Fine Dining at the Nature Center

After putting together the craft for the day, a crayfish trap, Chase took everyone down to the fire pit along with a few dozen of his new best friends. The crayfish were a little docile being store on ice in a cooler for a couple of days. Even so they displayed the double claw over the head move that give most predators a second thought about dealing with the pincher's. The taste of the fine dining usually overcomes this fear.

Most of the explorers have indulged in this delicacy so they don't know the reward is greater than the fear. With a little schooling about how to hold the crawdad all comers grabbed their own and added it to the boiling pot. Just grab behind the head because they can't reach behind it with those claws. Soon all had put in 3 or 4 and we had enough for a feast.

Next was getting at the reward. With help from the adults the explorers were peeling off the shells and dipping their tails in butter. A fine dine was had by all. Thanks Chase.

Get Outdoors Downriver.

Who Would You Want to Look in your Most Treasured Book?

Just about every fanatic outdoor person keeps a book of info garnered from outings into the unknown. Fisherman jot down weather observations, sunlight levels, lure color, trolling speed, how many of what kind of fish caught and on and on. Hunters also use weather observations and sunlight levels and with those direction deer are traveling, time of day which trails leading to which scrape/rub, which calls used and how many deer. As you can see people dedicated to an endeavor try to use all the info they can, whether good or bad, to help them harvest their game. Much of this info is kept secret, hard to come by details earned thru trial and error.

Who would you let look thru that encyclopedia of personal info and tips? Kevin Van Dam if you fish for bass, maybe. Tom Miranda if you're a big game bow hunter. I guess it depends on your fanaticism and what your game is.

 How about J.D. Martinez standing on first base unaware that someone has his secret hitting book.


Should JD be mad? Miguel is by all accounts the best hitter of a baseball in the world. I guess that's someone you'd let look at it but draw pictures, I don't know about that but in 25 years that book might just be worth more than the info inside, just look at the pictures.

Don't Look a Gift Turkey in the Snood

  This is an old story now but I'm finally getting around to tell it. Opening morning broke cool but not too crisp and the birds were very vocal. This is southern Michigan farm country and the amount of birds are amazing. I heard a few on the east part of the farm I was on, enough to keep my interest peeked. My cousin Jojo on the other hand was surrounded by a large flock of turkeys. As if they knew where he was and that it was opening day all the toms stayed too far away, even for him, to take a shot with the booming 10 gauge he uses. The toms I saw were thru binoculars in the farming field hundreds of yards away from my decoy set up. They would gobble to my calling but never took a step closer from the path they naturally take. A little after 10 it was time for breakfast.

  We got back about 1 pm after doing some road scouting. The sun was high and no birds were in the fields. Usually we see some toms trying to determine the pecking order but not today. So back to the blinds we went. On the way out to eat I took down my dominate ton hen pecking decoy so as not to educate any live toms in the area. So I set the decoys back up and got in the blind. Almost instantly and before I even tried calling I heard a gobble of to my east. I'm sure it was on of the toms I had heard gobbling earlier in the morning. I called and he gobbled for quite some time. He got close but nowhere near seeing range let alone shooting range. At some point during the excersice I asertained that what I thought were double gobbles were actually a different birds gobbles.

  Now to my west there were two different toms gobbling to my calls. They were very interested and I could tell one or both would be coming in to the decoys. I set up my camera to capture the event but things didn't go as I had hoped. This turkey came in but didn't go the right way. He's puffed up but became silent when he got close.

Here's the set up I wanted him to come into. He was headed that way but didn't make the commitment. He backed out and started coming straight toward me. I called and the other tom replied.

I had a hard time with the camera and was frustrated so I shot the tom the first chance I got. This was a really nice bird with a 91/2" beard and 1" spurs. A big 2-3 year old and probably still hanging out with his brother.

Get Outdoors Downriver.