Moe and I went out Friday morning, I picked him up at his house. He wasn't dressed for hunting, he was along for the ride.

We drove over to the ridge across from his house and on down to a little point. It's a good spot to listen and call. The temperature was in the 40's, so it was chilly and damp but the wind was calm. Beautiful morning really.

I dropped down on both sides of the ridge and down below the point and tried to stir up a gobbler. Moe owl hooted a time or 2. I've been owl hooting with my voice, just started doing that last spring. Seems like sometimes you can move 50 or 75 yards and have one answer. But we stayed there about an hour, I'd guess? Didn't hear a peep. So we moved on up the mountain, maybe 3/4's of a mile.

When we got there the wind had picked up, had the leaves flipped upside down, I didn't even call. And not much reason to listen. We went on up to the end of the road, just sitting there talking. Honestly, that's the main reason for our ride that morning. I wanted to talk to him.

You see, Moe's doctor took his keys away from him about a month ago, told him not to be driving. I know that was hard on Moe, and about the only thing that he'd been doing was sitting around the house watching baseball games.

This past week, his doctor gave Moe his keys back, but only for local trips. That's what we were talking about. I don't want to see him wreck and hurt himself and it'd be so much worse if he'd hurt someone else.

We should start another thread. I honestly don't understand the doctor's reasoning. You'll meet more oncomming traffic driving through town, than you will in an hour on most of our local roads. But if he'd happen to have a little fender-bender, he'll be grounded for good.

It's a tough thing to do, but when the time comes, you don't have a choice.

It was good of you to take Moe hunting!
I believe getting old,and being stuck in the house,
makes you older.
The turkeys won this year!

I agree, a feller has got to stay on the move. Or you'll fall apart.

A couple things that I forgot to mention in my comment above, Moe and I aren't family related at all. My family and Moe's family are just long-time family friends. I knew Moe's parents and Moe knew mine too.

Moe is a little bit older than me, and I treat him just the same as if he'd be my brother.

That morning Moe and I were talking, I offered to let him drive, (you can't hurt my little truck). He'd been grounded for a little bit, but he was content to ride.

Anyway, I told him to be very careful, while he was out on the road. Before I took him back to the house, he told me that it was: Just nice to get out. I understand and I agree.

Yesterday when I was cutting and spraying autumn olives, Moe called me when I was on the way off of the mountain. (I told him what I'd be doing.) He invited me to stop by for a cold one. I'll tell you, after wearing rubber gloves, long sleeves, messing with a chainsaw and sprayer most of the morning, I didn't turn down the offer!

One of my hunting spots have a lot of autumn olives!
That stuff sure makes a tangled up mess,but the rabbits
have the underneath bare.
In my younger days i worked for a guy,and they took his father licence away,
he had to hide all the keys to different vehicles,or his dad would find them
and off to town he went. I felt sorry for that old timer!

Yes, it's a bad situation.

A while back one of my landowners stopped by and told me that they'd just made hay, in the one field. He said to help myself with the groundhogs. It was the Sunday morning after July the 4th.

His property joins a trailer court, not sure, maybe 40 homes or so? On Sunday's I try not to shoot until 8am. Don't want to cause problems.

Anyway, I eased up the farm lane, looking right, left and ahead. The lane is beside a fence line, pasture on my side, hay field on the left. I didn't see it until I was 4 feet from the thing, there was a fawn deer stuck in the fence. Tell you how small it was, it tried to jump through a woven-wire fence, with 6 inch squares. That's part of that fence line I've mentioned before, that cost my landowner $28,500. It's a good fence and the wire is stretched tight.

I sized it up, nothing was broken, looked like the wire had pretty much cut a ring around it's leg, just above it's hoof. So I grabbed it with both hands across it's shoulders and picked it up. Guys, that thing let out a long and loud bawl and flew into a kicking fit. So I was holding it in one arm, right back leg in my other hand. I took a half a step toward the fence and it yanked it's foot free. It ripped off another long and loud bawl, and started kicking like crazy again. It happened so fast, I just dropped it. The fawn jumped up and took off, when it went across the hump and outta sight, he/she was running like the wind.

It was nice out that morning, the only thing I was wearing is my hunting shorts, boots and my hat. The fawn's hair felt sticky, on my arm and belly while I holding it. But, all of that might have taken 30 seconds.

I didn't notice it until I got in the truck and put my hand on the steering wheel, both of my hands were bleeding. I knew it was kicking like crazy, but that little turd cut me in 5 places.

I was running short on time this morning, I'll add this little tidbit. I love to hunt deer and they're pretty good eating too. At the same time, I hate to see an animal die in the situation that it was in. If it'd been all broken up and all, I'd have put it down. But as well as I could tell, it was 100%, when it ran off.

I'd guess that it would have died in the fence before dark, and most likely the black vultures would have picked it apart before sundown. ???

One day last week, I stopped to get my buddy Moe, took him up on the mountain and checked the "lured rock" camera. I had a bear, a coyote, coons and 2 almost decent bucks. We did see a doe and 2 fawns going up the road. That's about it. Dog had a good run too.

As the Old Timers would say: The air is a changing. It is, it's starting to feel like Fall.

We haven't had a frost yet, but I've had temps in the 40's, 3 days this week.

Wanted to tell you, I went to the farm the other day, (more or less to make one last raid on the garden). There were 8 young turkey gobblers in the pasture above the greenhouse. All of them had little beards, 3 or 4 inches long. I'd say those turkeys hatched during the spring of 2024. A year and a half old now?

They were out under some white oak trees, not sure if the acorns are starting to drop, or if they were after grasshoppers and crickets? Anyway, they were nice looking birds.

I've had friends show me pictures of some really nice buck deer. A couple out past 20 inches or so? My buddy Jim sent a video the other morning, he had 8 rack bucks. Two of them were pretty nice. Trash man said he'd seen 5 or 6 bucks in a herd. I've got another friend that has 5 in her back yard about every morning.

But, keep in mind, that's 20 miles from this herd of bucks to the next herd. In another month or so, they will fan out, split up and all. And then you're dealing with 1,000's of acres.

From what I've seen, in some spots, our deer population is doing good. In other areas, there are less.

One thing that puzzles me, nobody is or has seen many fox/coon squished in the road. I mean that's with the mailman, trash guys, Pepsi man, Coke man, and my friends that travel. That's really odd.

Turkey season came in a week or so ago, in my part of the state. Check the regulations.

Big Donnie and I went out last Wednesday morning, more or less scouting. I'll tell you we have a really good acorn crop. The hickory trees produced good in some spots. Walnut trees were loaded this fall.

We rode across the top of the mountain, on one of the clubs, came off on the east side. I did track a coyote and an adult deer in that one sand spot in the road. We did see a squirrel. Seems like the acorns are both, up high and low.

Friday morning the dog and I made a little circle on the farm (where I's seen those young gobblers) couldn't find them again. I did see a nice looking fawn, it's spots are gone now. 2 squirrels, 2 red-headed woodpeckers, and a cow.

The cow was up in the woods eating acorns, acorns will kill a cow. I talked to the local vet later that day, he said that acorns will cause kidney failure. I was always told that the shells would cut up their stomach? Either way, I put the word out, the man stopped by later and told me that all of his cows were back inside the fence and accounted for. I'd hate to see one of my landowners lose a %1,500 cow. It's a real chore keeping up a fence.

But I couldn't find the turkeys.