Glad to be back at work!

Well it is good to get back to work after having the past week off. I am looking forward to calling some of our customers and getting back in the sales mode.

I enjoyed my week off with my two brothers and a young nephew. We spent our time turkey hunting, fishing, and enjoying nature. We saw many different kinds of wildlife including some fun encounters with nesting Wood Ducks. It is fun watching how fast they can move through the trees. As fast as they go it is amazing they never crash.

Deer are still plentiful, even after last years near record hunting season and a hard winter there were lots of deer around. We had one group of 12 or 13 get within just a few feet of us as we sat motionless along a hillside one afternoon. Of course turkeys are not smell sensitive so we were not scent free and it was driving the deer crazy. They could smell us but not see us so they really put on a show. They went through all the hoof stomping, head bobbing and snorting trying get us to move and give away our position. They finally moved off walking up hill about 20 yards to the side of us and as they went up the hill here comes the flock of turkeys we were calling, 9 birds, 2 hens and 7 jakes so no shot for Mitch in that bunch. By the way Mitch is my brother’s 12 year old son and it was his first year turkey hunting. It was great getting him out and sharing time in the field with him. He did not get a bird but he came very close one afternoon after school. We were set up in the same spot my Dad shot his last bird at. All four of us were together, Mitch’s Dad Terry was filming, Mitch and brother Dave were the shooters and I was calling. We got four long beards to come within 10 yards. Unfortunately Mitch moved and the birds busted us, started putting and moving off. I putted back and switched to an excited yelp that got one bird to gobble so it settled the others down. They then moved to the other side of the brush they were behind and Dave ended up with the 9 yard shot instead of Mitch. That is the way it goes there is never a sure thing in hunting or fishing but it certainly was exciting to watch Mitch’s reaction as four long beard turkeys were gobbling less than 15 yards from us.

It certainly would have been great if Mitch would have gotten a bird there. How cool would it be to get his first bird in the same place his grandpa got his last.

Fishing, we fished for Crappies twice during the week. We had fair success, the bite was just ok and the fish were running a bit small. The first time out we only had a couple hours to fish and even though we caught some nice fish we released everything we caught that day. The second trip we kept a dozen 13 to 15 inch fish, brother Dave wants to share a fish fry this week with a lucky friend so we kept some for him. The best bite we got ended up being on 1/16 and 1/8 ounce jigs with yellow or white twister tail bodies. We cast to shore and than worked the jig back slowing letting it swim and fall into 25 feet of water. Most of the bites came in the lower 5 to 8 feet of water with the occasional aggressive biter hitting a swimming jig higher up in the water column. As we pulled out on the second day we got checked by the Game Warden, nice to see them out protecting our natural resources. Was fun talking with him, he was also turkey hunting and he had just gotten his bird the day before so we shared some success stories.

That is it for now, it is almost 9 AM and I have to return some customer phone calls. Again good to be back at Loon Lake and I look forward to speaking with soon.