The End of Duck/Goose Season . WHAT IS NEXT?

Unfortunately now for me, it is work long hours until that April 15th deadline hits--joys of being a CPA in public accounting. Then it is golf, fishing, vacation time for me and the wife(well the golf is my thing-she doesnt play). Taking the wife to St John VI for 5 days, then mid summer headed up to Ontario for a week of fly-in walleye and pike fishing with the wife.
 
I may do a little fishing this spring. Im planning on doing some more camping and getting away. Lots of house projects and currently have my living room tore apart and repainting. Installed an HVAC diffuser so now the house completely smells like anything we want it too. Depending on draw results, I plan to make quite a few trips and get familiar with that area of the state and coyote hunt those areas while im down there. Adding a few suppressors and possibly a few new toys to the safe depending on what I draw. Just submitted my first form 4 yesterday for my first can. Finally put hands on and its going to be an awesome one to add to any bigger rifle I decide to hunt with. If all goes well with the draw, plan on adding a 7PRC to the safe and getting good with it. Otherwise, lots of yard work and house projects that need to get done. I will certainly spend some time in the shop sprucing up older decoys and making lots of new ones.
 
I want to carve a bunch of decoys for next fall. Need to start cutting a pile a firewood to replace all we burned this winter then time to look forward to spring gobbler
 
February and at least, early March, will likely be down time. Then in March, time to start prepping out 36' express w/ twin diesels. Lots of work to get that in the water every year. Repairs, maintenance, upgrades, etc.

My son, going to be 4, is ready to go for this offshore season. With that, we will start re-rigging and prepping a lot of tackle. That consumes quite a bit of time.

Adding to that, we will be prepping our house for sale in the spring. At least that's the plan.
 
A few years ago, a coworker of mine introduced me to snipe hunting, and now that's become my preferred February outdoor activity.

The unfortunate thing about that is it's actually surprisingly hard to talk about it with people, even duck hunters, as they just assume you are joking. I've gotten a couple friends into it though. My one friend spent a lot of the day today hunting some public land without seeing a single one... Hoping that won't be the case when I do the same on Monday.

Today was spent outfitting the car with a new roof rack, hoping that soon I will have a canoe to put up there!
 

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James L said:
A few years ago, a coworker of mine introduced me to snipe hunting, and now that's become my preferred February outdoor activity.

The unfortunate thing about that is it's actually surprisingly hard to talk about it with people, even duck hunters, as they just assume you are joking. I've gotten a couple friends into it though. My one friend spent a lot of the day today hunting some public land without seeing a single one... Hoping that won't be the case when I do the same on Monday.

Today was spent outfitting the car with a new roof rack, hoping that soon I will have a canoe to put up there!
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I love snipe hunting! Here in NJ, the snipe season always opens in early September (about 2 months before duck season starts) and closes in early January (3-4 weeks before duck season ends), so it’s usually a fall activity for me. I love grilling up those little suckers!
 
William Mink said:
I love snipe hunting! Here in NJ, the snipe season always opens in early September (about 2 months before duck season starts) and closes in early January (3-4 weeks before duck season ends), so it’s usually a fall activity for me. I love grilling up those little suckers!
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Interesting it closes earlier up there, maybe they're trying to time it to catch mainly birds on migration. I would guess they are studied way less than ducks and other game birds though. In both NC and MS where I've hunted them they run to the end of Feb. I might have to consider going out for them between duck splits though!

Do you like to use decoys when you hunt them? We're typically just walking along trying to flush them, but I think my first one may actually have been shot when I and another guy were sitting behind a berm with other people in our party walking towards us to push them out way.

How do you like to grill them? I feel like I haven't really done them justice yet, usually I pan fry the breast but I honestly haven't gotten a ton of practice with it as I haven't shot that many total birds.
 
James L said:
Interesting it closes earlier up there, maybe they're trying to time it to catch mainly birds on migration. I would guess they are studied way less than ducks and other game birds though. In both NC and MS where I've hunted them they run to the end of Feb. I might have to consider going out for them between duck splits though!

Do you like to use decoys when you hunt them? We're typically just walking along trying to flush them, but I think my first one may actually have been shot when I and another guy were sitting behind a berm with other people in our party walking towards us to push them out way.

How do you like to grill them? I feel like I haven't really done them justice yet, usually I pan fry the breast but I honestly haven't gotten a ton of practice with it as I haven't shot that many total birds.
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I just walk marshy/boggy areas and flush them out. There’s an article on Project Upland about decoying them. Sounds fun, but I don’t think I live in a snipey enough area for that to be a fruitful means of hunting them.

Hank Shaw has a great recipe for “Snipe Basque” in his cookbook, Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail. It involves marinating with preserved lemons and then grilling. It’s not on his website, but I could scan it for you later if you want. His website, honest-food.net, does have a couple other snipe recipes, as well as recipes for anything else you can think of. It’s my go-to source for wild game cooking info.
 
Next on the list is mother's day caddis on the Henry's Fork. The crowds aren't too bad and the flows are usually about right to pick up some big browns on dries. Thousands of people float the Henry's Fork every summer and the major hatches like green drakes and salmon flies are about ruined and overcrowded. A few years ago we were on a bridge looking upriver and there were 20 boats in sight and down river there were 19 boats and probably 50 wade fishing, we don't bother floating that section anymore. You can still catch big fish if you can cast a fly rod drifting dry flies. Hardly anyone does that anymore. Everyone is drifting down the middle with nymphs below a chubby. We found a spot 10 feet under this rock wall that always holds big browns. The only trick is a left handed presentation to within 6 inches of the wall under the rock for maybe a 6 foot drift before the current will drag it off line. I doubt those fish ever get caught in that spot and they are always there.

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I do a good amount of gardening, but hardly know when I should plant, the past three years we've had frost on the 20th of June. I've had a lot of stuff going good the last few years only to have to replant.

In july I still have a master plan of fishing grayling in some high mountain lakes about 50 miles from the house and a 3 hour drive. I still need to recover some from tearing a muscle in what I used to call my good leg on our last duck hunt trying to get up a steep hill on our 3 mile round trip hike to our duck hunting spot, (thus my all consuming interest in light weight decoys). Getting old ain't for sissies as my dad used to say. At 68 I'm probably one of the younger guys around here.

I can't say the next thing on the yearly calendar will be making decoys since it's a daily, year round thing. I'm about to the point of not taking orders anymore, I'll have to live to 90 to finish what I have on the books. You just have to get to the point that you just don't care how much you get done, just that you are doing something you enjoy. I had a guy order 150 custom decoys a few weeks ago, I just kind of had to laugh to myself.

I'll admit I don't post often on the main forum, I try stay in the carvers corner and I think it's pretty active way down there at the bottom of the page.
 
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