2021 Picture Thread

I rarely duck hunt anymore and haven't gone so far in 2021 and only went twice in 2020. However I've been out fishing several times. I took this youngster out this past week and helped him catch his first fish on a fly rod. His gear is a bit mismatched and we need to get that worked out, but the smile on his face says it all. This green wing was one of four ducks I got this season. Caleb caught a nice rainbow, kind of looked like a miniature steelhead on a cast and blast trip where he shot a barrows and wood duck. I bought two cases of shells for my boys and I five years ago and still have almost 15 boxes. My regular hunting spot is inaccessible since access being bought up around the BLM ground we always hunted from. A sign of the times I suppose. Time to hang it up and fish.

 

I caught my biggest winter run rainbow this year and 18.5 inch fish along with a couple more 16 inch rainbows. They wouldn't hardly raise an eyebrow on the henry's fork, but when you are catching 12-14 inch rainbows, 18+ is a monster. It was the last week of waterfowl and the geese were thick and came to my voice call easily, kind of felt like spring migration back north for a week or so. I quit taking gun and didn't really care that much, the fish were biting. i'd sell my duck gun, but figure no way I could get decent money out of it. I was able to sell all of my layout blinds and other duck hunting stuff at the same price I paid for them, of course two of the blinds were brand new and never used. I converted the money to fly fishing stuff and a new Orvis Helios should arrive today. I'm still making decoys, 66 more cranes on order and I sold off my personal decoy spread a week or so ago, took about 5 minutes on my facebook page. Things continually change it would seem, I'm thinking my hunting days are over, the slower pace of fly fishing seems to suit me better than the work involved in duck hunting. We ended up catching 256 rainbows this winter and might try it again this week. We turned them all loose, so there should be a few ready to have a little tussle.