We continue to have fun during the summer months knocking out hogs while we wait for hunting season to roll around. 10 years ago, we hardly had any hogs now they are everywhere. Only good thing is we can hunt them year-round. We have taken 16 this summer so far by trapping and hunting.

Glad to finally see some turkey poults running around. Not as many as I would like to see but better then last year. I have two hens showing up regularly one has two poults and the other has three. I continue to believe the biggest problem with the turkey population is the predators which I try my best to trap during the trapping season. I also work on habitat improvements which helps. I wish the LDWF would allow trapping for predators all the way up till turkey season. If you love to turkey hunt weather on public or private land it would be great to participate in some kind or predator control to help out our future turkey population.

270 pounds

Interesting pictures that you don’t see every day. Bear, fox, deer, coons, and Hogs mingling together.

Made my first turkey hunting trip this season down to south Texas this past weekend. This is a 4-gobbler limit county, and you can take all 4 gobblers in one day if you want. I arrived late Thursday night and made plans to hunt one of the ranches I have permission to hunt on Friday. When I arrived at the ranch Friday morning before day light it was 35 degrees. I always carry a rifle in my truck for hogs and coyotes when I am on these ranches. As daybreak broke, I did not hear a single gobbler but did see a big boar hog crossing a cow pasture and made a solid shot on him. I spent the rest of the morning listening and scouting but did not hear a turkey. Friday afternoon I went back to the same general area and setup with my gobbler and hen decoy. As the afternoon passed, I would make a few calls and finally got a response from a hen. She came in and hung around for over an hour. Right before dark I heard what sounded like 3-4 gobblers in the distance and made a few loud calls to them with my box call. They responded and closed the distance to within 200 yards. But it was getting dark fast, and they hung up and would not come any closer. They ended up roosting along the creek I was setup on and gobbled way after dark. Saturday morning, I went back to the same area, and they were back gobbling once the other songbirds started chirping. I made a few soft calls and would get a reply. I could hear hens with them, so I let out a fly down cackle and made a few load yelps and got them fired up! The hens were cackling and yelping to every call I would make and so was the gobblers. It was awesome just to hear all this. Once they hit the ground, they moved away from me but would still gobble at my calls. About an hour went by and finally got one of the gobblers to break away and start heading back in my direction. As I would call he would gobble. The rest of the flock start heading back towards me. Next thing I knew I had the entire flock working their way in my direction gobbling at every call I would make, and the hens were cutting up also. I finally could see them out at about 100 yards along the creek. It was 4 big gobblers strutting and 6 hens. I got aggressive with my calls and that agitated one of the hens. She started load yelps and started a fast walk towards my direction. The gobblers and other hens started following the lead hen. Once the hen spotted my decoys, she made a beeline towards them and passed right next to me. I had my gun up and ready for the approaching gobblers. I had decided once the gobblers got within range 30-35 yards, I would shoot the first one that gave me a good shot. As they drew closer all 4 gobblers were in full strut, I sat tight and watched as they came into the kill zone and drew a bead on the lead gobbler. As I watched, two of the gobblers lined up with both of their heads in the bead of my red dot scope. I squeezed off the shot with my 12ga Browning gold, with 3 ½” #6s and watched two gobblers roll. Man I was pumped up, two gobblers in one shot! Both gobblers had identical beards at 10 7/8”s and one had 1 5/8” spurs and the other had 1 1/2” spurs. What a way to start off my 2022 turkey season! I’ve got a few more trips planned for Texas in April and will also be hunting Louisiana birds. Good luck to everyone chasing the thunder chickens and be safe.

We had a decent duck season this past year in several of our ponds. Mostly wood ducks but made for some fun shooting and allowed us a break between deer hunting. Ducks peaked out in our area around Christmas then slowed way down after that. We had a few teal, greys, and a mallard or two show up in one of our ponds but nothing to brag about.

