Where I Have Been

My last post was five months ago. Hard to believe. In December of last year I announced I would be blogging full time at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.  My plan had been tocontinue posting my outdoors stuff here but it seems I have found an audience for that kind of writing at the League. It’s kind of cool that some of the readers now refer to me as ‘the gun guy’.

I am not closing The Big Stick if for no other reason than it is a good place to store my archives. I am very proud of the work I did here when I was an independent blogger. I built a small but excellent readership and I learned a lot about this medium that I love so much. My writing has gotten much better and for that I am thankful.

I hope readers will go find me at my new regular digs. All of my posts at The League can all be found here. I will probably stop back by here from time to time. In the meantime, I’m still writing and living the strenuous life.

Tornado Footage

Footage was recently released of the EF-4 tornado that struck in Henryville, IN earlier this month. It’s pretty amazing.

The outpouring of support for the Henryville community has been inspiring. As the closest big city I am so proud of my fellow Louisvillians taking care of our neighbors. This is what makes our country great.

My New Toy

This weekend was the big gun show in Louisville. There were probably 1,000 tables set up which means probably close to 500,00 guns available for purchase. My mission this year was to sell a Ruger Single-Six .22 that I inherited from my dad. The sell was intended to give me the money for a new deer rifle which I desperately needed.

The sale took about 2 hours of slowly walking past booths and hoping for a bite. Finally a dealer made an offer and we agreed on a price. With a pocket full of cash I made my way back to the booth where I had spotted the gun I wanted. My hope had been to find an H&R Handi-Rifle in .243. I’m a big fan of the simplicity of the design and it is more than enough power for Kentucky deer hunting. I was surprised to not see a single H&R anywhere and was feeling discouraged earlier in the day. Then I found a booth that was carrying a bunch of Rossi single-shot rifles that are clearly based on the H&R design.

I scored a new rifle chambered in .243 for a very good price. Three booths later and I had a scope. I’m pretty excited to get this bad boy out to the range.

 

It’s Over (whew!)

Goose, duck and rabbit seasons wrapped up yesterday. I will probably squirrel hunt a morning or two in February and turkey hunt for a couple of days in April, but other than that it’s no hunting until September.  And I am exhausted.

This season set a record for me with days logged in the field. I think I hit somewhere between 40-50 days over the season. That includes hunting doves, squirrels, rabbits, deer, ducks, geese, and turkeys.  I should probably alsocount the two late shifts we pulled gigging frogs over the summer.

Not an epic year as far as harvest numbers go (last year was my career high-point) but it was important in a lot of other ways. I get this sense that myself and my hunting partners have turned some kind of corner that I can’t quite put my finger on. We’re all starting to settle into our niches. I’ve become so addicted to goose hunting that it occupies much of my free thoughts. One of the guys has become a rabbit-killing machine. Another hears turkeys gobbling in his dreams. It’s almost like we have begun deferring to each other in the field, letting each person run the hunt when we’re chasing their game animal of choice.

I’ve also discovered that hunting when you are an adult can be less adventurous but the dependability of good gear equals more time hunting and less time repairing things or sitting at home. We all have solid automobiles, money for warm jackets and good guns. We’re enjoy the comfort of adulthood.

I probably have more to say about this season but I need a week or two to decompress. I’ll try to be back later this week with a smoked-goose recipe you’ll want to try.

Ups and Downs

Hunting season has been weird this year. The high moments have been great and the low moments haven’t really been that bad – just puzzling.

The season started off great with a nice big tom during the soggy spring turkey season. I then spent the sumer working my tail off on household projects to make sure that I could enjoy the hunting season.  Heading into fall I had a milestone dove shoot that I will remember forever.

Then my luck ran out…

I usually hunt squirrels a LOT during the early fall and always put a couple in the freezer. This year despite plenty of acorns on the ground and my hunting buddies all having luck I was striking out. This was the first puzzle because all the conditions were right for successful hunts. The only explanation I can come up with is that my favorite spot has been discovered by someone else and they’ve cleaned out the woods. Very possible and the price for hunting on public land.

Deer season was another disappointment and it ended with me resolving to find a new spot before next season. My uncle’s farm is just too unreliable and I miss having venison to eat. This was all compounded by the number of mind-numbing hours I spent in the stand determined to take a whitetail.

