Wednesday, October 15, 2008

My kind of week

© By Othmar Vohringer

It stared with an unforgettable morning in the duck marsh and went on to become on of the most enjoyable weeks in my hunting career. In this blog post I will take you along on my outdoor journey illustrated through pictures. Enjoy.

As I said it all stared with that memorable waterfowl hunt. The day after that hunt I found myself sitting in my office cutting green cord pieces to the exact length needed to braid a duck call lanyard. With the memories that hunt stirred up in me it brought a knowledge that was buried deep inside me. The knowledge my father passed on to me of how to make your own duck call lanyard. It didn’t click right away but after the second try it all came back to me and within a few minutes I held a finished lanyard in my hands.

The next day I went back to the marsh for some more duck hunting. This time I was a little bit better prepared and knew what to expect. I planed on shooting a few mallards but ended the morning with a pintail hen, two gadwall hens and a green-winged teal. Mallards, the most hunted of the duck species, are very spooky at this time of season and to get them close to the decoys I have to camouflage the boat much better in the future. Still I had a good morning and I am very happy with what I got.

Two days later I headed out to scout at a new hunting area that I have discovered earlier in the fall. I found lots of deer sign, even some fresh rubs. The weather has cooled down over that last few days from warm to frost in the morning. That was all that is needed to get the deer in the pre-rut phase. Rubs start to turn up everywhere now. After the scouting I spent the rest of the morning hunting grouse. In the aspen grove draped in beautiful golden fall color I shot two grouse.

On Friday it cooled down even more which put the rainbow trout into a feeding frenzy. They have to eat as much as they can now to fatten up and make it through the winter when the lake is frozen over. This in turn makes for some excellent fishing. After changing lures a few times I found the one that the fish were going for. Within thirty minutes I caught these three rainbow trout. The largest is a monster that measured 1.5 feet and weighed cleaned out still over 3 pounds.

In between all these activity I continued on my quest to find a nice mule deer buck. Unlike whitetail deer hunting mule deer hunting involves sitting for hours at an elevated point in the landscape and glassing the terrain below for traveling or bedded bucks. If a buck is spotted bedded down the difficult task of stalking within shooting range begins. If the buck travels out of shooting range watch where he is headed and then try to follow him undetected and either anticipate where he is heading and try to get ahead of it and ambush the deer or stalk after it. Any which way you choose mule deer hunting is though.

This will be my last post for this week. On Friday my hunting partner comes up to us and we head together to our annual hunting camp for three days. I will be back here next week and hope to report that I have succeeded in my quest for a big mule deer buck. If the weather keeps as cool as it is right now the bucks should all be on the move and that makes hunting them a bit easier.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a good week. Glad you're having so much fun in the new place.

Rabid Outdoorsman said...

Glad to see other hunters are as "rabid" about hunting as I am! I have been duck hunting mornings and bow hunting whitetails in the afternoon for last few weeks. I can't wait for hunting season to end so I can finally get some sleep! Take care and good luck!

Anonymous said...

Hey Othmar;

You should try to make it out to one of this weekends stops of the BC Outdoors Backroads tour.
There will be New hunting products there, as well as Percy Williamson doing a seminar on game calling, (He is amazing)
If you want to come, Check out the dates and times on my blog.
http://www.rp3fishingadventures.com/flyfish_fanatic/

Hope to see ya there.

Rick Passek

Tom Sorenson said...

Great week, Othmar - and best of wishes on your upcoming hunt. I love hunting mulies - they can be tricky, but oh so rewarding. And delicious, to boot! Good luck - look forward to reading your stories when you get back.

Othmar Vohringer said...

Kristine – Yes moving here was a good choice, considering the gas prices, I am glad that most of the hunting and fishing is right at our doorstep.

Rabid Outdoorsman – It’s nice to see new readers commenting here. Thanks for the hunting season wishes. I never considered myself as a “rabbit outdoorsman” but rather as hunting been my way of life to which I was born and raised into. But yes I am very passionate about it, so you could call it “rabbit”.

Rick – I tried to make it to Kamloops when the BC Outdoors Backroad Tour was there but then something else came up. The last few stations of the tour are close to me too, but I will be in our annual hunting camp from this evening until October 21. I wish you good luck with the rest of the tour, BC Outdoors is lucky to such a prolific flyfisher like you on board.

Tom – Yes it was a great week and it will continue to be a busy season. To be honest I still haven’t made my mind up if I like mule deer hunting or not. I am a whitetail fanatic and the only thing I miss here is the Midwest hardwoods and river bottoms. I still have a lot to learn about mule deer hunting and rather than walk for miles and glass for hours I would rather sit in a treestand anytime.

So now it’s time to get all my gear together and packed. At 3pm my hunting partner arrives at our house and then it is off into the wilderness for a few days.

-ov-

Anonymous said...

There are so many things to do when it comes to hunting and they are all time consuming.
It is very gratifying when you have a good week and you get stuff accomplished, especially when it is something you love to do.

SimplyOutdoors said...

That sounds like one awesome week Othmar. Good luck on the Mule deer hunt. Hope to see some success pictures when you get back.

deerslayer said...

Sounds like you've had a great week and a fun hunt coming up. Hopefully you'll fullfill the quest for a giant muley. Good luck and be safe to all.

Editor said...

good luck and great story

John said...

Sounds like a great week! I like the mix and match of hunting and fishing. Great work!

John
http://acrylicduckcalls.com

Anonymous said...

Great article, gread read. Glad to hear about the awesome week. I myself am having a pretty good week too, well atleast ever since the duck season started,which was on saturday

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