It’s that time of the year where I start my heavy trapping of predators from my place. Deer season is over and trapping season is in full swing. I focus on racoons mainly as they are horrible on nesting turkeys which nesting season will start soon. We also call-in coyotes and bobcats during the off season trying to eliminate as many as we can to help out our fawn recruitment. If you have turkeys on your place, I highly recommend trapping racoons to help the turkeys out. It also keeps you in the woods during a great time of the year. I use DP coon traps and I bait with marshmallows; racoons can’t resist a marshmallow.

Here are a few big boar hogs we took on a recent trip to Texas checking on our property.

This buck has been around my place for over 4 years now. He is summering then leaves around early October never to be seen again till the following year. He is 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 years old and nothing more the a big cow horn spike! I sure hate that he is out there breeding Does! Hope you enjoy the pics

Made a turkey hunt last week to Caldwell county Texas which is near San Antonio. I normally make this trip for the opener, which is April 1st, but work had me bowed up and had to push this trip back to this past weekend. Turkeys were not very active and never heard a gobbler on the roost. Riding around we would see a few gobblers out roaming around but they were not very interested in responding to calls. I believe it was just to late in the season and the turkey rut was pretty much over with. I did strike up a few gobblers during midafternoon but had no luck in getting them to come in. I setup one afternoon with my decoys (Hen and Strutting Gobbler) in an area I had seen several gobblers and called in 2 Jakes and 3 nice long beards together. They came in silent, and I was able to take a nice Rio Gobbler at 40 yards. He had a 10” beard and 7/8” spurs. Hogs were everywhere and I kept my .243 rifle in the truck while riding around on the ranch. I took two nice boars and one big sow which made for some fun stalking up on them. It was the slowest turkey hunt I have ever been on in Texas but can only figure it was just too late in the season. Next year I plan on going earlier if work allows. I hope all the turkey hunters had some success and had fun just being out in the woods. It is time to start getting ready for my summer food plots and salt licks back in Louisiana.

Turkey season so far has been fun, I have worked several gobblers and called in several hens over the first week of the season. On Sunday 4/11 I was able to close the deal on a nice gobbler. At daybreak I waited for the birds to wake up and start singing. I did not hear a gobbler, so I eased down to a creek that has a nice flat with an old logging road crossing it. Earlier in the week I had heard a gobbler in that bottom and there was plenty of turkey sign in that area. I setup where I had good cover and a good view of the bottom. I made several soft yelps and after about 15 minutes I had a gobbler sound off on one of my calls. I quickly let out a cackle and he gobbled again. He was not far, maybe 150 or so yards. I yelped at him again and he gobbled and was getting closer. I made a few more soft yelps, and he would gobble and get closer. He was fired up! I decided to shut the calling down and just sit tight. Within a few minutes he showed up walking down an old logging road about 100 yards from me. When he got to the flat just before the creek he went into a full strut and would gobble, what a sight to see! He would go back and forth on that logging road strutting and gobbling. He was just wanting the hen to come out to him. A crow flew by and let out a call and he gobbled. I decided not to call and play hard to get. I could see him pretty good and after about 15 minutes and 15-20 gobbles later I believe he got feed up with the hen not coming to him, so he came out of his strut and started walking straight at me. I let him get to 20 yards and put the BOOM on him with my 12ga 3 ½” #6 turkey load. What an adrenaline rush! My Tom had a 9 ½” beard and 1” spurs. After getting back to camp we went and ran our catfish lines and pulled several nice catfish off our lines. The season has been fun with turkey hunting, catfishing, and camp life. It just does not get any better than that! Good luck out there turkey hunting, be safe and patient with the turkeys.

Only 5 weeks away and getting ready for what I hope to be a very good turkey season. The winter storm last week destroyed a lot of my woods. The ice storm dropped trees down all over the place and we are spending time just clearing roads and making sure everything is ok. I hope the wildlife came through it ok and all these down trees will help with some habitat improvements nature made!

Here are some interesting trail-cam pictures (from July through October) of a buck I have on my place that has injured his left front leg earlier this year which has caused deformity in his antler development. Back in August it really looked bad and I figured he would die from infection. But as you can see it seems to be healing good and I expect him to make a full recovery. I have read where and injury affects the opposite side of the antler development. I have two other bucks with similar leg injuries which I am trying to figure out what might be the cause. Any input is welcomed.

