Life is good

[koan]

Looks like another great weekend at Twin Oaks! Our archery season starts tomorrow here in Mo.... and off work for 2 weeks  .... Brian

[Pappy]

The weather is still good here Pat ,in the high70/ 40's but that is supposed to change later in the week.80/60's It will be cold soon enough I guess. I am a winter kind of guy and look forward to it. Brian good luck and shoot straight. Our season opens the 26th. I put up another stand yesterday. The mass is very slim this year so I have been wearing out a bunch of boot leather in the last few weeks and have found a few good looking spots,[doc says I need to walk more anyway] time will tell if they are really good our not. I don't do food plots much so one thing is for sure ,they have to eat/drink and have some cover so I look for natural feed with water and cover around and have found that ,so should be good.
 Pappy

[Pappy]

Finely after miles of walking and scouting I found another good spot yesterday, I have never seen the mass crop so scarce. Seems the only Oaks putting out anything are what I call blue bark Oak, It's a slick bark, bluish looking Oak in the red Oak family. Puts out thumb size acorns. and lots of them. I have 4 spots set now and all or around one of these Oaks.  :)Yesterday's find and stand set up in a nice Hickory with maple and Beach beside it for some good cover. The Hickory may be bow wood this spring, clean and straight, don't know how I missed it over the years..
 Pappy

[Wolf Watcher]

Pappy:  Looks like you have a good place for an ambush.  Am headed to Canada with my grandson on Friday so will miss the pictures of the hunt.  Good Luck opening day!  Joe

[Pappy]

Same to you Joe.
  Pappy

[mullet]

Good luck, Mark.

[Pappy]

Thanks Eddie,  I will try not and kill them all before you get here, but I am going to have  left arm surgery [probably mid Oct.] so I am going to try and thin the herd as much as I can until then. :)The season don't open until a week from Saturday on the 26th. Got my hunting arrows tuned  for 2 bows yesterday evening now to round up my day pack and hang out my close. 
 Pappy

[osage outlaw]

Pappy, I found about the same thing on our property with the Oak trees.  Most of the trees didn't produce anything.  We found a small grove of chinkapin oaks that were dropping fresh acorns and put a stand on the edge of them.  I would have thought with all the rain we had this summer there would be a heavy mast crop      Good luck this year.

[Josh B]

I have the same problem at my place.  Very few walnuts and burr oak acorns are almost non-existent.  I'm gonna have to put up some squirrel feeders to help the tree rats get through the winter so my kids have something to fling arrows at besides Momma's cat.  Good hunting Pappy!  Josh

[Pappy]

Plenty of walnuts for us this year but the Hickory/acorns of almost any kind and persimmons are pretty scarce. Yep Josh them tree rats will have a tough time for sure if it's a long winter, one thing we have this years that don't happen often in abundance is the beach nuts, and I have a lot of beach, seems every tree was loaded and have covered the ground, hope the squirrels are squirreling them away for winter before the stupid Turkeys fine them. Clint we have a few of them also, not many but a few trees, I call the saw tooth oks, I think we are talking the same tree, small blackish acorns and everything loves them.
 Pappy

[Pat B]

Pappy, saw tooth oaks(Quercus acutissima) is an import from Asia that were brought here for wildlife. It produces acorns after about 7 years and generally has an aboundance every year, so much so that they have become invasive exotics in the Southern US. In comparison, it generally takes a white oak 75 years from acorn(germinated) to acorn(produced). On the hunt club in GA I used to belong to we planted saw tooth oak trees(seedlings) about 15 years ago and some are over 12" in diameter and produce acorns quite heavily every year. Turkeys love them also and a variety with a slightly smaller acorn was produced for turkeys called the Gobbler variety.

[mullet]

Wow, we have Water Oaks dropping acorns like rain, down here. That's the acorn our deer like. Muscadines and Scupanongs are real plentiful also. I've picked over 35# in my yard this year.

[Pappy]

We have some water oak also[we call them Willow oak and I think they are the same as you are talking about Eddie ? We also have pin oak and some of them have acorns, the 2 in the front yard of the cabin [TwinOaks]  are full, may hunt off the front porch.  Friday and my plane is to get out of here really really early, Jon and I need to finish the front of the cabin roof and gutter board and also the under insulation and put the under penning back on. We also have to pull the range we had set for the Deer Classic last weekend and put them away. It's time to be done with the winterizing and club stuff and get to more important things like getting ready for next Saturday opening day. Need to do some arrow work and for sure some shooting and testing of hunting equipment. The weather looks to be kind of hot but pretty nice for this time of year for us. Hope yall have a good one. See yall Monday.
Life is Good.
 Pappy

[Pappy]

Got this picture from mine and Eddie's buddy's in FL. Chris and Shane, Shane got this nice gator and said wished I could have made it back this year. I do also, it was a very fun week hanging with Eddie/Chris and Shane. Them boys know how to gator hunt and have fun to boot.
 Pappy

[Badly Bent]

Enjoy your weekend Pappy, nothing like the preparation and anticipation of the hunting season.