This week is crawling by.  I wanted to hunt pheasants this past weekend, but it just didn't work out that way.  This Friday I'll be going with my boy as well as a friend of mine (we've been friends since grade school) and his two boys.  Gonna make a day of it at a local Wildlife Management Area.  We've had good luck there in the past.  BUT, Friday can't get here soon enough for me!!!  Thanksgiving is fine... but this year it's about the pheasants taunting me from the field!  My productivity this week at work is definately suffering from my distracted brain.  :)

Speaking of Thanksgiving day itself, I saw the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade had been changed to the "Holiday Parade" and was being held on Friday and NOT on Thanksgiving!!  What the heck is up with that!  Political Correctness??  Ugh.

This year, I think I'm most thankful for the new relationship I've been able to develop with my boy.  In the past, we've been close, but not that close... if that makes sense.  We just never clicked.  This year with shooting and hunting, we've finally found our bond.  It's a great thing.

We'll be celebrating Thanksgiving Day at my house - me, my wife, two kids, mother in law and my dad (widower) will all be sitting around the table.  Turkey is nice, but I prefer the cold turkey sandwiches even more (with potato chips mashed on top)!  We usually have Turkey for Thanksgiving and Ham for Christmas.  For Easter it's another Turkey.  But this year I'm really, really hoping to be able to get in on the Spring Turkey hunt here in Idaho so we can have one for Easter!  That would be awesome.  I've never hunted Turkey before - just watched it on the Outdoor channel... I'm going to have to buy more camo, that's for sure.

If there's anyone here that's hunted Turkey in Idaho that would like to pass along some tips, I'd sure appreciate it!

Well, that's it for now.  Thanks for dropping by!!

Mark

A blog, huh?  Well, I'll give it a go and see where it takes me.  Hopefully I'll have something of interest to others to post here.  First, a bit about me.

I'm an Idaho native... one of the few remaining in the state.  I began hunting and fishing with my dad at a pretty young age.  I remember going deer and grouse hunting with him when I was pretty small.  When I turned 12, I took the Hunter's Education course and started my own hunting journey.  I'm not much of a fisherman... although I did fish a lot when I was a kid living in a small mountain community.  I think I fished mostly because there was nothing else to do there!  Seriously though, I enjoy the tranquility of fishing by a stream or a lake... but the fish typically laugh at my lures, rather than bite them.  That's ok by me. 

Hunting - well, like I said before, when I was a kid, dad used to take me out.  We'd hunt for both mule deer and elk.  I remember one year when we were elk hunting and my dad was trying to bugle one in.  He has difficulty hearing higher pitched noises, so he couldn't hear the bull down the forested draw below us answering.  I could though and told him I heard it!  Well apparently he didn't believe me... we stayed a bit long and he bugled some more and finally said, there's nothing there.  lets move on.  Not 15 minutes later someone below us shot a nice bull!!  That was OURS!  :)  Oh well.

When I got to be about 15 or so, I started pheasant hunting, which I loved, and still do to this day.  I also enjoyed chasing those darn quail around!  There used to be a spot I'd go when I was in college, about 15 minutes away from my apartment, and get three or four quail on an evening outing.  A nice meal for a college student!  Since then, they've built monster sized houses up there and the quail have become darn near domesticated pets.  For some reason, the housewives don't like people shooting "their" quail in the front yard!  I call that being closed minded, lol!!

So, then I marry a beautiful lady who moved here from S. California.  She didn't have any experience with hunting, and didn't want any.  Even less did she want guns in the house!  As time went on and as the kids came and were little, my hunting career all but disappeared.  I sold several weapons, keeping only a couple that were my dad's and grandfather's originally.

So, fast forward to the present.  My wife has gained a new appreciation for weapons and doesn't frown on me having them any more.  WOO HOO!  So, I've finally started "toy" shopping again, and put my 12 year old boy through hunters ed.  We went out for his first deer season this year (skunked) as well as for upland birds.  We've also spent a lot of time in the desert target shooting and anticipate going after some coyote this Winter. 

He's enjoying the hunting, and so am I!  I just wish we could have gotten him a deer in his first season.  I don't know too many folks who did well here this year.  I suspect two reasons - 1st, a higher than anticipated Winter kill.  2nd, the wolves are either destroying heards (we found a doe that had been killed by "something"), or their forcing the animals to lay low.  Probably a bit of both.  Seems like we have to manage the wolves to the exclusion of all other species.  Doesn't seem right!  Ok - enough soap box time.

So - that's it for now.  We're going to do a bit of pheasant hunting this weekend (post Thanksgiving).  I traded a handgun for a Mossberg model 500 pump 20guage for my boy.  He'd been using an old single shot 20 that really wasn't the best kid gun.  So, this will be his first time out with the new gun.  It's a really nice one that I considered keeping for myself!  But, I'll be the good dad and let him have it.  I've already gotten two roosters with my Winchester model 1400 12 ga. autoloader, and hope to get some more!

Oh!  We did add a new member to the family... a Golden Retriever.  I'm hoping to get him trained in time for next season.  I'm not sure how old he should be be before I take him into the field just for some fun... not necessarily to actually hunt.  But I've found a trainer and we'll get going on that this weekend.  He's 12 weeks old, now.

Thanks for dropping by - hope to hear from you!

Mark