Category: Uncategorized

No question the fall is my favorite time of the year.  High School, College and NFL Football, not to mention all the fall hunting activities.  Our waterfowl season just opened here in Kansas and Missouri.  It has been unusually warm but a front just move in the past few days.  I hope that means more ducks!  Kansas archery deer season is ongoing and the Missouri firearm season just opened last Saturday.  I have had some pretty good success hunting ducks.  I haven’t seen anything worth taking yet as far as the deer go.  The best news is that the Kansas Pheasant population is up and the weather is perfect for that.  We will be headed to western Kansas in about two weeks for a pheasant hunt.  Taking several former Chiefs players and Kansas City Royals players.  I will keep you all posted.

Now for football.  I have NO comments regarding the Chiefs, they are struggling to say the least.  We need help on the offensive line.  If our QB makes it through the season uninjured it will be miracle.  College football around here is also a little depressing.  Both KU and MU had great expectations coming into the season, which they have not lived up too.  Now on the other hand, Kansas State has exceeded everyone’s expectations, that is the lone bright spot.  Our area High Schools are deep into the State playoffs, which I really enjoy.  I head up the High School Coach of the Week and Coach of the Year program for the NFL and the Chiefs.  After this weeks games, I will be making the selections for both Kansas and Missouri, stay tuned!

This past Sunday was the last day of the 2009 Missouri tukey season.  The weather was a little unpredictable and wasn’t sure about the wind.  I woke up at 4:15 A.M. and there were stars in the sky and no wind.  I thought, what the heck, go and if nothing else check on how bad the flooding was.  Well, as the story goes, I put on my vest grabed my calls and headed for the woods.  There is a hay field on top of the ridge surrounded by hardwoods where I hunt, a great place to do a locator call.  I owl hooted and to my surprise a bird gobbled at one of the usual spots the birds normally roost.  With all the trees leafed out, it was easy to get close to the bird.  I owl hooted one more time just to pin point him.  I knew exactly where he was and where he may go.  After calling to him with a few soft putts and tree yelps, he finally cut me off during my calls, which told me he knew where I was.  After another 10 or 15 minutes of discourse between me and the gobbler, he flew down.  When he hit the ground he was only 70 yards from me and for the next 10 minutes he never made a sound.  I was confident that he was on his way but just being silent about his approach.  I never called again and he never gobbled again until a crow flew over and called.  The bird shook the timber with his gobble and was less than forty yards right at the end of my barrel.  One minute later he stepped out on the path at 20 yards, the magic distance.  The gobbler was mine at 6:20 A.M. and on a morning I wasn’t going to hunt. 

Don’t miss on these late season birds.  They will still turn all you hunters on with their thundering gobbles.  It’s true, it never gets old

The Outdoor Quaterback