WINDING DOWN

Rocke Fournet Thursday, February 5, 2015 Comments Off on WINDING DOWN
WINDING DOWN
Matt Moss

Matt Moss

The clock is ticking. We are in the waning days of hunting season 2015, Louisiana style.

As always, it has been a memorable year, filled with highlights and even a few lowlights. A refreshing Arctic cold front just blew through, dipping temperatures to near freezing.  Bundle up, and get out in it for some of natures’ best. It is important not to leave anything on the table, especially that piping hot bowl of gumbo!

Here are a few local hunting season stories that made the A-list: You may have already heard about this one, but it deserves repeating: Lake Charles’ own Matt Moss harvested a once-in-a lifetime Mississippi buck that is the stuff deer hunters dream of. This very special buck had horns featuring a lot of bone mass, and they were also unique in structure. A heavy tine shoots off the main beam, pushing the gross score just over 216 inches. This is truly a world class deer.

The property Matt was hunting butted up to a prime piece of Lake Charles that John Rudd hunts. John had been tracking this buck for several years via trail cam, and was patiently watching its horns grow. He was generous with plenty of supplemental feed and beaucoup minerals for optimum growth. This buck was testament to what effective management can produce.

But, sometimes our best laid plans get derailed. That is why they call it hunting. John’s original master plan was to get the honor of meeting this buck close up and in person. Or, even better, he could give his son, Justin, a shot at improving on the 170-plus inch buck he scored last year.

As fate would have it, the buck was just across the property line when Matt Moss made the sweet shot. Rudd was considering his feed bills on this buck, but blew if off when told a Lake Charles hunter took the buck home. Matt will always be grateful.

Overall, it has been a somewhat improved duck season. Though spotty at times, there were good numbers of birds down, especially during the first split. Korey Alleman had to hang up his cell phone as he closed the distance between him and a downed blue-wing teal. He was hunting near Wax Lake, and experiencing productive hunts consistently. He was on point, not sure if the bird might jump.

As he neared the spot he had marked where the teal hit the water, he caught movement from above. In a flash, a magnificent bald eagle swooped down and swiped Korey’s bird. The full-grown eagle effortlessly gained altitude with his dinner held firmly in his sharp talons. Korey was thinking that teal would have looked good in a black pot, but wouldn’t have traded the visual experience for the world. Mother Nature takes care of her own, and Korey and crew limited out, anyway. It was all good.

Bayli Johnson

Bayli Johnson

Featured in the photo corner this week is Bayli Johnson with her first goose.  She was hunkered down in a pit blind in a rice field south of Lake Charles. Her blind mate, Hunter, mouth called the birds into the kill zone, and Bayli pulled the trigger for a stone cold fold shot. There is nothing like teamwork and a bowl of goose gumbo to polish off a great hunt.

 

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