This weekend opens the second phase of duck season. The first phase was fun though I didn't get out hardly for any ducking. It was warm, there are not many ducks around and my girl doesn't have ANY desire to retrieve so unless I am wearing at least rubber boots, I'm not interested in wading.

Regardless, we did get out to go chase some quail that first day and then went to go do some exploring. We tried to see if perhaps we could jump a woodduck or something.



It was too hot for her to run as much as she wanted since water is so hard to find around here for her to wallow in.



The day heated up quick and off we went exploring. I saw some pretty places where there should be wood ducks passing through.



And we ended up the day watching the sun go down out at the light house.



We saw some divers out on the Gulf and heard some shooting some miles away. There was one cloud of divers just about sunset that got the usual volley of shots but there really wasn't much going on out there. If you look close, you'll see some birds up high.



The next day, Belle and I headed out to the National Forest to try some of the places that looked like there could be birds of some kind: quail, turkey, dove, woodducks. Again, it heated up quick but there were some low spots that held some water in the cypress ponds we walked through.




I had a nice dove point. The silly birds weren't spooky enough to flush so I ended up having a pretty dove point from Belle.








I always love running across toothache grass. The corkscrewedness of the grass always tickles me when I see it. I always think there should be birds in here!!! There weren't any that I saw or found.








Once it heated up and we were back at the truck we spent more time exploring. There I reasons I dislike driving the National Forest when it is a wet year. You never really know how deep the pot holes actually are. This is a dry year....but if anyone needs a bumper, I know where you can get one!





Fall is nicely in swing down here.





This past weekend a friend came over and I took him out to hunt my quail lease. He has really bad knees so I figured a chance at hunting birds in a somewhat flat and controlled setting would allow him to get out and actually shoot something. We had a great time. Saturday was another HOT day pretty quick but Sunday dawned foggy. We were out there earlier and the fog stuck around until 1 pm. He can't hunt more than about two hours because of his knees but he had a great time. And Belle did a pretty good job overall.















I haven't decided what I will do for the second opener but I will be out....ducks or quail I haven't decided, but I will be out.

Dani