I planted my summer food plots back in early May with Cow Peas and Soy Beans. It didn’t take long and the deer started hitting the plots hard. These summer plots are great ways to keep track of the Does and when they drop their fawns along with the bucks and how they are developing their head gear. I was surprised to get this odd looking buck on camera and figure he damaged his left anther before growth started. Also noticed a higher level of ticks on the deer this year compared to previous years, I assume due to the mild winter. Hope you enjoy the pics.

February and March are great times of the year to do wildlife Habitat improvements on your hunting land. Most hunting seasons are over, and the weather is still cold or cool, hardly any bugs or snakes out moving around, and you can really see what your habitat looks like at its lowest point of the year. Every year on my place we try and make 2-4 spots each the size of a football field where we hinge cut unwanted trees or areas where the trees are too thick to produce quality timber. This gives us a two-fold return, one we get some great wildlife habitat and second, it’s giving us TSI (Timber Stand Improvement) which equals a better timber stand for future logging operations. In this case we are really wanting to take areas that have lost the natural vegetation growth due to heavy tree canopy and open the forest floor for better food and cover for the deer herd and turkey flock. In five years of doing this we have documented the deer and turkeys have flourished. The neat part is it takes very little money and most landowners will agree to this effort if you present a solid plan to them. This is only one of the tools we have implemented on the property but goes a long way to improve the hunting and wildlife living in and around the property. The key is to make our property more appealing to deer and turkeys so they will stay longer then on the neighboring property’s. The pictures on this report show what the area looked like before we started and then after we completed the TSI. We had two chainsaws going with one person cutting and one person pushing and spent approximately one hour to complete an area the size of a football field, leaving only the best quality trees standing. It was a great time to bring the kids and teach them the importance of quality habitat and what it takes to keep a good healthy deer herd. I will post more pics of this area as spring and summer growth occurs. I also plan to put out a few trail cameras to capture wildlife use in this area.

The last day of the primitive season I was fortune enough to take a nice buck with my .35 Remington CVA Hunter. I decided to drop the gut pile in front of one of my trail cameras. Within a few days there was nothing left but cleaned dirt. Buzzards started first followed by foxes, coyotes, and then the hogs rooted up the blood-stained grass down to dirt.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks in the woods getting ready for Turkey season and checking on the deer herd. Bucks have started dropping their antlers the last few weeks. I am also hitting the racoon population hard to try and help the turkeys nesting within the next month or so. Racoons are horrible on the turkey nest. I wish every club and turkey hunter would get involved with trying to reduce the numbers of predators. I have seen and read that most southern states have seen a drastic decline in turkey populations over the last few years. I believe and have also read the main culprit is predators. I’m using the DP coon traps. They work great, very easy to set and use. I use marshmallows for bait as a racoon can not resist a big marshmallow. I hope you enjoy the trail-cam pics. The month of March will be spent doing habitat improvements by hinge cutting and hack and squirt to unwanted tress and along the edges of my food plots. I will post pictures later on how that project is going.

This past Saturday afternoon my good friend took this nice 10 point from my place near Sicily Island. We had numerous trail-cam pics of him and had him patterned pretty good during bow season but just could never close the deal. Gun season changed that and he was able to put this nice buck down with one shot at 100 yards. If you have been following my post we put a lot into major habitat improvements every year and also are very strict on NOT taking young bucks. With those two combinations we are seeing some great returns and a good age class of bucks coming up.

Just returned from my annual deer hunting trip to Nebraska, this year made 26 years I have been chasing deer in that state and have enjoyed every season. The weather was unusually warm but that didn't slow down the deer action much. There were five of us hunting this year and we all had our two buck tags and lots of Doe tags. We were hunting both public and private land in the Pine Ridge unit. It was neat to see Mule Deer, Whitetails, Antelope, and Elk all on the same trip. It was just a great DIY type hunt with great success and a lot of fun in wide open country.

While running through several thousand trail-cam pics I noticed something strange, while taking a closer look I saw that I had a big rattle snake under one of my feeders. I had over 20 pics of him just laying there while the Doe was feeding around. It finally decided to move on.