2009 Hunting

The 2009 hunting season for me got off to a slow start. Karen and I were not back form our trip to Australia and New Zealand, until the second week of duck season. Blake was good enough to do some early scouting and on the first weekend after we got back we went to a small pond within a few hundred yards from our house and got a couple of ducks. The fall color was still full at that time so the pictures were pretty nice.


The next weekend we tried a hunt on a lake but there was no wind so the decoys looked a little less than active. We saw ducks, but they were not interested in our spread.

The following weekend we did opening day of deer season and were rewared with a beautiful sunrise. The picture above even has a bit of moon showing.

Skyler and I did our best to be ready for the first big buck to walk by, we even sort of blended in.

The Deer below is one that was taken by another hunter on the farm just west of where we were hunting. Blake had actually seen it during the bow season near where Skyler and I were hunting.

The next weekend I hunted in a different location on the same field Skyler and I hunted the weekend before. The scenery was great, but as you can see the field was empty of deer.

One of the things, I really like about hunting is the great sunrises and sunsets. Some mornings the combination of low sun angle and cool temperature, provides some spectacular color

Some views are almost like watercolors.

The following weekend we did a full blown hunt on a lake about three miles from home. our Friend Ryan and his dad mike went with us, so we had plenty of decoys.

Ryan has a new duck boat that has a low profile and can easily be be brushed to make it blend in.

This is Ryan's dad Mike, Blake and me near the end of the hunt. You can see that we did get a couple of birds that day.

A couple of weeks later Blake, Skyler and I tried a hunt at the same lake. This time however the lake was frozen over. As a mater of fact it was about 18 degrees, the ice we had to break through was nearly 1-1/2" thick in some places. The set up was difficult, the hole we broke open to set decoys was constantly re-freezing. Each time we decided to wade out to break the decoys loose from the ice ducks or geese would come by (well out of range).

It was a cold, miserable, wonderful day. We saw lots of birds. Near the end of the hunt a large flock of geese took a couple of passes over our spread, but decided to land on the ice out in the middle of the lake. For the next half hour or so geese poured in and all landed well out of range and set there mocking us. You can see the line of them just below the tree. The smooth ice just beyond our decoy is just baerly in range for us. The geese were plenty safe.

As I write this there are a couple of more deer hunting opportunities. In a few weeks the goose season will re-open.

P.S.

The deer season ended on Sunday December 20. There was a nice snow cover so if there were going to be any deer in the area they should at least be visable. I got to my deer stand fairly early and this time I crawled up unto a tree stand. I saw several deer, actually saw on group of five does and two bucks that were almost in range. I was nice to see a lot of activity. It was a good season I ended up with two doe which I harvested about three weeks earlier.

This is one of two the ground blinds that we used this season.

On the way out of the woods I walked by the other blind that we have used this year It's the little mound just left of center on the fence row. It's supposed to be difficult to see.

Fresh snow on plant material often provides an interesting pattern. It was a good hunting season.

Australia: Last full day October 17, 2009

In the previous post I mentioned that we had gotten up early to see the sunrise at Narabeen Beach. Since this was our last full day in Australia we had a full day planned. We went out for breakfast at a café called the Narrow Bean. After breakfast we went to a park in one of the beach town near by and went on a hike on a trail out to the headland outlook. Near the parking area was this beach with a couple of pelicans.

The trail took us by a public golf course. It was a really nice place for a golf course, but from what I could see you would have to be a pretty good golfer or you would have to bring a lot of golf balls.

Once we got up to the lookout point we had great views out over the ocean and back toward Manly where we would be going for the rest of the day.

We spent a while just enjoying the sun and the warm weather.

We spotted this bird that had been doing some interesting aerial acrobatics. Then we first noticed the bird there was a crow/raven that was bothering this guy’s nest and there was an interesting dog/bird fight out over the cliffs. This guy won.

We headed out on the rest of the trail and then drove on to Manly and walked down to the beach.

