Archery season opening day

This last Saturday was the hunting season kick-off and what a gorgeous day to be on the water.

Another Nice Fall Morning

  The first season of the year is archery season, one that until the last two years I’ve really not been interested in.  But now that I have realized that it’s such a sparsely hunted season in our area, I’ve enjoyed the time spent in the field without anyone spooking my animals.  I knew this Saturday would be wet, in fact, I wrote kind of a mini report detailing the conditions and emailed it out after I went out and scouted during the week.  Here it is: 

Wet, very wet…

Small game is going to be really good this year on or around high land areas.

Hogs and deer…not so much.

See info below for my duck report…

Subject: early teal scouting...

Update…

Guys-

I took the opportunity of a nice evening and got Blythe and Cora on the St. Johns.  I planned on getting over to where I “would have” liked to bow hunt Saturday but it’s really, really wet…really wet.  Bow hunting looks dismal at this point…dismal =  wet…wet = not that much fun!

However, I did see 3 flocks of teal!!! About twenty birds each. They all came out of the SOUTH-compound area (right around the big mud lake in the compound I’m guessing.) and headed further south.  Toward South Winder.  I saw the first two flocks at 19:20 and the third at 19:45.  I also saw one woody, but she just looked lost… as they usually do.  The teal looked nervous in my opinion, dipping and diving like they wanted to land in one of the small lagoons off of Winder but they would then fly to the middle of the lake only to shoot toward the shore again.  Other than that, I went to the middle of Lake Poinsett till the sun was completely down and saw nothing else.  Anyway, it was a great night on the water and that’s my scouting report…mum’s the word on my end.

Cheers!

Capt. Nate

Wet!

Anyways, I should have listened to myself and just slept in for opening day but I went out anyways.  I, of course, got a late start.  I was late, getting to my first spot at about 20 minutes past shooting time.  When I got out of the boat at what is normally (last year) dry land, it was waist-deep swamp water. I went about 100 yards into the marsh and ended up coming back to the boat bummed out, wet and defeated.   I left to go to another area that I thought would be dry land.  Once I got there it wasn’t waist deep but it was knee deep…bummer.  I walked in about a mile or so and never did find any dryness there either.  Even the ants, centipedes, snakes and every other type of bug were looking for a little reprieve from the wetness.

"Ants on a log"




Snake in a shrub

 





Ok, what about the last spot-- “The Go To Spot”-- I went back to just about the last spot that almost always holds any deer or pigs and once I got there I was met by two other hunters.  Bummer again.  They were just coming out, it was about noon at this point, and they said they didn’t even see an animal; I commiserated with them about a few things that were on our minds-- like the mass amounts of airboats out running around and the huge numbers of people that were out hunting, which normally are never out for archery season and then I headed back to the ramp with an empty boat. 

That’s about it for now. I’m working all my “contacts” right now trying to find 1.) dry land to hunt, 2.) if anyone is seeing anything (answer so far has been a resounding NO) and 3.) if anyone is hunting the evenings this week.  I’m going to hunt Tuesday night and I’m going to try the third spot I went yesterday, the only place that had good semi-swampy/dry land.