Throwin' in the towel and Mowin' Down the Roses

A helluva weekend. Runnin' around like a crazy bastard, but it was all worth it.

It's official... I'm concedin' victory to those insolent black bastards. I've had a great year in the woods and made lotsa great memories, which is what it's all about. First time I've had to eat tag soup for awhile, and the first time in several years that I haven't been in on a kill with friends or family. But that's why they call it huntin'.

Barrin' any miracles from Ron to fill his last tag, the Full Strut will finish with eight birds this year. Dad and Joe both punched their tags on Saturday on slammer birds, so I was glad to be up there to be a small part of that.

Joe's gobbler - 23.5lbs, 1 1/4" & 1 1/8" spurs, 9 1/4" beard

Dad's 2nd gobbler - 20.5lbs, 1 1/4" & 1 1/8" spurs, 9 7/8" beard

And a big, big, big thanks to Ron for his hospitality this spring season. He was always a welcome sight to see after a long mornin' in the woods!

•••

After comin' home and workin' Sunday afternoon and night, I headed out to Revolution Stadium to see Willie Nelson's Country Throwdown Tour. I had volunteered through work to put time in one of the food stands (free tickets... hell yeah!) and had a great view of the stage for most of the show. I took my lil' cousin along and she had a blast too. Got to see two of my favorites, Jamey Johnson and ol' Willie Nelson, as well as a bunch of the new guys that I don't really know that well. We were busy in the concession stand, but it was great to be around that much awesome country music for hours, and just frikkin' awesome to be within spittin' distance of a true livin' legend. And hell, for all the tail struttin' their stuff and gettin' to watch all the other crazy bastards walkin' around, workin' the booth wasn't that bad:)

A real frog-gagger

Been awhile since I rode through anythin' like I did yesterday.

A few years ago, on the way to one of Hoagy's rides out in Ohio, I got caught up in what the weather guys call "tornadic activity". Lightnin' out the wazoo, blindin' rain and hail blowin' sideways, dark skies, shitty visibility, the whole nine yards.

Well, this junk yesterday wasn't much better.

My little bro had a baseball game yesterday about 30 miles from home. They're in the playoffs and he's a senior, so any game could potentially be his last in a Colonials uniform. Not really somethin' that I want to miss, so I hemmed and hawed in front of the radar for a while, finally said "fuck it", and off I went, hopin' that the storm would keep on its current path and go north of us.

Guess what? It didn't.

I snapped a few pictures of the sky over the school just before the real shit hit, although it hardly does it justice...

Freaky, freaky lookin' sky and all kindsa swirlin' winds. Wound up havin' to do the ol' tornado drill at the school. I think we actually had a few touch down in the area. I realize that in some parts of the country, this is the norm, but we don't get too many tornado warnin's up in these parts. Waited for it to slow down just a bit, then jumped on the V-Star and went home. Had a phenomenal light show goin' down the road, as the lightnin' was still strikin' about every three-five seconds around me.

I've always enjoyed watchin' Mama Nature when she's pissed, so it was all kinda fun to me. Didn't see a single pitch, but well worth the $5 in fuel burnt to be a part of that.

Wednesday Grind

A little TestamenT for your hump day. From '88's New World Order. This is a live version from London in 2005.

Horns up!   \w/    \w/

Matt whacks another'n

Matt's 2nd gobbler - 20lbs, 1 1/8" spurs, 9 1/2" beard

After a brief but exciting afternoon hunt yesterday, Matt put the ol' smack-down on a Centre County longbeard; his first time taggin' out in Spring Gobbler season. Way to go buddy!

Glad him and Wade are carryin' the load with their four birds, because the rest of us are gettin' shut out. Six birds for Full Strut this year... we got our work cut out for us this weekend.

Macho Man Randy Savage gave his life for all of us...

It's true. Macho Man saved us from the Rature.

•••

In other news, the ol' man finally quit missin' long enough to slay a gobbler on Saturday. He quit screwin' around with the Mossberg and busted out the ol' Browing 10-gauge. Laid 'im out flat at 40 yards... with an improved-cylinder choke, no less.

Dad's bird - 16.5lbs, 1/2" Spurs, 5" Beard

That makes five for us so far this year, with eight days left to hunt. Hopefully we'll get into them again this weekend, and I might try to head out a few times around home durin' the week.


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Illegal Download of the Post
A little bit of older new rock for ya today. I jammed out to this song a lot when it first came out, and it's still pretty badass. The whole album ain't too bad if ya get a chance to check it out.

Song: Hero
Artist: Pop Evil
Album: Lipstick on the Mirror (2008)


Y'all take care, now.

My girl is awesome

She got me a sampler case of Troegs for my birthday. How cool is that?

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

Video from Saturday

Took awhile to get the ol' camera functionin' again... I thought I'd finally killed it, but it straightened out after playin' with it for a few minutes.

