DATE: 10/04/2008 21:39:50 / MOOD: Tired

'Huntress and I headed to Ft. Morgan Friday evening to meet up with Geronimo, his daughter, and his nephew and see if we could convince a couple bull Redfish to come home with us.  Geronimo had rounded up some bait the day before and was busy casting his net to grab a couple more last minute baits when we got there.  The tide was just starting to come in, and according to reports we got from a couple other anglers around, things were looking good for us!

We unloaded our gear, strapped it all down on our fishing carts, and started out towards Geronimo's "honey hole", about a mile down the beach.  It was a long haul to get there, but we were immediately rewarded with a spectacular sunset!
  

Almost as soon as we got there, the fish turned on...we started out with a couple nice bluefish, then the bull reds took the field!  'Huntress and I had never caught redfish before...the strength of these fish is amazing!  None of the fish we caught were within the slot limit, so we all had to be content with the one oversized fish allowed, after culling a couple in favor of larger fish.

One fish, Two fish...Redfish, Bluefish...  :D 
  
  

Melinda's redfish measured 28 inches, and weighed 11 pounds, the bluefish was 20 inches long, and about 2 or 2 1/2 pounds.  She caught a red that was a couple inches longer, but the first one was already dead, so the bigger one had to go back.

My red was the last fish we caught before we left, he was 38 inches long, and 25 pounds...
  

The haul back up the beach was a long, tough hike, but we made it just in time to feed the swarms of hungry mosquitos!  All in all a good day's fishing, and a couple great first redfish for TexasHuntress and I!

Geronimo, thanks again for having us down...it was a truly great and memorable experience!

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DATE: 12/14/2007 18:06:54 / MOOD: HOG & BOAR HUNTING

DEADorALIVE originally posted this on www.aldeer.com and www.usdeer.com . 

 

TexasHuntress steps up...

...and earns her place in the food chain!

We took a mini-vacation this past weekend with 10Gauge and his wife, Tammy, down at my family's fish camp outside of Orlando, Florida. We pulled in a little while after dark Thursday night, put our stuff in the house, and headed out into the citrus groves to see if the hogs were moving. We didn't see any hogs, but we did find several LARGE gators in some of the lakes!

Friday morning, we all got up and headed out onto one of the many lakes scattered throughout the 2500 acres of citrus groves to try our luck with the fish...with a serious rain deficit like that area has had for the past 3 years or so, the water levels are all down...that concentrates the baitfish and makes the fishing tough, and coupled with the 100+ degree temperatures, the fishing wasn't what anyone could term "great". We caught a few over the course of the weekend, and I'll try to get a pic of them posted later...
This is the "cabin"...the house was a grove caretaker's house back in the 40's...great place to use as a home base for fishing and hunting excursions, now...

Getting up in the morning, we're always greeted by at least 1 pair of Sandhill Cranes, and there're a dozen or more peacocks around...beautiful, but they're all LOUD!

Here's the lake at the cabin...

A couple days of hard hunting and fishing resulted in just a few fish being caught, and a couple hogs sighted, but good luck seemed hard to come by. Then, Saturday afternoon, we headed back to where we'd seen a couple big sows the day before. We left the truck earlier than we had been, and snuck along the edge of the grove to where the hogs had been crossing out of the palmetto thicket where they live. TexasHuntress, sure she could catch the hogs in their "living room", struck out along a trail leading down into the palmettos, while 10gauge crept further along the edge of the grove and down to a lake where we'd seen a lot of sign. I followed 'Huntress into the palmettos...after easing a couple hundred yards down the trail, it was very plain by the sounds coming out of the woods that she'd made a good call! By the time I caught up with her, she'd placed herself within a hundred yards or so of a good sized group of hogs, and by the sound of the vocals coming from the group...some good sized hogs, as well! She continued to stalk up, until she was about 30 yards, when near-disaster struck! A large sow had broken off from the main group and was standing quietly off to our right...we never saw her until she broke and ran, straight into the thicket we were sneaking up on...luckily, as soon as she reached the rest of the hogs there, rather than panicking them, she calmed down and stayed put.

Now we were down to "nut-cuttin'" time...less than 30 yards from a group of at least 5 hogs, some fairly large, but no visual, yet. TexasHuntress wants to make this kill by herself, or miss it by herself. I stayed at the main trail and positioned myself where I might have a shot at one of the other hogs after she made her shot, and she went down the side trail leading to the hogs. After a few minutes, I heard her shot, heard the hogs scatter, and readied myself for a shot opportunity that didn't come. Surprisingly, there were no vocals from the hogs as they scattered, even though I clearly heard one of them run less than 50 feet before going down! I met 'Huntress coming back out of the palmettos and asked her how the shot went, and she said she thought she'd missed. I told her I heard a hog go down and didn't think she'd missed, not with a calmly arranged shot from +/- 30 feet! A very sparse blood trail and a 5 minute search turned up her kill...a 250 lb sow! "I'll just drag her back out to the main trail while 'Huntress goes after the camera." RIGHT...heavy...(huff)...hog...(puff)...can't...die...out...in the open...
Anyway, I did get her out of the palmettos so we could shoot a couple pics...


TexasHuntress with her kill...

After we got that one loaded into the truck, we set out to find another for 10gauge, but it wasn't to be...we found 3 smaller ones and put him on the trail, but they knew the grove better than he did, and the light was fading fast!


All in all, it was a great weekend! 'Huntress and I were distraught that we couldn't put 10gauge on a good shot opportunity, but we were all thrilled to be with 'Huntress when she made her first kill ever...EVER! And, as 10gauge pointed out in another post, we weren't the only ones happy about it...

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