Someone over at Bowsite started a thread of old hunting pictures. Some you have seen before, but most are just old family pictures. There are some very cool old photos you should see. Check here.

I won’t say anything bad about KSU today. I probably should. I definitely could. But somehow it seems cheap after such a great game. Props to Kansas State and Kansas on a great game, great environment, and gut wrenching final 10 minutes.

I’m one of the few people who still reads the print newspaper every day. Sometimes I wonder why. Today the FYI section had an interesting graph comparing the money Avatar has made with other all-time revenue generating movies. It was essentially a copy of this graph:

The above chart came from here.

Maybe it’s not interesting… maybe it’s moderately interesting… I guess it’s up to you and what type of things you like to learn about and read. But then I looked closely at the chart in the KC star and found this footnote:

Note: Adjusted for inflation, “Avatar” ranks 26th in box office revenues.

WTF!?!?! So let me get this straight: You make a chart that appears to be designed to show that Avatar has made more money, faster, than any other movie… followed with a footnote that says, “nah, just kidding, how’s 26th sound?” Is this the type of thing that works because it’s in the FYI section of the Star? Or is perhaps because Americans have become increasingly math illiterate? Or maybe the author himself is one of those people who just, “doesn’t get math”? Or maybe I’m overreacting? But we’re not talking about Calc III here…

I’ve been getting a bunch of google hits regarding the Behenna trial and appeal because of this post that I wrote in September. At the time I was only posting because I was concerned about the absurd amount of half-truths being put out there regarding the case, and I wanted a platform to express my hatred of Bill O’Reilly and Phil Kline, even in passing. There is apparently some future in hating Phil, he’s getting ready for an ethics hearing before the Kansas Supreme Court. That’s a story for another day.

Anyway, Mr. Behenna has had his sentence reduced twice, once by the Army’s parole board, and once by the governing body of the 101st. His appeal is ongoing. For more information on the appeal you can follow my link to the previous post.

This year the Kansas Department of Wildlife tested a whole bunch of heads in the Northwest corner of the state where infected animals have been found before. The results seem to indicate that CWD is spreading, both in geographic area, and in the number of deer affected.

So the question is: what next? I have not seen any type of plan put forth by KDWP although I certainly haven’t done an exhaustive research project on the issue. I actually hope their plan is to do nothing, at least at this point. I’ve hunted several times in Colorado, and I’ve had a few elk tested. I’ve also had deer in both Missouri and Kansas tested. It’s really no big deal from a hunter’s standpoint. In a few weeks they give you the results and you move on with life, no big deal.

For now the KDWP is advising hunters who kill a deer in the Northwestern corner of the state from traveling with the carcass. Here’s the new press release.

I had a little tip that there were a bunch of Canadas using a frozen irrigation lake where I’ve had some late season action before. The ice was too thick to break with a boat and too thin to walk on but I loaded up a truck full of decoys and a four wheeler and headed down to scout before sunset Friday evening. I found a few geese but hundreds of ducks pouring into a vague area where they really shouldn’t be. I couldn’t tell if they were going into a field or marsh that might or might not be frozen. This time of year I look for waterfowl to go to big water but these were clearly not going to roost on the lake.

The next morning I loaded up the mule with a dog, decoys and the other stuff I thought I might need and headed off hoping to figure out what was going on. What I found was that a small marsh near the big lake happened to have enough current to keep it from freezing. A few thousand snow geese and a couple thousand ducks got out around shooting time and started coming back while I threw my decoys out. The entire area of open water couldn’t have been much more than an acre but I was the only game in town. I stood beside a tree and tried to stretch the hunt out a bit. Unfortunately it just doesn’t take very long to kill a limit in situations like this. I could have been done in 10 minutes but instead it lasted nearly an hour:

Kodi got the call and was nice enough to pose for the picture…

I immediately got on the phone and tried to find a friend or two to join in the action. By 3:00 I’d put up my shotgun and was guiding for a regular hunting partner and a friend of his. A bit of the ol’ 5-quack and the first drake comes in just right, feet down, 20 yards… “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”… and Riley is swimming back to me… and I can see a band… My friend had just killed his first banded duck!

