Fishing 2020

 Fishing 2020

    Well 2020 was a different experience for a lot of reasons. There was a global pandemic with COVID-19. Many people took to "socially distancing" by taking up my fishing spots. This was evident from the very beginning when I took my two year old daughter trout fishing. In my usual spots there weren't any parking spots, never mind open spots on the shore.

Ellie's first fishing trip

Saltwater

    I took Ellie out for her first saltwater trip this year too. We took out the "Ellie Sue" in Barnstable Harbor and got into some hungry schoolies. I would hook them and help her reel them in. She was unsure about them at first but quickly got excited to catch more.

                                                                Ellie's First Striper

    There was a very large biomass of 22-26 inch striped bass this year. They were around pretty much all year. The big fish never really showed up. I heard reports of all the big fish being up around Boston. The canal never really got hot either. My father in law caught some bigger fish later on in the season around late October.  I only caught one decent fish while bringing out my friend's Dad, just trolling tube and worm towards the last can in Barnstable Harbor at dusk.

Fresh Sea Lice

Mr. Glynn with an Above Slot Limit Fish

Large Biomass of Schoolies

The blue fish, who were almost completely absent last year, showed up in big numbers towards the end of the season, late August, early September. Trolling tube and worm was very productive.

The Blues Showed up this Year

One of the Many Rat Schoolies from this Year

Feeding my Portuguese In-Laws

    

                        Here's a video of my Dad reeling in a small schoolie using a Hoochie troll

                       Ellie is learning how to reel in her own line.

My Mother-in-Law reeling in a small schoolie

My wife, Tracy, catching a small scup after a long and frustrating day chasing albies in September.

Spring Turkey 2020

    I decided to take a buddy of mine out to a few spots on an early morning hunt in May. He told me that he was interested in getting into hunting so I figured taking him out for a turkey hunt would be a better introduction to hunting than sitting in a tree, freezing your nuts off, for hours on end. This was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic so there were a lot of people out "socially distancing." A few of my money spots had gobblers sounding off, but too many trucks in the parking lot to make me want to compete.

    We tried a few other spots with little luck, just walking and calling. The wind picked up and it was hard to hear anything. We were about to try a final spot near another buddy's house. We pulled onto the road and saw what looked like a turkey farm in the neighborhood with several longbeards running around. We quickly and quietly grabbed our stuff from the back of the truck and did our best to sneak into the nearby woods. 

    I set up decoys and tried calling just outside the 500 ft rule. Nothing answered and I quickly realized that the flock was moving on. I moved as close as I could to the road, leaving my setup behind, and tried calling. I got an answer and then I suddenly saw a red head pop up from the tree line. I did an about face, slumped down, and tried to quietly move back to my setup, but my initial thoughts were that I just blew it.

    I sat down, put my gloves and face mask on and tried calling again. I got an immediate answer. I called a few more times to get him fired up and it became apparent he was coming in hot! I told my buddy to get ready and several seconds later he came strutting down the very path I was just walking on. He never saw the decoys but stopped at 30 yards to my right. I took a shot, but I think the pattern was deflected from a lot of ground cover. We were sitting in the typical Cape Cod scrub brush. He jumped up and took two steps into a clearing and I let him have it again. This time he dropped. We weren't able to capture it on video because he didn't cooperate with our window of opportunity, but we bagged one none the less. I'm glad I was able to get outside on a beautiful spring morning and had the chance to show someone who didn't grow up around hunting, how exciting it could be.

Ellie looks impressed

March 2020 woodcock training

March Woodcock Training Video

Here is a quick clip from Francis Crane WMA in Falmouth during the March woodcock migration. Luna and Piper were both on point and a single woodcock flushed in front of them. Both remained steady to the wing.

March 2020

Hunting Season 2019

Upland

    The hunting season kicked off with a trip to the North East Kingdom of Vermont, (NEK). We rented a house in Charleston, right on Echo Lake. I went up there with my wife and daughter, as well as my parents. My Dad and I were able to get away to do some early season grouse hunting. Woodcock didn't open up until our last day, so we mainly targeted grouse.


    Using a mapping system I had to find old cuts, we ventured north. Of course, on the days we couldn't shoot woodcock, we ran into woodcock. Piper had a good point and I flushed, what would have been an "easy" shot. Luna did very well. She retrieved a grouse that flushed from a tree, that I was able to get a few bb's in. Ruby flushed her first grouse and I was able to knock it down quickly. She found it without issue and brought it back to my very happy father.