Got lotsa good footage this weekend, but this was by far the best. Not a kill shot, but still cool to watch. I was huntin' with my buddy Mike, who's reasonably new to turkey huntin' and ain't had many close calls until this video.

This bird was in the field for over 45 minutes, but I just couldn't pull 'im in. Got the ol' ticker goin' though, and got Mike excited to hunt 'em again. Very cool to watch the bird's mannerisms, especially his reactions to the calls.

Wednesday Grind

Somethin' a little newer for ya this week. This'n was a regular on my pre-game playlist back in my footballin' days.

From their 2007 album of the same name.

Horns up!   \w/    \w/

A True Artist...

Found this guy's artwork when I was wanderin' around the interwebs today... Amazin' stuff. He's got patience that I can't even begin to comprehend.

•••

Took the day off work yesterday to spend in the woods. Had a great day... lots of gobblin', had birds close. I was amongst 'em all day but just couldn't get anything within gun range. Took a little more video, but I got soaked again about mid-mornin' so I'm gonna wait a day or so before I try to power it on again.

We'll have the crew out again this weekend.... hopefully we'll get to drop the hammer on a few ol' longbeards!

Close, but no cigar

Good to see Blogger is awake and alive, unlike last time I tried to post.

So, no luck yet again in Bradford County, although seemed like everyone had a pretty close call.

Mike and I were on our own for the day. Nothin' was shakin' at our mornin' spots, so we got back together and headed up to the honey hole. Sure 'nuff, about a half hour after we sat down, there was a big ol' longbeard in the field. He was gimpy and not movin' around real well, but the first few times I called, he'd hammer right back. I thought fer sure we had 'im, but he hung up about 100 yards away, and then seemed to lose interest.

Sometimes I hate them notional bastards.

Got Mike pretty excited though, and I got some great footage. Not sure which I'm more excited about, cuz I love to be sittin' with people when the turkeys set the hook on them!

I took the day off tomorrow, when the all-day portion on the season starts, so I'll be back at 'er. Should have some video posted for ya on Tuesday when I get back to work.

THE LONGBEARDS ARE WINNING

An e-mail from Ron...  Made me laugh.

GIANT LONBBEARDS = 3
FULL STRUT HUNTERS = 2

THE LONGBEARDS ARE WINNING

We gotta stop missin'!

One tough-ass bag

One thing I don't take too lightly is motorcycle luggage. I put a shit-ton of miles on in a year's time, and I gotta be able to jam everything but the kitchen sink into a few bags and git movin' at a moment's notice. They gotta be roomy and tough to make me happy.

Well, I did somethin' stupid yesterday, and all it did was make me a firm believer in Leatherlyke saddlebags. The ones I got ain't really bags, but more of a hard plastic shell.

I was at the car wash givin' the ol' V-Star a quick bath on the way home from work. Someone was waitin' to get into the bay by the time I was done, so I real quick-like threw the bags back on and rolled outta there, haulin' ass (I like to air-dry the bikes the fun way). Well, I took the long way home, pulled up to my mailbox and reached back to throw open the bag to put the mail in. Let's just say I figgered out real quick that somethin' was missin'. Apparently, in my haste, I missed a vital step in hookin' the bags back on.

Long story short, after drivin' up and back the road a dozen times to see if I could find anythin', I got a call from the insurance company. Some dude had stopped and picked it up, found my card and called it in. I gave him a buzz, and he was kind enough to stop over and drop it off for me.

I couldn't hardly believe it... I was goin' at least 75 when that thing hit the ground, and all it had to show for it was a new scratch or two. And on top of that, I've laid that bitch bike down twice, both times on that side. How that saddlebag ain't in a million pieces by now, I ain't gotta clue.

Now that's one tough-ass bag.


• • •

Just got off the phone with the ol' man. Apparently, the word of the day is "Fuck". In my family, that means that somethin' bad has happened, yaknow, like missin' a big ol' gobbler at 25 steps after workin' him for over an hour. Sorry, Pop... can't get 'em every time I guess.

Wednesday Grind

Up the irons, bitches!

From 2002's live album Rock In Rio. If this don't crank you the fuck up, you don't have a pulse.

Horns up!   \w/    \w/

Four for Full Strut

Ron's bird - 15.5lbs, 1/2" Spurs, 3 7/8" Beard

Ron put the smack-down on his first bird of the season, this fine jake. I haven't heard the story yet, but it sounds like he's the only one that had action up there.

Jess and I spent the mornin' out in Orrtanna. Heard a few gobbles but nothin' closer than 200 yards. It was a beautiful mornin' though, and we were treated to a cool show by a group of pileated woodpeckers and had a few deer come though. Was nice to spend a mornin' in the woods with my big brother again... been a while.

