doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Drought causing Grumpiness?

Don't know about S. Cal or the south, but here in the NW, it's all the rain that's causing grumpiness.

It's not really dry until the catfish have ticks on them.

The last wild bird in KY and Ohio left several years ago. Few wild quail, no wild pheasants and more reasons from the DNR's than Carter liver pills. Face it, most DNR's consider deer herd management as job number one, two and three and turkey as a upland game bird of choice. I have not seen decent a small game bird management program in decades.

You need cover, food, predator control, reasonable game limits and a breeding stock to have birds. Five things and we lack only, ........ five of them. I think the last wild quail or pheasant around here should be stuffed and sent to the Smithsonian Institute. I had a farm in KY that I tried to build quail population up on. Five years and 20K later I gave up when my last pointer [censored] died. I was grumpy for a long time then and almost over it.

Beyond dismal in the Texas Panhandle. Two years of drought back to back has done a number on birds. Pheasants gone and only pockets of quail trying to hang on beyond all odds. Even turkeys have virtually disappeared. I've got a severe case of cabin fever.

We got our first decent rain in SoCal the last few days. Nothing heavy. Just light rain for a few days. I'll take it. Still, birds are scarce.

A week ago I went out with the dogs looking for quail. It was so dry you coulda lit a fire by striking two ice cubes together

This is a drought map published by the Feds:

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Here in Colorado.

We have a forest fire in Rocky Mountain National park that just blew up out of control over the weekend. The mountain reservoirs that they normally start ice fishing on around Thankgiving are all ice free. Vail ski resort only has 1/8 of the terrain open and that's all man made snow, no snow in the town of Vail. Now they are already talking water rationing for the front range next summer because the mountain reservoirs are at historic lows for this time of year.

It's been over a month since I've seen any rain here in Denver, no snow yet. The first three days of December it's been in the high sixties. Most places in the mountains have been in the mid fifties for the last couple of weeks.

All the makin's for another dust bowl!!

There was a catfish at the Feed & Seed Store yesterday hunting flea powder.

SRH

Took the dogs out to the bird dog club. We are on old, old CRP. It was so thick you could hardly walk in it three years ago. The is about all broken off and blown away. Gone with the wind as it were.

I am getting up early tomorrow morning and taking the dogs out to the lease. Not enough birds to kill anything but it is fun playing hide and seek with them. When the dogs point them I shoot into the air to make the dog think we are hunting. Not any different than when I let my shooting student Joe Wood do the flushing and shooting anyway.

One of these days Joe's gonna put a 16ga load of #8's in you tush. Then explain to me how a 16ga is a "smallbore".