    The last day out was the opener for woodcock. We went to a spot that had been cut specifically for the conservation of woodcock. We tried to make the most of our time there and split up. I chased around what was probably the same woodcock for about an hour, firing at it numerous times. Luna was doing really well relocating and staying steady. I just was not on my game. While attempting to relocate the woodcock I just missed Luna went on point in an area that I did not believe the woodcock to be. ALWAYS TRUST YOUR DOG. I walked over to her to release her and get her back on task when I flushed a grouse. I wasn't ready for the first flush but lucky for me there was another explosion from the base of the same tree. It was a straight away shot, nothing like the timber doodle fluttering. I knocked it down with the first shot. It was a grouse! Luna didn't retrieve, but she pointed the dead bird. When we regrouped I told my dad about the problems I was having with the woodcock, but showed him the grouse. He showed me the woodcock Ruby had flushed and retrieved.




Luna with her Grouse



Luna and Ruby in the NEK, VT




Ruby's First Grouse





NEK VT, Me and Luna with a Grouse

Pheasant

    Back on Cape Cod for the remainder of the upland season, I took both dogs out a few times to some local areas that stock pheasant. Luna pointed a non performing rooster. I tried to get it to fly but Piper rushed in and grabbed it. On another trip, we were able to kick up a female pheasant in Myles Standish State Forest, that I knocked down. On Thanksgiving I shot a rooster on my way to Western MA in the town of Bolton. Otherwise I didn't get out much.






Piper's pheasant at Myles Standish


Thanksgiving Rooster

Deer

    Deer season was a struggle for the year 2019. I put in the time and effort, but ultimately came up empty handed. This was the first year in a long time that I didn't have a local zone doe tag. There was a 94% success rate for zone 12, but I ended up in the 6%.
    

    The start of the deer season started with a trip to the Vineyard for the second year in a row. We had such great success in 2018 that it seemed like a guarantee... however, mother nature had other plans. We invited along a family friend, Dan Hogan, who was in pursuit of his first deer. We scouted a few new areas and set stands in some areas that looked like great spots. The wind kicked up on opening day which halted all deer movement. On the second morning it was misty and damp. I saw a small doe sneak past me without a shot opportunity. My Dad shot a doe and took a whack at a buck but missed. We came back later that afternoon and recovered that doe. Dan was the one who actually found it after the blood trail ran dry.
    

    That afternoon my Dad shot at another two does from the ground. He hit both but we only recovered one. I saw a deer but there was too much noise and commotion from a group of hikers behind me. The deer spooked and the only sight I had was the white flag as it ran away. Dan did not see much action and didn't get a chance to let any arrows fly. We ended up leaving early because a large storm was kicking up some nasty weather that was going to park over the island for the next 5-6 days. We got on the ferry just in time before the conditions got too bad.
    

    Feeling gypped, I planned a second trip during early October, hoping to catch some rut activity on the island. I saw a small doe at 80 yards on my first night, while it was drizzling. Then the temperature dropped overnight. The wind chill left the real feel below 0. This froze the moisture in my bow's arrow rest, so I had to manually hold it up. I must have jumped 30-40 deer on the way into my stand. A few cold hours later and a nice 8 pointer came right down the trail I had walked in on. At the last minute he jumped into the thickest part of the woods he could find and walked by me at 35 yards, never presenting a shot opportunity. He turned nonchalantly and walked out of my life.
    

    Later that afternoon I had the opportunity to shoot a couple of does that were being chased. The does stopped 10 yards from my stand, but I could hear something following them so I waited. A decent little buck was about 30 yards over my right shoulder. As I turned towards him, he noticed me and took off, along with the two does. Another squandered opportunity.
    

    I only hunted a few times during bow season in Rehoboth, (zone 11). I had a doe come into range, all I needed was for her to cross a small stream, but she spotted me and wouldn't come in. I didn't have many encounters on the Cape. I didn't have a doe tag so I didn't spend a lot of time in any of my stands. During shotgun I tried hunting in Western Mass. Opening day dumped over 2 feet of snow. This was great for tracks, but was terrible for tracking, even with snow shoes. I jumped several does, in different areas, but without a doe tag in zone 2 it made shooting a deer impossible. My father and I tried a few areas at the base of Mt Greylock in zone 1 because my Dad had a zone 1 doe tag. We tracked a few does, but never got a shot. I also lost my phone in the deep snow on one of the afternoons. Someone on a 4-wheeler found it in the spring.