Woke up from my nap at one point and snapped this picture. Thought it was kinda cool.

Last year at this time we had killed only three turkeys as a camp, and we got four already. Hopefully we can keep it up and have another great season!

Upgraded my huntin' rig

Is there anythin' this bike can't do?

Took her out for the maiden voyage yesterday, made a few changes and now she's ready to go. After takin' her out again this mornin', I see no other changes that need to be made.

The gun case is attached to a 1" metal tube that can be removed from its mounts by removing a lock and a cotter pin. The bags and gun mount can be stripped in less than five minutes, and re-installed in about the same.

Total investment for mods, saddlebags, gun case and mount is around $300 ($200 for the three bags, which I woulda bought anyway). Also includes the case of beer I bought the guy that did the weldin' for me, since I'm sure that he drank at least that while he was workin' on it for me. If fuel stays at or near its jacked up, bullshit price, it'll pay for itself rather quickly at an average of 48mpg.

My huntin' pack fits perfectly in one saddlebag, and any clothing that I'm not already wearing fits in the other. Anythin' else can go in the tailbag or get strapped on top. Realistically, the only kind of huntin' I can't do with it is archery. I sure ain't skeered to strap a bagged-up quartered deer on the back.

Makes traveling 3-1/2 hours to my happy huntin' grounds sting a little less, and it's a lot more entertainin'.

A fine morning

Went out to the turkey woods for a couple hours before work this mornin'. Had the pleasure of gettin' within 100 yards of a bird that was gobblin' like crazy. He probably gobbled 50 times before shuttin' up rather abruptly. About a half hour later, a bird left the roost and flew right over me, not sure if it was him or a hen though.

When I got back to the parkin' area, there was another truck there that showed up after me. Not sure if he had anythin' to do with the bird shuttin' up and not showin' up or not. But that's the way it goes when ya hunt public land.

I'm tired and today's gonna suck, but it was a good enough start to make me happy.

Back to the coffee pot. Y'all have a good one.

Wednesday Grind

Crank it up, motherfuckers!

From 2010's Order of the Black.

Horns up!   \w/    \w/

Wade smokes another one!

After hearin' a buncha gobblers bellowin' yesterday evening close to Ron's house, Wade decided to set up on one of our newer properties. After phone-conferencin' with me over maps last night, he had his game plan in place.

Worked like a charm. Right after fly-down, two jakes walked straight to his decoy, passin' within five yards of him in the process. He dropped the hammer on the bigger of the two, and my wake-up phone call came at 6:23 this mornin'. I don't normally like gettin' interrupted whilst gettin' my beauty sleep, but I love wakin' up to hear a gobbler wingin' his death throes and an excited buddy on the other end of the line!

Good job, Wade... reckon you're designated guide and camp bitch for the rest of the season. Tagged out on the third day!

Wade's second bird - 17.5lbs, 1/4" Spurs, 4.5" Beard

Hell yeah - three in the freezer for Full Strut!


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Illegal Download of the Post

DBT is definitely one of my favorite bands, but their songs pretty much have three moods... depressed, hilarious or pissed. This one's a delightful cross between pissed and hilarious, which is why I like it.

Song: Buttholeville
Artist: Drive By Truckers
Album: Gangstabilly (2005)


Y'all take care, now.

The beast is dead; long live the beast!

What a mornin' for the Full Strut camp!

The first Monday of the season has always been very good to us, and this year was no exception.

After havin' a lot of action on Saturday, Wade decided that he and Matt were gonna head back to the same spot this mornin'. I didn't get the full story, but from what I could tell, they set up on different sides of the field to cover more ground. Some birds came out to the field at first light and headed toward Matt. Even though the one was a slammer, he let 'em walk because they were headin' toward Wade. Wade's shot a few jakes, but never a longbeard, so Matt wanted him to have first crack.

Well anyway, the big boy hung up, and when another nice bird gave Matt a shot, he gave him the ol' dirt nap.

After a few phone calls (one to yours truly), and some pictures, they decided to head back to camp to grab a bite and think of another plan. Before they got out of the field though, another bird fired off a few gobbles within a few hundred yards of the field. They quickly set back up and Wade, who is an exceptional caller, fired up his Zink and went to work. Finally, a longbeard, jake and a hen came into the field, and Wade's Benelli barked and he had his first longbeard. Matt managed to get Wade's bird on video, so when I get my fingers on that, you'll see it.

Not only did I get an awesome wake-up call, but to get another one 45 minutes later was friggin' amazin'. I'm still grinnin' like a bastard... just tickled pink that two of my best friends managed to double up!

Matt's bird - 20lbs, 1" Spurs, 9.5" Beard

Wade's bird - 20lbs, 15/16" Spurs, 8.5" Beard

A fine pair of Bradford County gobblers!

Damn, I love spring turkey huntin'!