The subject for the columns I share each week with you sometime come very easily, especially when I am present on the water with a pro guide learning new ways to outsmart fish or possibly hunting a new area that I wish to tell you about.
Other times, I have to spend some time contemplating what I think you might be interested in reading about. I’ve never enjoyed reporting outdoor news, here in Texas we can learn all about what’s going on by visiting the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.
My goal as an outdoor writer has always been to put you right there in the boat with me or in the woods or fields pursuing game or birds.
So, there I was last week, settled into a bow blind hoping a big pre-rut buck would ease out of the brush within bow range. With afternoon temperatures reaching 80 degrees, I knew my changes of arrowing a big buck or just meat for the freezer were slim. Deer simply were not moving; they were probably bedded on a nearby hillside in the shade waiting for sunset and cooler temperatures.
The fodder for this article began in that blind. What did I wish to share with all of you this week? Then my mind began to wander back to some of the countless sights and scenes I witnessed through my many decades of hunting and fishing. I set there reliving in my mind some of the beautiful sights and scenes I’ve been privy to in the outdoors and then bingo. I discovered the perfect topic that we are about to share together.
I’ll share some of the sights I’ve witnessed through the years with you and then I’d like you to spend some time and think about some outdoor scenes that are forever engrained in your mind.
A quarter century ago, I was bowhunting up in Illinois, in the southwestern part of the state known as the Golden Triangle, well-known big buck country to be sure. The hunt was unsuccessful as far as arrowing a trophy buck, but I was rewarded with some world class sights that I recall as though they occurred yesterday.
I was sitting in a ladder stand adjacent to a creek on this afternoon hunt. I stayed put until after legal shooting time, waiting for to be picked up by my friends and watched the full hunter’s moon climb overhead.
I looked down into the water as was mesmerized by the beauty of the moon’s reflection in the still waters. There was the perfect image of a full moon, circled with a few big white oak leaves floating around the orb.
I heard the whistling of wings and watched a flock of six mallards spiraling down with folded wings to roost in the creek. I watched and heard them each land in the sill waters, plop, plop, plop. When the ripples cleared the ducks had formed a perfect circle around the bright image of the moon, a sight to this day is still as vivid as it was that chilly evening up in Illinois years ago.
Moose leaves lasting impressions
Years ago, I was bow hunting in North Dakota. Setting in a ground blind near the end of a brushy shelter belt with a well-used deer trail, I was looking over several hundred acres of recently harvested barley. The ground was covered with frost, and the pond nearby was covered with a thin layer of skim ice.
Several deer had come down the trail by mid-morning, including one heavy buck that I didn’t give me a good spot opportunity. I had learned to pass up marginal shots when hunting with archery equipment.
Then across the barley field I noticed movement. At first, I thought it a was a cow, but this critter moved differently. Through binoculars I made out a full moose with a massive set of antlers ambling across the field, headed toward a lowland comprised of several potholes (small ponds in ND).
Back at camp my farmer friend told me that it was not uncommon for an occasional moose to drift down from Alberta and show up on the prairie. This was my first wild moose to encounter, and I’ve never forgotten the sight.
Up in Northern Saskatchewan
A couple years ago, I was fishing a remote fly in fishing camp in the extreme northwestern part of the providence on Tazin Lake. It was late July and an early blast of cooler air arrived.
We were in the very back of a remote bay enjoying some of the best northern pike fishing one could imagine. Our guide suggested we keep a few eater pike for dinner. The weather had chilled a bit and he planned a pike chowder for the evening meal.
Then in the shallows across the bay we spotted a bull moose and two cows with calves. They were poking their heads underwater and grazing (just like cattle) on the submerged vegetation.
Our guide also was an experienced hunting guide and suggested we motor slowly a few hundred yards upwind of the moose and let the wind push up near the shallows where they were feeding. I was amazed as our boat drifted to about 60 yards of the moose. I had my 300 mm lens on the camera and was able to get some amazing photos of water dripping from the vegetation the moose was eating.
Walking out of the woods from my recent hunt
In east Texas, I passed an old oak on my friend’s land. I always stop and converse with the ancient tree that is well over a couple hundred years old. Might sound a bit crazy but the old tree and I have a lot in common. We have both been around a long time, comparing trees lifetimes to those of man.
I always stop and wonder what this old oak has witnessed through its many years standing strong in this patch of woods. I wonder if Civil War soldiers took refuge under her limbs and about kids of homesteaders through the years that built swings in her massive branches.
Yep, it’s fun to think back on the sights we have seen outdoors. Now, I’ll sign off for this week and leave you with your thoughts, I just bet you can recall some outdoor sights of your own that are forever etched in your memory banks. Take a break from your busy day and give it some thought.
Listen to Luke’s weekly radio show “Catfish Radio” on many radio stations and on podcast just about everywhere podcasts are found. Email Luke through this website www.catfishradio.org.
