Thanks y'all.
If the woods are as filled with acorns as my neighbors trees are, then we've had a helluva acorn season this year.There should be very happy turkeys, wood ducks and deer.
Saturday I went out to a pond near the Gulf thinking that the ducks might want to find some refuge. Saturday dawned, still, calm, not a hint of a breeze, glassy water and foggy. (I tell ya, the weather liars sure know how to screw up plans.) Some years this area is very good and filled with food. Other years, not so much. Especially when at the beginning of September a hurricane blows in and inundates the area with salt water and kills off any food that might've been there. I saw 4 wood ducks and that was about it. A little later in the morning, I was hearing something behind me so I stood up in the spartina to look. And there was a pretty little 4pt buck chilling out and wandering through the woods/marsh. Feeding and scratching and rubbing and just being totally unconcerned about me. At one point he was no more than 30 ft from me, broadside. If I'd had my blaze orange with me then my duck hunt would've ended a little differently. Alas I did not have it with me so he continued on unmolested, after chilling out with me for about 10 minutes. I called it a day shortly after the fog burned off and the day got even more still, if that was possible. I went home, took a nap and woke up to much windier conditions as the front had blown through while I slept. Go figure.
Since I had no real good spots to go to and the temps over night were supposed to get into the 30s, I decided that for Sunday I would burrow down into my blankets and sleep in. So I did. It was very windy this morning and afternoon too. I woke up nice and toasty warm, listening to one of my dogs talking to me about wanting to go out front (he loves cold weather). Eventually I gave in, got up, made some hot chocolate and went and sat on the front porch and watched him be a goofball in the cold weather. Then I slowly began getting the mudboat loaded up to go explore one of the lakes here that I'd never been on. I wasn't expecting much there either. I'd seen some woodducks when I checked different landings, but not many. I unloaded the boat into a stiff north wind and headed off across the lake to the less windy side, finding submerged stumps that startled the hell out of Drake and me when we zipped over them. Luckily we never got stuck. There are some pretty places back there on the lake, though I didn't flush many woodducks. There were surprisingly few, but maybe they were just hunkered down real tight. I found one spot with a ringneck that really wanted to hang out in that spot, so after flushing him, Drake and I sat in some grass in the boat and waited to see if he'd come back. Sure enough he did. It was a gorgeous afternoon on a beautiful lake and I was happy that Drake got to go on more than just a boat ride.
Without a doubt, this was the slowest opener I've had but it was a neat one with the deer that came to visit me.