MV Buck





My Dad and Dan with a Doe they recovered on MV


Strange Racked Buck
Cape Cod

Ducks

    I spent a good amount of January hitting the coastal duck marshes. A few times I had my Rehoboth hunting buddies come down to the Cape to try their luck hitting the fast flying divers. I found a new area in Yarmouth I wanted to try and ended up shooting a black duck from my kayak while it flew overhead. Piper jumped in and retrieved it. We even tried sitting on the end of a jetty, where the ducks flew into the river like running a gauntlet. Piper grabbed the easy ones, but when the waters got too cold and choppy she left it up to the brave kayakers.





Female Bufflehead and an Eider


Piper and a Black Duck, Cape Cod Marsh



Retrieving from a Jetty

Fishing 2019

Fishing 2019

I had an overall very productive fishing season.

The striper bite in the Cape Cod Bay was very good. The majority of the biomass was very small, 20-25 inches, but there was plenty of them to go around. The south side had a similar account, producing more fish than the year before, but around the same size. Fun to catch, but not the slobs I was looking for.

I did a lot of fishing from my 16' center console, but I also purchased a 22' center console with a 125 Merc, at the beginning of the year, to extend my fishing year and give me a chance to get out there on snotty days.

I fished the canal for the first time in a long time with my father in law who has a camp on Bourne Scenic Park. I timed it right and had one of the best fishing days of my life. Cow sized stripers were slamming schools of macks. I was throwing a Sebile Magic Swimmer for the majority of the day. Even when things slowed down I switched to a plastic swim bait and pulled them off the bottom. 

I got to experience tuna fishing for the first time. A friend took me out of the coast of Chatham to the Sword. We hooked a 74" tuna while whales were breaching all around us. It was an all around amazing experience.

I took a charter with a few guys from work on the Emma Jack, out of Bass River. We went to Monomoy Rips and had a fun day catching a lot of shorts.

Check out the Youtube video below for video footage from this year.

Canal Cowfest

New boat, the "Ellie Sue"

Tuna Time

Spring Turkey 2019

Turkey Season 2019

I almost don't want to keep a record of this year's hunt, because quite honestly it wasn't really much of one. I walked into the turkey woods one late morning and made a few calls without hearing any answers. I crested a small hill and came face to beak with a nice tom. I stood about 20 yards from him while I started to load my shotgun, thinking he would putt putt off soon and I could get set up to try to call him back in. Except he didn't move at all. He just stood there staring at me as I raised my gun up to my shoulder and put the bead on his head... I guess these birds are just to used to humans at this point, and I took it upon myself to reintroduce the fear of people... we have to keep these turkeys guessing. 

POW! That's pretty much the entire hunt summed up. It wasn't very sporting and I'm not entirely proud of what happened, but... it happened. At least I was able to show my daughter what a "Turchee" looks like close up. I think from now on I'm going to hunt turkeys exclusively with a bow and arrow to raise the difficulty bar back up.

Deer Hunting 2018

Deer Hunting 2018

I've been slacking when it comes to keeping this blog record up to date. Its almost been a whole year since my 2018 season began. As I am preparing for the upcoming 2019 season I thought it was a good time to reflect on what had happened last year. I think I use the phrase "high's and low's" so much when talking about a hunting or fishing season. The truth is, every hunting or fishing experience is filled with high's and low's. That's what makes people come back for more. If it was all highs then the activity would lose its allure, and if it was all low's then it wouldn't be worth doing in the first place. However, 2018 deer season was exactly that, filled with those high's and low's.

MV Deer Camp

I can't quite remember when, but I heard of a mythical place where the deer flow like wine, and the women flock instinctively like the salmon of Capistrano. I'm talking about a little place called... The Vineyard.

I have wanted to do a deer hunt on Martha's Vineyard for some time. I grew up hunting in the hills of western Mass, but for almost the last decade I've spent the majority of my time in the south eastern part of the state. The two things that these areas have in common is that they all dream of the mythical island deer hunt. I can remember when I was in high school, Nantucket opened up an extra hunting season in January. A few guys from the Berkshires that I knew took the journey and were not ready for the thick scrub brush and prickers that the island is covered with. Never mind the fact that they opened the season up to shotgun hunters. It sounded more like a war zone than a deer hunt.

So there is a lot of talk, backed up with a few photos, of the deer on the island. The state record for largest antlered deer is still held by a lobsterman from the Vineyard. The story that I was told was while pulling up one of his pots, he also pulled up a dead buck with a rack that you can only dream about. Some say that there was a deer farm on the island that is responsible for the genetics for the island's antler size.  Whatever the reason, Martha's Vineyard is known to have some big antlered bucks. They also are known for an abundance of deer numbers in overall population. 

