JimHewitt
08-07-2001, 06:28 PM
Somebody I've known on campus for quite some time stopped in my office this morning and we got to talking. I've known that he lives in the "country" (I've even shot his barn pigeons from time to time to keep their numbers down and my shooting eye "in") but always thought that the little pothole that is behind his house was just that -- a little pothole very close to his house.
I found out today that it's just a small bay on a lake of about 300 acres and 15' in depth, and that no one has hunted it for the last few years. He owns the entire south shore. I looked up the lake in the state map section on the DNR website, and it's got a couple small islands as well as quite a few arms, so that even when the wind is coming straight out of the north, there will be quiet areas to set decoys in.
This lake is about a mile from three other, larger lakes that get hammered pretty hard. It has no public access whatsoever, and my guess is that 90% of the people who have hunted the area are just like me, with no idea that it even existed. It's in an area interspersed with a lot of grain and alfalfa fields and small potholes of an acre or two that have breeding flocks of Canadas, bluewings, mallards, and woodies. It's big enough to hold divers in the late season and not to freeze immediately like most of the potholes in the area. Better yet, it's in the area I'm planning on deer hunting, and there's a good chance I'll be able to hunt deer there after waterfowl season during the late muzzleloader hunt.
And best of all, he's given me permission to hunt it.
I'm in love all over again, just don't tell my wife of 25 years that this time it's with a piece of land/water.
I found out today that it's just a small bay on a lake of about 300 acres and 15' in depth, and that no one has hunted it for the last few years. He owns the entire south shore. I looked up the lake in the state map section on the DNR website, and it's got a couple small islands as well as quite a few arms, so that even when the wind is coming straight out of the north, there will be quiet areas to set decoys in.
This lake is about a mile from three other, larger lakes that get hammered pretty hard. It has no public access whatsoever, and my guess is that 90% of the people who have hunted the area are just like me, with no idea that it even existed. It's in an area interspersed with a lot of grain and alfalfa fields and small potholes of an acre or two that have breeding flocks of Canadas, bluewings, mallards, and woodies. It's big enough to hold divers in the late season and not to freeze immediately like most of the potholes in the area. Better yet, it's in the area I'm planning on deer hunting, and there's a good chance I'll be able to hunt deer there after waterfowl season during the late muzzleloader hunt.
And best of all, he's given me permission to hunt it.
I'm in love all over again, just don't tell my wife of 25 years that this time it's with a piece of land/water.