Goose season seemed to start on a good note. I killed a goose on opening day and there were plenty of birds in the area. But they refused to fly over the farm for most of December. We logged close to 40 hours in the field with nothing to show for it.

On NYE we tried for a mixed bag, hunting doves at dawn and rabbits afterwards. The doves wouldn’t cooperate and landed outside of gun range to feast on corn. The excellent rabbit spot we found on the WMA last year had been mowed (why, oh why would they do that?)  We went home skunked.

This past Saturday I’m hoping we finally headed back in a positive direction. The geese were finally flying and flying low at that. Two limits and we left the farm all smiles. Murphy posed with our haul. He earned his pay for the day by knocking down a crippled bird with a hard charge and then standing on it until we could finish it off.

As of this writing the 2011-2012 season ends in exactly 50 days. There’s a lot more hunting to do but I sure hope it’s more consistent. Either way, we’ll be out there doing what we do.

 

A (Slight) Change for The Big Stick

I am pleased to announce that starting today I will be blogging as a full member of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. Longtime readers know that I am a huge fan of the site and have been a guest contributor and commenter there for several years. This new opportunity will give me a chance to share my policy and political perspectives with a much wider audience and also allow me to make some changes to The Big Stick for its current readership.

Since I started blogging four years ago I have written about whatever subjects interested me on a given day. Much of that was politics and policy but I have also covered hunting, gardening, cooking, art and culture. This was keeping with my vision of ‘living the strenuous life’ as conceived by one of my heroes, Teddy Roosevelt. In the last year I joined The Outdoor Blogger Network and this has brought in new readership for my outdoor-themed posts. As readership has grown it seemed clear that The Big Stick was becoming a bit complicated. I thought it unfair that outdoor readers would have to wade through posts on politics and education policy to read about my latest hunting trip. By moving my political and policy writing over to the League it will allow me to narrow the focus of this site and (I hope) create a better experience for readers.

The simplest explanation of the changes is this: If you come to The Big Stick for politics and policy, please visit me at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen. If you come here for everything else, stick around. My political and policy writing from 2008-2011 will be archived at a companion site. Visitors will be able to click on a page entitled ‘Archives’ at the top of this site and find the link there.  All content and more importantly, all comments and conversations, will be stored there for reference.

As always, thank you so much to my readers. This site has been one of my proudest accomplishments and being able to share it with others is a high honor.

Goose Opener

Deer season started 2 1/2 weeks ago. I’ve done my best to be patient and to log some serious seat time in my stand. No dice so far. It’s frustrating but it also makes me more convinced than ever that I need to seek out a new spot for next year. The farm I hunt is fantastic for other game but has become increasingly frustrating for deer, especially when I hear from friends that they haven’t shot deer yet because they are waiting for just the right one. Me, I’d be thrilled with a doe for the freezer.

And so it was with that level of frustration that I drove out to the property this morning for the goose opener…and all is right with the world again. Everything that I hate about deer hunting, the boredom, the frozen toes from lack of movement, the lonliness…goose season is the opposite. I can move around. I can unwrap a granola bar without feeling like I just ruined my hunt. I almost always see birds. I can hang out with friends and the dog. It’s the hunting that makes my heart most happy in my mid-thirties.

The birds started flying at a predictable 7:30am. The first group landed on the lake next door and I made a mental note to be ready when they left in an hour or so. The geese weren’t very vocal today which threw me off my game a bit. I had two groups catch me off guard, one while I was adjusting the decoy spread and one while I was letting Murphy stretch his legs outside the blind.

At 8:30 Murphy’s ears perked up and he looked out towards the horizon. Four birds were about 1000 yards out and coming in our general direction. I hit the call a few times and flagged and then dropped to a knee to wait. The took a line straight towards us and came in for a fly-by.

Boom-boom-boom.

Usually for me the third shot is a frustration shot if the first two are misses. This time it was money. The big Canada goose crumpled and landed with an audible thud. For the first time ever I shot a goose on opening day. Pretty cool stuff.

The rest of the day was filled with a few random groups and none within shooting range but I didn’t care. I was thrilled to have a bird so early in the season when I’m used to coming home empty-handed.

Let’s hope this is a sign of a great season in store for us.