugh and sit back down to wait for the next flock to roll in.

It didn't take long, another flight of birds cups and descends into the dekes and I call the shot and some more birds go down. My dog grabs the first one and we hear what sounds like cattle stampeding through the swamp behind us. Now we've seen some HUGE boars out there and they're not to be played with so we all stand in unison and swing behind us to see what's approaching. We see a yellow tail flailing about and this BIG yellow lab lunging over the tules at us. He flies into the marsh and grabs one of my decoys, we're all LOAO as my dog brings in the last bird and this dog brings us a decoy. LOL

So we get settled in and I'm standing there while whistle guy is blasting on that whistle, waving my arms trying to let him know his dog is over here with us. He's about 200 yards out and yelling and whistling and traipsing back and forth in the marsh. Meanwhile this dog is trying to play with my dog and jumping around and old guy is trying to keep him away. My dog is seated on his right and he instructs this other dog to sit, which he does over on his left.

My buddy calls birds so we all sit back down and a flock of Bluewing Teal buzz over the dekes and turn to circle around. Too much movement they're gone already so we just sit tight and figure we're hunting with two dogs for now LOL. We're sitting there and about every 10 seconds this dog shakes his head. Old guy is like, dude there's something wrong with this dog. We finally notice there's a buzzing noise when he shakes, BZZZZZZZZZ shakes head. Oh snap, LOL, dog's got an e-collar on. BZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. LOL old boy was sitting proud and tight wondering wtf he's getting shocked, hey I'm sitting I'm being a good boy! BZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZ whistle beeeeep beeeeeep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep LMAO.

I get up and I'm trying to yell at the guy and wave my arms, but he won't even look in our direction. I guess he's thinking I'm trying to tell him to shut up due to the noise and he's too embarrassed to look our direction. I give up and sit back down and we're trying to figure out what to do. Just as we're sitting there laughing and beginning to really feel sorry for this dog BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZ another flock of Bluewing Teal turn our way and buzz in low at mach 12. This dog bolts into the marsh and takes off after them, they actually turned to circle back around into the dekes and this dog is circling with them chasing behind them the whole way.

OK now we're officially cussing at the dog and what was once humorous is no longer funny. Old guy looks at my dog, sitting patiently next to him and starts talking about how it's not fair to the dog for that to happen. LOL OK. My dog actually did look back and forth at us and I swear there was a "what's going on" look in her eyes.

So we yell at dude some more and he's actually slowly getting a bit closer so I think he may have finally realized that his dog is over with us, perhaps he heard all the cussing going on. We get his dog to sit back down and old guy says he won't shoot he's just gonna hang on to the buzz collar so that dog won't ruin my dog's next retrieve. lol... BZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZZZ BZZZZZZZZZ.

We hear some honking and there's a nice solo Specklebelly goose rolling in low. Now my dog is still pretty young and we primarily hunt ducks over water so this opportunity is kinda rare, and I make the mistake of saying "Wow this will be my dog's first goose" which I would later regret. We wait and one of us drops that flying steak out of the sky like a rock, it splashes hard into the water about 50 yards out and I send the dog out to get it. This other dog is fighting old guy the whole time and wiggling and barking and making a mess. Oh yeah, that dog BARKED at every flock of birds he saw LOL. My dog grabs the goose and she's swimming back in, gets about half way when BZZZZZ BZZZZZ that e-collar strap broke and that other dog tears out into the marsh, gets out to my dog and grabs a hold of the goose's neck. Now my dog of course has a soft mouth, like mentioned before some of these dogs can carry water balloons without popping, etc. Now old guy is halfway out to the dogs screaming at this other dog and we see my dog stretching her neck trying to hold on to the goose but is unsuccessful and that other dog rips it away and starts running off to our left holding that goose up high.

Now I'm chasing that dog just trying to get my goose back before he eats it! I realize old guy is running, but he's not running in the same direction as me, he's running back to his chair to get his gun. LOL Oh shat! I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He says that's the last straw this dog is gonna learn the hard way, he took her goose, he took her goose! That bastard took her first goose!!! LOL OMG I'm in shock. He gets to the gun and he's taking aim on this dog in no uncertain manner. I jump in between, trying to stay between as that dog is running sideways. Old guy is screaming at me to get out of the way because he's going to shoot this dog and I'm yelling back, dude, you can't freaking shoot somebody's dog! He finally calms down and puts the gun down and gave chase to the dog. The dog had now run out the back side of our hiding area and the brush is real low so whistle guy saw the commotion and was heading our way. Old guy actually catches up with this dog somehow and begins beating the living shat out of that dog in front of whistle guy, I mean closed fist pummeling. We get there and pull him off the dog and grab the torn up goose away and tell him to calm down man. There was some sort of post close to where he caught the dog and he fashioned up his belt or water strap or something and zip-tied that dog's neck to the post and left him there half strangling as we all walked back to our hunting spot.

