For both deer and elk today. Loading my old truck, packing my rifle, ammo, cloths (& old guy meds) and pointing the nose of it north and west. Going over Rabbit Ears tonight in the dark. Snowed here a bit yesterday and it's decidedly cooler. Hunting sure beats listening to the news. Not sure when I'm coming home and....I rather like that. Driving tonight after a turkey dinner will be interesting.

Drive safe Lloyd and good luck filling the freezer.

Thank you Steve. Sure enjoyed your photos of your bird hunt this year.

Have a safe trip, Lloyd. You on your own? That is getting to be a fight with the Missus, she wants me with someone. Almost everybody has aged out, or, died. The kid much prefers clay games to birds, and usually begs off.

So, it ends up just Louie, and me. I try to keep it to day trips, to avoid conflict.

Good luck, by the way.

Best,
Ted

Safe trip, Lloyd. I'm biding my time until I can strike out and do some hunting, other than a dove shoot now and then. Got about a week and a half of cotton picking to go before that. First road trip will be for ducks on the L "Anguille R. in Arkansas.

Don't forget pics!

Headed to Yuma tomorrow morning for doves. Group used be be about a dozen men and kids. Now there are just two of us.

Drive safe. Can totally relate to the diminishing numbers.

Best,
Ted

bein old sucks...

Have a great trip Lloyd, aging out is dreaded. I'm looking forward to some December Grouse hunts until the end of the tear.
Karl

There are often medical reasons why one cannot continue on in pursuit of outdoor activities as when younger. But, I see so many men that retire and waste away. They become couch potatoes, eat their way into obesity, and before you know it they're walking with a cane, or worse a walker, then their obituary is published. This cannot always be forestalled, but I believe continuing to push yourself to stay active outside, even work, prolongs useful life.

My local "hero" is a fellow deacon's father. He farmed most of his adult life, and turned the logistics of the farming operation over to his two sons when he was in his 70s. Now, at 92 yrs. of age, he gets up before day every morning, this time of year, and goes to the cotton field where he cleans the heads on the 6 row roller/cotton picker his son drives all day. His son told me last Sunday that one day the previous week his father had to wait at the picker for it to get light enough to work. Cleaning the heads is a menial, but important task that requires manual dexterity and toughness, and includes inspecting the heads for missing or broken spindles, pads, doffers, etc. each day. When it's below freezing the moistener pads have wet, frozen lint on them that must be pulled off, and it's a cold, tough job on your hands. Yet, Mr. Ray forges ahead at 92. After that job is completed he takes lunch orders from all the farm hands and family, then goes to town and picks up everyone's take-out plates and drinks, and delivers them. To be honest, he has no hobbies and his work is one of his biggest pleasures in life.

My son and I were with our accountant recently doing some end of the year tax planning. She asked me if I had any plans on retiring from farming soon. My son just rolled his eyes and laughed. I simply said "No". I could shoot doves way more, travel to hunt ducks way more, and hunt quail here and and in the Southwest more if I quit work. But, how long would I be able to do that if I quit pushing myself to work? I dunno.

Stan,
I've heard that a body in motion, stays in motion!
Karl

Some folk's constitution holds up longer than others. I guess it depends upon what one has done in his working life. Forty five years practicing law behind a desk, a stroke, and open heart surgery has not resulted in my own physical shape being what I had hoped for in retirement. I still get around and love a dove shoot, but the covid years have about done away with that activity due to the group nature of it.

My brother says he has some doves hemmed up at his farm which is adjacent to mine up in middle GA. We're driving up to middle GA Saturday morning to give them a try.

I still deer hunt even though I really don't care whether I shoot one or not, and I use a cane to walk back and forth between my blinds and my car. I made the trip up to Saskatchewan in October but I doubt I'll do it again. I passed up a free plantation style kick'em-up quail hunt last week because I don't feel safe with a gun due to my predilection for falling down at inopportune times.

Aging out is a personal decision and at 73 I'm sure there are those with a stronger determination to keep going than I. Dog-gone it though I've enjoyed the hunting life and hate to give it up. I guess that's why I've collected "Gray's Sporting Journals" for so many years, so I can re-live my experiences from those pages...Geo

Gentlemen, again...thank you all for the kind words. Ted, I am not hunting alone, but with a long-time friend and co-worker. A very successful trip here so-far, with only one tag left to fill. We are also scouting new areas for an additional trip planned for late December (with additional friends and family). Still fairly mild and dry here (minimal snow, so very manageable conditions). I hunt for a number of reasons, but I suppose at this stage of life it just seems to be what I do. It's the exercise, the comraderie, and the sharing of resources (and also the isolation from the continuous bad-news cycle). The meat for the freezer is shared and prepaired for both family and guests and is a long-held tradition in my family. It was never intended as a life's mission, but it does serve as a yardstick for where I am physically and where I might need to do some work.

My two hunting worlds. Compare this....



to this...



Not sure why, but it's hard for me to fully process how different they are.

Something I might add to my earlier post about hunting being what I do. I've thought about that for a bit and I'd have to say that it is also a place where I go to disconnect from the problems of modern society for a little while (to hopefully gain a little perspective). Hunting helps me to strip away some of the "affected" behaviors that we all fall prey to. It's rather stark simplicity is beautiful to my clearly inadequate mind. It slows me down, and helps me reconnect to my core. When I come back to the "world" I'd like to think that I see that social framework more clearly for what is meaningful and what is merely an overlay of trivial things masquerading as something more important.

