Opening Day 2010

Spent the opener with Todd and Darin. Had a really good hunt. This was the first time on an opener the whole group has limited. We did it with two guns also. Darin's gun wouldn't fire. Birds flew really well, especially for such a blue-bird day. Jax did excellent considering I haven't had him out practicing much recently. It was a good start to what hopefully will be a great season.

Youth Hunt Part 2

After the geese this morning I had to go to work for a few hours but I was able to talk the same people into a afternoon duck shoot. The ducks were thick and the boys shot a ton. Alex had a perfect day. He was able to shoot a limit of geese in the morning and a limit of ducks in the evening. Braden was pretty dang close to the same thing. The youngest Stratford boy, Bridger, got his first couple geese. The first goose of his life, you guessed it, was banded! 3 boys, 8 geese, 4 bands, and 18 ducks. It doesn't get much better than that.

Youth Hunt 2010

Made it out for some morning geese today with Mitch's little brother Alex and Braden Stratford. We had found a field that was holding a ton of geese and were super excited to get permission to hunt it. Ended up with 2 limits. Three of the birds were banded. Two of those had a metal band and a yellow band. I'm sure they are all urban geese that were relocated. Pretty awesome way to start this season off.

Check out the band on this last pic. He was shooting that goose right in the butt and put a dent in that band. It made the band look really cool.

9/01/10

Well dove season is finally upon us. Made it out this morning with Todd, Clayton, and Mitch. We ended up with 20 doves. The plan this morning was to hunt out of layout blinds in a grain field. Had to change our setup though; the doves were decoying too close. That is a good problem to have. Chase got his first real attempt at hunting today. He did a pretty good job, but he needs a little work on marking.

Fly Fishing on the Provo

My family went on a little excursion to the Homestead in Midway this last weekend. It was tons of fun but the my highlight was definitely Monday morning. My dad arranged for us to go on a half day guided fly fishing trip on the Provo. It was amazing. I caught some of the nicest fish I ever have on a fly rod. The guides were great to work with and also pretty fun to fish with. The guide service that we used was Rocky Mtn Outfitters. There were two guides for the three of us that went. The guides names were Greg Randal and Doug Askelson. Dave had never fly-fished before so he got a lot of one-on-one time with Doug. He must have been a really good teacher because Dave actually landed 3 fish all on his own. They were all really good browns. I think I ended up with 6; one was a real nice rainbow. The guide said it was a real "slab". The rainbow was cool though because it kept jumping clear out of the water. My dad was nice enough to let the guides spend most of their time with Dave and I, unfortunately he never ended up landing a fish. We all had tons of fun though. Thanks Todd for a really great morning!

Browne Lake

I had the opportunity to take some time off work and go camping with my amazing wife. I always have such a fun time hanging out with her. Especially when we can get away to the out of doors. Just look how much fun she has fishing!

We went up to the lake the same time as my uncle and aunt Mark and Terry. They are always super fun to hang out with. I told them its because they are still kind of immature.

This was a two-point we saw on our nature drive the first night there. We also saw a couple of bighorn sheep. Now Annie finally believes me that they exist.

We spent a fair amount of time fishing out of my newly acquired hunting boat. We trolled on a couple different lake with only moderate success. My cousin Korry and his kids were also with us. Jayden caught the most out of the boat I think. Trent, my other cousin, lost the most lures though.

These are a couple of night shots I took from our camp. Trent helped me figure out how to take them. Pretty cool pictures considering they were taken at 10:30 at night.

The most successful fishing I had was on the stream behind the lake. I probably caught 30 in a couple hours. They were almost all 8-10" brook trout but still tons of fun. Annie was nice enough to come photograph me.

Thanks Annie for convincing me to take off work. It was tons of fun and I can't wait to do it again!

A Little More Coon Action