Whistle guy never said a word. That post was about 50 yards behind our seats, maybe 75 yards and we watched as he walked up and untied his dog and then left. He went straight back to his truck and never even picked up his decoys, he just left them there where he'd begun setting them out. We hunted for a few more hours all the while thinking he was coming back but he never showed. Thought about grabbing his dekes on the way in but figured we'd better leave them in case he did come back. There was a pile on the bank and about 10 in the water. Several weeks later at a check in station I overheard some guys talking about finding a bunch of decoys at the other unit so I guess dude never came back.

[lhprop1]

You also aint a duck hunter until people in traffic have stared at you wondering what kind of pipe you're smoking and why you're blowing on the pipe in the car. You get some strange looks while practicing a duck call driving back and forth to work.

I taught my son to blow a call when he was 10 or 11 months old. I can only imagine what people in traffic must think when they see me "blowing on my pipe" and then handing it to my 15 month old son.

[storm1507]

Nainoa has done hacked into HS's account.

[Nainoa]

Nainoa has done hacked into HS's account.

I know I finally get out of the habit or writing wall text... And once the void is left open, someone has to step up and fill it.

If only Fitty was here!

[HairyScandinavian]

Hey at least mine was an interesting story.

[GREENFEATHER]

Global Warming, fuggin algore was right who would have thought?

I oughta neg your ass for mentioning that cock smokers name, srs.

Interesting observation this morning, peeps be fuggin skeered man.

I'm getting a popping noise from the A/C actuators under my dash in the truck so I dropped it off at the dealer around 7am this morning. Since the dealer is about 1.5 miles from the office I just dropped it off and walked to work. There's a bunch of empty restaurant and business parking lots (the tanning lot was full of customers already) and I cut across the lots for shortest route, couple cars just sitting in the middle of the lots and of course they see me walking by and you can just see the fear on their faces but no biggie I can see where it might be creepy.

So I get out to the main street, lots of traffic and stop lights. I'm walking opposite traffic down the left side of the street with cars coming toward me on my right. What's funny is that peeps will be sitting there screwing with the radio or whatever, then notice you and make eye contact briefly and immediately look away with a pale straight "oh ****" look and then scoot their cars up all the way next to the bumper of the car in front of them. Seriously like every time I glanced over at someone their reaction was to inch up really close to the next car.

This goes against everything I've been trying to teach my kids, in my head it's a major security violation. I mean, let's think about it for a minute. Let's say you're in your vehicle and a scary hairy looking scandinavian dude with a backpack on is eyeballing you from the sidewalk. Let's say you think his intentions are criminal, do you really want to sandwich your vehicle up against the car in front of you? What are you gonna do when he smashes your passenger side window, sit there and scream? Seems to me keeping a good distance AWAY from the car in front of you is prudent, dude makes a move and you cut your wheels left and punch the accelerator. No?

PS. I thought people were only afraid of black guys because of their dumb stereotypes, but now I'm thinking peeps are just scared in general.

People would be scared to death if they knew what I carried in my backpack, lol.

Rocks are too unpredictable for precision sling shotting. I use Daisy ammo. Yeah, it's not free, but it is consistent.

I use ball bearings, I must have 100 lbs of them. What's cool is to bathe them in liquid nitrogen and shoot them at a wall.

Hairy, you have a pm possibly, the powers that be here seem to still be having issues with their stuffs.

[HairyScandinavian]

I oughta neg your ass for mentioning that cock smokers name, srs.

People would be scared to death if they knew what I carried in my backpack, lol.

I use ball bearings, I must have 100 lbs of them. What's cool is to bathe them in liquid nitrogen and shoot them at a wall.

Hairy, you have a pm possibly, the powers that be here seem to still be having issues with their stuffs.

1) I did NOT mention any names, I said algore. Everyone knows the algore is a spooky mythical creature from the past.

