'Possum Cam

We know we have opossums in our yard. We also know that trail cams will pick up small critters, such as a opossum. So we put a trail cam out along with a bowl of cat food and... sure enough at 5 in the morning we had a little furry visitor, a white faced opposum, but not the same one from the Princess and the Opossum story.

The first night we put it out we got a picture of a single rain drop, which looked like a floating, glowing orb, and was pretty cool. But the second night we got a good picture of a opossum, which hung around for a pretty good while. We got opossum after opossum and then finally we got a picture of a deer one night. It was a year and a half old doe eating grass. I wonder why the flash does not scare the animals off? But, here are the pictures we got.

I'll keep posting backyard wildlife as I get them on camera.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Picking the Perfect Tree

I was nervous climbing that tree, really nervous. I was only being held on by two little whimpy- looking cables, that could probably lift an eighteen wheeler, but they still looked small. I was using a climbing tree stand, for the first time. All my life I have hunted on the ground, boxes or in a tree stand, but never out of a climber. It was spooky... but I quickly figured out how to work the seemingly complicated piece of equipment, and was on my way up.

I was clearing out a spot for my climber, and gaps in the tree for shooting lanes. I was setting up right over a acorn-covered food plot, with a deer trails leading in and out. My dad and I had spent about an hour looking for the right spot, and we had found it. It was a fairly long food plot that was only about a twenty-five-yard shot straight across and thirty or so in the far corner; easy stuff. There was already a box on this plot but it was not positioned how I needed it and I could not use a bow out of it. So we went and bought a great climber (which only ran us $115) and set it up.

As I was hanging out of the rather small stand to
cut down limbs, I felt certain that those weak looking cables I mentioned earlier would snap in half, causing me to plummet to my death... or at least a few nice bruises. But fortunately I made it through the event with no mishaps and I'm ready for archery season.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Anyone Hungry?

I looked out the window and noticed that our
hummingbird feeders were empty, so being the nice guy that I am, I decided to fill them back up. I went out and got the feeders, filled them up,
and as I was putting them back up I was attacked by the birds. So I said hey why not just stand here and see if they will actually eat, and so I stood there and waited. A few seconds later, they started swarming the feeders.

It was interesting to see the little birds up so close, because you can see their tongues getting water and everything involved in them drinking. They fought and I could feel the wind off them... for such little birds they move a lot of air. I
called my dad to come take some pictures and
here they are. Just click on them for the full size
image.
www.danahersoutdoors.com

Notes from 9th Grade

The excitement of being back in school wore off fairly quickly. Now it's just a plain old day to day routine. During the summer I spent all day out in the woods exploring or something. Now I spend almost all my time working, studying and doing homework. I hardly have time to shoot my bow or go outside now. The recent hurricanes haven't helped much either.

But, there's a lot of stuff coming up, like next week I'm going up to my grandfather's camp to put up a deer stand. I also have a fishing trip coming up with Capt. Matt Tusa of Shore Thing Charters. We've heard that Tusa is Italian for ''catches lots of fish'' or something like that. I'm also looking forward to hunting with my friends Jim and Chuck at Camp Whackabigun right on the Big Black River, where there's a deer behind every tree. I'm serious, I have never been out there and not seen a deer. I killed my first deer there with a rifle there and my second one with a pistol. The 357 hand loads that we made stopped that deer dead in his tracks, so to speak. Now I need to find some time to get some shooting in with my rifle and pistol.

I have a few goals this year, one being kill a squirrel with my 22 pistol. I think that if I prop it up on something I could do it. I also want to get a rabbit with my bow since my dad has done it before. That would be really cool. I think that this will end up being a pretty good year.

www.danahersoutdoors.com

Shore Thing Charters On Board

Just got this email from Capt. Sonny Schindler at Shore Thing Charters on the Coast. Looks like the fishing is great. The pictures are of Capt. Matt Tusa (He's got the yellow visor) and I think the other fisherman is John Marquez.

Check out Shore Thing Charters' site. I have fished with Capt. Sonny once and it was great! There is a link on my homepage and there is one at the bottom of Sonny's email.

Shore Thing Fishing Charters is still running strong, but these storms have made the past few weeks a tad bit tough. All our family and friends are fine, but lets be honest, we want to fish! The boats are more than fine and the lodge is ready.
Myself, Capt Matt and John "Fish Head" Marquez made a day of it today in the LA Marsh. Yes there is debris in the water. We waited till first light to leave and we still "bumped" a few things.FYI the marsh looks fine. Looked for the 5 to 10 forecast all day but got slammed with a steady 15 knts all day. No matter, we had the dream team and none of us had fished in a long time. Decided to redfish with the dirty water and high tide. Spent all day from 3 mile to 9 mile checking ponds and drains. Only managed 2 reds(one release) and 1 flounder. At 1 in the pm we decided to head in. On the way in we found one drain on the "inside" of the marsh loaded with diving birds and jumbo shrimp. We all made the call to stick it out. After an hour an half of skull dragging trout we put 57 keeper trout in the box. No one stopped fishing, it was like we had a mission. I was so happy the shrimp, trout, birds and marsh were all working in our favour.We used plastics for the reds and trout, color did not matter at all. All is well folks and the fish are hungry, are you? Let this next one get out of the way and lets have some fun. www.shorethingcharters.com

www.danahersoutdoors.com