Unfortunately what little pressure I’d put on these ducks was enough that they didn’t come back to the marsh to roost. We ended up having a nice shoot, but not the slaughter I had expected and very few ducks spent the night there.

The next morning the three of us wondered if we were pushing our luck. The ducks hadn’t roosted in our spot, or even anywhere nearby. Still, there’s only 9 days in the late season, so why waste one sleeping in? The sun came up, the wind blew, and we saw a lot of ducks.

No one would own up to breaking the weekend all drake streak…

So over less than 36 hours I killed or guided to the kills of almost 30 ducks… both my dogs are worn out and happy… and it was the purest form of waterfowl… no robo ducks, no fancy blinds… just standing by a tree calling ducks into your spread… the way it was meant to be. It’s times like this that make me wonder why I spend so much time chasing deer and pheasants and elk. A good late season mallard hunt will always be my first hunting love.

My eyes are blood shot, my shoulder is sore, my face is wind burned to the point that it hurts, and my lips are cracked… yup, another late season waterfowl bender. I’ll give a better report when I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

I’ve been blessed in my life to have become friends with some absolutely brilliant people. James, or “The Colonel” as he used to write as, is an honest-to-god rocket scientist. We met in our mid-teens through a mutual friend and rented a place together during graduate school. He was in my wedding. He created the first The Daily Limit for me and kept it running through my technical ineptitude, even after he moved to Houston in order to work for NASA.

He created his own blog a while back called The Houston Chronicles which resides on my blogroll even though it was nearly dead for months at a time. Had we not all been scared for him as he rode out a hurricane I doubt if I would ever had mentioned it at all. Anyway, he reworked everything and has returned to blogging with occasional enthusiasm. Yesterday he gave us an introspective look at how he sees the future of NASA, Project Constellation, and the value of his own skill set. It’s well written and worth a look even if you’ve never met him, but for those of you out there who know James it’s even more thought provoking. Check it out here.

Same story as last time… same result. Two of us killed out and then I hung around while two more guys drove down for the afternoon shoot. Everyone finished with a limit. This morning there were fewer geese moving but we were hunting in a thick fog. A goose had to be on final approach before you could see him. This afternoon the fog burned off and we saw hundreds of geese. At dark I bet 2000 were sitting on the ice when we drove off. Another awesome day. Unfortunately the ice is melting and it won’t be long before it becomes too thin to walk on and two thick to break with a boat.

So I after we cleaned the geese I grabbed my rifle and headed up the hill. I’m not much of a doe hunter, although I should be. I killed a couple early this fall in Southern Missouri but since then I’ve been positively hands off. Generally I’m afraid of shooting a doe while buck hunting because I don’t want to stir things up. If does are using an area, I want that behavior to continue. I also don’t want to get down, wander around tracking, and then spread my scent all over everything. Even when my buck tags are full it seems like I’m guiding a friend or scouting bucks right up to the first of January. Anyway, this year I wanted to shoot a doe to make jerky. The Kansas late rifle season runs the first several days of January but I can also hunt Unit 19 with a bow until the end of January. No pressure.

I had a wild truck ride up a steep and rocky hill with 8 inches of snow on everything. Then I trudged through the snow to a nice little double man ladder stand that was real good to me several years ago, last time I sat in it. I was set up by around 4:00 and saw my first doe by 4:15. She was in the brush and never gave me a shot. Then 15 minutes later a couple of does walked behind my stand 20 yards away. I picked the bigger one and took a shot when she cleared some brush. She took off running like nothing had happened… downhill… in the trees and brush… Ugh.

Since I had a hard time believing I missed at that range I got down immediately and picked up the tracks. It didn’t me too long to find the blood that you saw in the pictures below. Still, she went probably 100 yards:

You can tell the shot placement was good… anyway, now I was remembering why I don’t doe hunt much. I went back up to the stand, ditched all my gear except a safety strap, and went back to start hauling. The Old Man eventually showed up to help, and we had her in the truck before it was completely dark, without anyone having a heart attack. Now I’ve got my jerky basis covered until September’s antelope hunt…