2) Maybe I was printing that would explain it LOL Nah that pack has a special pouch in the back where I carry and it would have been right up against my back so not possible.

3) I always used rocks and was pretty damn accurate, but bought the kids some "slingshot ammo" from Academy because we're out of rocks. That stuff friggin MOVES.

4) Got the PM, thx mane!

[Procta]

typical FL weather...... yesterday High of 78...today, High of 56 and dropping down to mid/upper 20s tonight.

so this cold front will hang around until about Wednesday then we back into the 70s

[Nainoa]

typical FL weather...... yesterday High of 78...today, High of 56 and dropping down to mid/upper 20s tonight.

so this cold front will hang around until about Wednesday then we back into the 70s

If you check the Mayan Calendar, I think you'll find they didn't predict this!

[storm1507]

Hey at least mine was an interesting story.

Cliffs???

[HairyScandinavian]

typical FL weather...... yesterday High of 78...today, High of 56 and dropping down to mid/upper 20s tonight.

so this cold front will hang around until about Wednesday then we back into the 70s

Welcome to Texas weather, it appears we're taking over Florida.

Cliffs???

Dude had a crazy uncontrolled dog that ran away from him and sat with our group, chased birds away and stole a goose from my dog the whole time getting shocked every 10 seconds (for about half an hour straight) with the e-collar, and our old guy buddy tried to choot'em but ended up just beating the hell out of the dog in front of the owner.

[Hartski]

Mmmm....bacon wrapped sirloin fillet with peas and wild rice for lunch. People in the break room were jealous....

[44hunter]

Mmmm....bacon wrapped sirloin fillet with peas and wild rice for lunch. People in the break room were jealous....

Venison Chili here. People at work wont be jealous but rather searching for the source of the toxic gases.

[HairyScandinavian]

Mmmm....bacon wrapped sirloin fillet with peas and wild rice for lunch. People in the break room were jealous....

Venison Chili here. People at work wont be jealous but rather searching for the source of the toxic gases.

Screw you both, I just got back from Squats and leg day and sat down to this. Think I'ma go back for some cheesecake because that strawberry topping sauce looked really good.

[Nainoa]

Cliffs???

Those were his Cliffs!

You should see the long version of the story!



Wait... wut?

When did I stop being the Wall Text guy?

[Nainoa]

Venison Chili here. People at work wont be jealous but rather searching for the source of the toxic gases.

I had a 53 minute (cold) business call that threw off my schedule for the whole day... Ran to town to get last minute christmas gifts (Filling my wife's stocking diabetic candies) Short on time and starving I ate a friggin' big mac...


I feel like I'm gonna puke a rainbow of evil!

Seriously... How do people eat Fast food every day.

I eat it once a month or longer and each time it makes my guts feel like I just drank a gallon of fermented buffalo semen!

[HairyScandinavian]

You have a weak stomach noa. If I didn't get fat so damn fast I could eat 10 big macs or ultimate cheeseburgers a day.

[44hunter]

I had a 53 minute (cold) business call that threw off my schedule for the whole day... Ran to town to get last minute christmas gifts (Filling my wife's stocking diabetic candies) Short on time and starving I ate a friggin' big mac...


I feel like I'm gonna puke a rainbow of evil!

Seriously... How do people eat Fast food every day.

I eat it once a month or longer and each time it makes my guts feel like I just drank a gallon of fermented buffalo semen!

Im with you man. When the babe was in Ft Smith that week I had nothing but fast food to live on. Ive never felt more sluggish and miserable than I was that week. Back to eathing things Ive killed!

[Nainoa]

WOOOOOO! Here I thought today was going to be a non-day, sitting on my butt and answer 3 e-mails while everyone else is getting ready to leave early for the holiday.

And while the pieces of paper won't be signed yet until after the new year, so I can't rock it in at 100%... But assuming everything goes through as planned... I just had the most successful day of my career!

[Nainoa]

You have a weak stomach noa. If I didn't get fat so damn fast I could eat 10 big macs or ultimate cheeseburgers a day.

Actually I'm pretty well known for having a cast iron gut.

I think if you just go a while without eating processed foods (Which is just my lifestyle, not like it's a philosophical choice etc...) That your guts and body just aren't used to running that way.

I mean it was tasty while I ate it... But afterwards, my guts have been going downhill and I feel slower... Despite the fact that I've had a high energy highly positive day.

I couldn't imagine what a person would feel like if they were having a bad day and THEN had that stuff slowing them down.