The reason why my father and I did the trip this year was two fold. One reason was because Mass decided to extend the bow season by two weeks in the early season. This gave us some extra time, seeing as I am usually bird hunting in mid October. Also, the only campground on the island closes mid October, but by going early we would be able to tow the camper along and keep the cost to stay down.

Our first few days we spent really scouting out where we would go. We brought a few light climbers, which was more than enough. The key was really just find an open area to shoot your bow and let the deer come to you.

The first night there I shot a small doe at forty yards. I was able to capture it on my Go Pro. A larger doe came down the same run a few minutes later, but I wasn't able to get a shot off.

We tried a few more areas without any luck, but by Wednesday we found where we wanted to be. I shot three does in one sit. My father also shot at one, (bow hunting from the ground).  He ended up having a clean miss, which was fine because that night was filled with tracking and dragging anyways. I actually had to leave one overnight, which anywhere else I would worry about coyotes getting at it, but THERE ARE NO COYOTES ON MARTHA'S VINEYARD. Another reason why whitetail deer numbers are doing so well.

The next day I found the doe I hit the night before. I cleaned it and dragged it out. I tried my best to air myself out from getting so sweaty and went back into the woods to find a new spot. I jumped three deer on the edge of a field so I climbed a small tree and sure enough a six point buck walked in around dark. I put what felt like a good shot on him. He ran around and then walked off. We tracked him for quite awhile through a thicket I can only describe as "satan's asshole." The blood trail led us to the back of a million dollar estate. It proved difficult enough to track over a mowed area, but what made it worse was my father apprehension about using our flashlights on what could be the Obama's vacation house, so we unfortunately chalked it up to a loss. The same night we had to recover a doe my Dad hit. We tracked his doe through a similar, "satan's asshole" area and ended up finding it thanks to the Rage broad head blood trail.

By the end of the week we decided to focus on the island within the island, Chappaquidick or Chappy. We only hunted the afternoons for the majority of the trip. Mainly because we needed to scout during daylight and because we were so busy processing deer in the morning. First night on Chappy my Dad jumped what he called a "freakin Monster." He thought that it had run right by me, but what he didn't know was that I had moved my stand at the last minute... I saw three does that night, and passed on shooting a small yearling. My Dad shot a doe and recovered it right away. We tried Chappy one more time for the final sit and didn't see anything. 

In total we bagged 6 deer. Plenty of meat for the freezer. I remember the nights that we say the most activity coincided with cool front temperature drops. I learned that when going to deer bow hunt camp its important to bring two of everything. I lost my wrist release on a drag, luckily my dad had a backup or else my trip would have been over. I had to break into my Dad's extra box of broadheads as well. This year I'll remember to bring plenty of arrows. 

Doe hung on the custom hitch meat pole

Recovered Doe

Deer Camp

For the Freezer

The Cape

I had two run ins with deer that I should have shot. This is one of those "low's" I mentioned earlier. Later October I was hunting over an active scrape. A decent buck walked in to check it right at last light. In fact there was only about 3 minutes left of legal shooting light. The deer came in quartering away broadside at 20 yards and I could'n't see through my peep to make a confident shot. I let him walk. This year I will be practicing shooting at last light so I can get confident with that shot.

The second "Low" moment came in the heat of the rut. I hunted a spot that has always produced during the rut because its a natural pinch point between two bodies of water. This particular morning two does walked past me. I went to pull back on one of them and my string slipped off my cam! I was in shock as to what happened but later I realized that a stick had been lodged between the cam and the string. I now carry my bow in a sling to keep this from ever happening again. While I was able to record the deer activity with my camera, that was about all I could do. As I was in my stand I knew the longer the doe hung around the better chance I had at seeing a buck chase her and sure enough.... that is what happened. I watched as a buck of a lifetime came running in and stand at 35 yards. He would later wind me, blow, and take off. Heart crushing is the only description that comes to mind when I think about that deer. On opening day of shotgun season he would be taken by a guy who only hunts one day a year, while on a push, a quarter mile from my stand. Like I said... heart crushing.

Equipment Failure

Rehoboth

I still hunted quite a bit off cape in Rehoboth. I did not see one deer. My trail cams showed a few good bucks in the area, but I never saw one.  I hunted one day during shotgun and didn't have much luck either. I didn't go out once for muzzleloader. 

Early season deer from a new spot I tried in Rehoboth

The "Heart Crusher" who walked in and out of my life

Rehoboth decent buck