Annual Report For 2021

I guess I slowed down more in 2021 than I had during any other year. Assorted aches and pains have made fishing and hunting much more difficult than they were just a couple years ago.

Hunting: Reality has struck. I would not have tagged either a turkey or a buck if it hadn't been for my son, Bob.

We got to hunt together late on the Friday at the end of the only week of fall turkey season. We hadn't hunted together until that day. I vacillated about going out on the opening Saturday because it was to rain: I don't hunt in the rain. It didn't rain, so I did hunt. I made the wrong decision about how to approach a flock of turkeys I ran into and "ate crow" for days. On Friday I made a strenuous up-and-down hunt, was bushed, and came in. While I was eating an early supper, Bob phoned and told me to get to his home near Tyrone quickly. I did. He led me on a quarter mile uphill "sprint" (remember, I'm 72) to get to the woods where he had killed a bird and had scattered a flock. Daylight Savings Time was still in effect. He had just enough time to call in a bird for me. Even Bob couldn't help me put a tag on a spring gobbler, though he collected a 22-pounder.

If it were not for Bob, I would not have killed a buck this year either. The opening day of rifle deer season found Bob and me hooking up to hunt deer together for the first time in many years. He had found a way to get us to deer-hunting territory I thought I'd never see again.

Fishing: I fished fewer times than ever. Much of this was due to the summer heat waves, but my age and some health issues also caught up with me several times. Even with a wading staff, numerous places have become too tough to wade. Still, I managed to catch some lovely trout, with a smattering of dandies among them. The highlights of this trout season were my fly-fishing adventures during the cicada emergence and some outings following the late-summer floods.

My most unusual wildlife encounters were those with an albino cottontail rabbit (no, it wasn't a tame one someone dumped off) during the spring. I didn't see him again after May when I suspect a predator killed him. A couple bears upstream from me on the BFO River one evening provided some nervous moments, too.