This morning I went out turkey hunting.

This is what the woods look and sound like at daybreak.

One of the sights that kept me amused yesterday while hunting was this leaf. It was suspended from the branch by a spider web and danced around in the slightest breeze.

 
Monday morning was quite dreary due to the gray skies, damp environment and cold temperatures.  Aside from some nuthatches having an animated discussion down in the hollow all was quiet.  This was to change at around 9:00am when I heard something crashing through the briars above me.  I turned around in time to see two does charging northward ( Read more... )

This morning it was only 18 degrees F  and clear when I went into the woods.  The leaves which covered the forest floor were so crispy that it sounded like a child greedily reaching into a bag of potato chips every time I took a step.  No stealth approach this morning.  On the plus side, turkey and deer would also have a hard time moving through ( Read more... )

It was snowing lightly when I went out Saturday morning.  Going into the woods just before sunrise was like going into some sort of snowy cathedral.  The walk through the woods was beautiful and comforting ( Read more... )

 
Sunday morning was like watching a Disney movie on cute wildlife.  It was overcast and the woods were darker than the previous morning so I managed to spook a deer on the way in.  This time I set up against a tree above the tree stand at the edge of the briars hoping yesterday’s group would return to the same area.  That never happened but I was ( Read more... )

 
What a difference a week makes.  Entering the woods last week was like entering a house of horrors, this week the sky was clear and the maple trees had lost all their leaves leaving the woods a very open place.  I made good time getting to the upper tree stand and I set up about 10 yards below it.

It was quiet morning but then I heard a turkey ( Read more... )

 
One of the things about going into the woods in the pre-dawn darkness without a flashlight just a few days before Halloween is that your imagination runs wild.  Thanks to a NYSDEC regulation allowing flashlights no bigger than powered by 2 AA batteries and the fact that I have to go through a quarter mile of dense undergrowth in the woods before I ( Read more... )

It was in the 50s when I started out this morning, but the woods were damp from all the rain we got yesterday.  I found a spot about 50 yards below the upper tree stand and set up there.  Going into the woods during the early morning darkness is rather creepy.  You can't see very far and you hear all sorts of things as they scamper to get out of ( Read more... )

Back at Level Green this morning.  It was so foggy that I couldn't enter the woods till the sun rose up enough to burn off some fog.  On the plus side, the wind was blowing water from this morning's rain off the trees so the woods were fairly noisy and would cover sounds I made as I moved through the woods ( Read more... )