Karen and I had been to Manly a little over a week earlier and spent the day in the rain. This day was a lot nicer weather.

We walked up and down the promenade and stopped to watch beach volley ball for a while.

We spotted this interesting skywriting. Apparently down in Sydney there was an evangelistic conference going on.

Further on down the beach there were water rescue classes/competitions.

Later in the afternoon we walked through the shopping area of Manly and over to the wharf where the ferry to Sydney docks.

There were plenty of boats out in the bay. We were to meet up with Clarice and Jon’s friends Paul and Amber.

We had plenty of time before our dinner reservations so we decided to take a walk around the bay and out to the headland lookout. Just before the headland was a nice smaller beach.

Up on the outlook we had a nice view back toward Manly. Pictured below are Amber, Paul, Clarice and Jon.

We spotted some dolphins swimming by and spent some time watching them.

We headed back to take on last look at the beach. The high point in the middle of the picture is where we had been earlier.

As the sun was setting we got one last look out over the ocean.

This concludes the posting of our 2009 trip to Australia and New Zealand. Perhaps we will go back there someday. It remains to be seen if anything interesting happens in our life in the future, worth posting on this Blog.

Australia: Sunrise October 17, 2009

We got back to Sydney from New Zealand on Friday late afternoon. Jon picked us up at the airport on the southwest side of Sydney and we had to drive through Sydney to get north to Narabeen. Normally that is a one hour trip. This time it took a bit longer. We got to experience Sydney traffic gridlock up front and personal. It was fairly late when we picked Clarice up from her after workout session at the gym. Our task that evening was to unpack and repack to be ready to head back to the US on Sunday.

Saturday morning we were in the last full day that we were going to be in Australia. Clarice and Jon suggested that since they had not been to the Narabeen beach/rock pool for a sunrise yet that we should get up early and see one.

It was pretty brisk as we worked out way out to the rock pool (a rock pool is an area out from the beach where a breakwater is constructed of concrete and or rocks to create a relatively smooth swimming area). The water in the rock pool is sea water with the big wave knocked out.

The rock pool is right at the base of some fairly high cliffs that form a headland (north end of Narabeen Beach

Generally speaking the sky was clear with a huge cloud bank at the horizon. We had no idea what the sunrise would look like so we spread out onto several areas to try to get some nice photos from several perspectives.

The water went from rough and choppy looking to slick as glass in just a couple of minutes.

There were huge waves crashing at the breakwater that set up some pretty impressive blasts of water.

After a while this older bloke came down to the pool and started swimming laps. I guess if you do it every day you sort of get used to the temperatures.

We took a couple of we were here pictures and started to head out for breakfast.

I took a couple of shots at the beach where some guys were fishing.

Then Jon noticed what he was pretty sure was a spout of a whale out in the ocean.

So we boogied back to the stairs that lead up to the top of the headland cliffs in hopes of getting a shot of the whale from a higher point.

Once we got up there we found that there were at least four whales swimming around in a circle, probably feeding. The sun was just in the wrong place for me to take good pictures with our point and shoot camera, but Jon was able, with his camera, to get these.

This was the second time in less than a week where we had seen whales.

We also spotted a pod of dolphins swimming toward the south. We watched the whales and dolphins for quite a while and then head to the south in hopes of getting better shots of the dolphins as they moved on.

Still up on top of the headland cliffs we could see down the beach toward Narabeen. Clarice and Jon’s apartment is roughly in the middle of the picture back off of the beach a block and a half. On the beach were guys fishing and surfers getting ready to head out.

These surfers where just outside the breaking waves. It is a little hard to see, but in the left hand side of the picture above is a bit of splashing which was caused by the dolphins coming by to “play” with the surfers. It happened too fast for me to get a photo of it, but shortly after I took this shot the pod of dolphins all headed in toward shore, and rode the waves with the surfers as if to demonstrate how easy surfing actually is. It was pretty cool to see this wall of the wave with eight to ten dolphins streaming down its face mixed in with some of the surfers. The Dolphins only did it once and then they were gone.