Pace quickens with approach of another hunting year

Ohio has less than one week before it turns the corner on the start of another hunting year.

And so for the next few days comes a flurry of activity to get things ready.

Actually the elbow grease has been applied for more than four weeks now.

There was the buying of some new floating goose decoys, the acquisition of a pair of duck calls, the painting the interior of a wooden deer blind, the priming the Moultree game feeder, the placing of the mineral block and doctored with a liberal dousing of buck-attracting syrup in apple flavor.

Oh, and some work on a new waterfowl-hunting blind.

Even today saw the placement of a fabric ground blind at the far end of a pasture near a corner of a woodlot where deer like to slink out from on toward evening.

The ground near where the blind sits is impressed with the stamp of at least one very large deer, based on the size and depth of the hoof prints. No need to bait here as the deer regularly enter the grassy field from this juncture.

I’ve also foraged through ammunition boxes of shotshells, sorting out the loads I’ll be using for the early Canada goose-only hunting season and next Thursday’s start of the dove-hunting season.

But this coming week will see the most intensity. Tomorrow my wife, Bev, and I, will outfit another waterfowl-hunting blind. It consists of a jury-rigged frame made from glued PVC tubing that will be superimposed with camouflaged netting.

And we’ll have to repair the rotted wooden floor, too, though I’ve got the plywood to see that project to completion.

Then we’ll have to perform a little brush trimming in front of the blind so I can ensure that no swimming goose will sneak up on us.

Later in the afternoon we’ll string the goose decoys and get them ready to be deposited an evening or two before the season starts on Thursday.

Oh, yes, we’ll keep working on training the two Labrador retrievers, trying to burnish off the rust.

And for the Labor Day holiday weekend I’ll labor on getting my main archery deer-hunting blind ready, complete with fueling its own game feeder.

If this all seems like a lot to do, it’s not for nothing. Just the opposite.

I suppose I could go to the farm pond, sit amongst the rushes and hope that a flock of geese pass overhead.

Or on Thursday’s dove season opener I could just inch my way along a treeline at the Mosquito Creek Wildlife Area like the bulk of the other hunters instead of assembling a dove “tree” that will be completed with a Mojo motion dove decoy and four stationary models.

Even though we’re still one month away from the archery deer-hunting season that’s really not all that far down the road.

Before I whistle “nice buck” the archery season will be upon us. I want to be ready and I also want the deer to be ready, pumped up by the free meal and feeling comfortable about the ground blinds.
J
ust like I want the geese to feel relaxed when from overhead they spy the placebos rocking on the waves of pond water in front of the two blinds.

Yes, sir, I’ve got the itch and I need all of this activity to give me some relief.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischkorn@News-Herald.com