Lloyd,

I just came over Rabbit Ears pass and sitting in Craig. I'll go out tomorrow for a few days. I know the news has been saying we need snow, but I can't believe the lack of snow.

Ken

Ken:

We might of gone over the pass at the same time (I just got home this afternoon). It's been very cold at night and warming to the mid-40s during the day. There are still skiffs of snow in many shaded areas but....it is terribly dry. The migrations are all delayed. Still seeing lots of deer but very few elk so-far. We did take advantage of the excellent remote road conditions and covered some areas we normally can't get to, which was fun. The down-side of all that was lots of other folks out there doing exactly the same thing.

Lloyd, you are making me kind of envious with your reports of your recent "Long Trip to the Grouse Woods" and now this hunting trip with an indeterminate ending date. I had hoped that by the time I reached this stage in life, I would have a lot of vacation time to spend outdoors. But unfortunately, I have made several job changes due to corporate bankruptcies, outsourcing, and my own desire to move on to better employment. So even while most all of these moves have resulted in better pay and benefits, one downside has been starting over with entry level vacation time. My most recent job change was in 2016 thanks to a booming Donald Trump economy.

I vividly recall working with a couple Swiss Technicians on some engineering changes and modifications on one job back in 1993. The Mechanical Engineer remarked to me on his last day here that when he went back to Switzerland, he would be going on Holiday. I asked him what holiday it was, and he explained that what we call vacation, they call Holiday. When I asked him how much Holiday time he got, he replied in his heavy French accent that he got 15 weeks. I was totally blown away because he wasn't that old, and he saw my shock and surprise, and asked me how much Holiday/Vacation I got. I had just started this job several months prior, and he was equally shocked when I told him that I got 40 hours after one year. He genuinely thought I was pulling his leg, and I explained that I had just started this new job. I then asked him how much Holiday I would get if I was a new hire at his Company, and he said, "Six weeks... in Switzerland, everyone gets at least six weeks." Several years later, when I worked for General Motors, and they were beginning a massive downsizing of U.S. operations, I read a Wall Street Journal article that reported the much larger Buyout Offers that Volkswagen was offering to German employees, and also about the refusal of the I.G. Metall Union that represented Volkswagen workers to go back to a 32 hour work week, up from the 28.5 hour workweek they were on. The Union President remarked that Volkswagen workers were already over-worked. I guess someone has to work longer hours to pay for our Welfare State.

Envy is one of The Seven Deadly Sins, and complaining doesn't help. I am getting out for some hunting though, and always save some vacation time for Hunting Seasons. We actually had snow for the first few days of our deer season, which is certainly a sign of Global Warming. Yesterday, I finally put the studded snow tires on the truck, and sprayed the frame and underside with Fluid Film. I haven't seen a decent buck yet, and won't take a doe until late in Flintlock Season. So I'll be out there again tomorrow.

Life gets simple, quickly, in LOW county, Lloyd. You won’t be doing any nightclubbing, or, hobnobing at a high end gunshop. You fish and hunt, eat, and prepare to do it again. The lake and the woods need to be respected, especially if the weather will be changing for the worse when you are out.
Those things seem to be enough to keep one engaged up there. The rest of life goes on an all too brief hold when in LOW county.

Best,
Ted

Ted: this last trip was in my own time zone, but the same rules apply. Not much nightclubbing in Craig, Colorado that I can speak to. And Keith...I get it. Not sure what I did right lately to deserve all these wonderful little adventures. They have all helped me to escape the poison that the mainstream media pumps out regularly, and that by itself is well-worth it. What was it that Karl said earlier..." a body in motion tends to remain in motion"? That seems to apply here as well.

More fun...





Then,







Like I mentioned before, not sure I'm deserving but...I'm working with it.

At 64, I am NOT in near as good of shape as I should be. HOWEVER, my soon to be ( Jan 10th) 96 year old father just returned from his annual, now bi-annual to make up for lost trips due to COVID, migration across the Atlantic on the Sea Dream, SOLO! I did, at the last minute convince him not to make the four hour drive to Atlanta to catch his flight to Barcalonia, but the rest he handled himself.Folks often ask, “Why do y’all let him do this at his age?” My reply is “ What is the worst that can happen? He has too many martinis and falls overboard or falls and cracks his head while dancing with a younger lady? There is no way he would rather go!”

Sounds like a tough old dude.

Best,
Ted

How anyone at 96 can sail a vessel by himself across the Atlantic ocean is beyond comprehension for me. I cannot process that.
JR

He does not sail, the Sea Dream is a small “ cruise ship” with as many crew as passengers. For many years he took the Sea Cloud, once Merriweather Post’s private motorsailer yacht. He spends the rest of the year cutting grass around the sawmill with his 60hp diesel batwing mower and running his Cat 315 excavater. He really enjoys running it with his newly acquired “mulching head” attachment. Many of my friends say they wish to be him when they grow up!

Thanks for the clarification, Tyler. When you said “solo”, I thought you meant solo…
JR

I suppose he meant sans a "date"....Geo