Lazy days come to an end

By Mac Arnold
RTWO Editor-In-Chief

It seemed like just yesterday, when I was lazily floating down the River Raisin on a sweltering summer day, trying to keep the canoe righted and wishing I was making better casts.

Ah, the cast bugaboo, always a major torment anytime I take the paddle to the currents.

But let's not get tied up in that crux much like a buzz bait wrapped around an overhanging branch along the river's bank.

This post is more in line with that worn refrain we often at this time of year in September: Where did summer go?

Well, it's long gone.

It it is now autumn. And its bountiful hunting seasons (I hope) await.

In fact, together with Augustus, we've already closed out September's early nuisance season with what couldn't be more apropos: a goose egg.

RTWO photo by Mac Arnold

Augustus and I managed to find a new spot at 
the Monroe County pond.

This comes after scoring geese the past two years during the early season. However, I did have some help from the evil Monroe County Drain Commission who came through and caused carnage to my favorite spots. With all its digging and scalping back there, it kept me from going out in the morning.

But that is now all behind us. The drain commission will likely not come through for another 20 years. I doubt I'll be here for that entirety but of course one never knows.

And there will be the regular waterfowl season next month, when hopefully, the less informed migratory flocks will be passing through and think the pond is a great spot to stopover at until they take off the following cool foggy morning and rise over me, and I pick off a couple of their friends.

So it's hard to stay down. What I've found hunting and in life, holding onto past failures is really a waste of time.

This was shown to me by a late great spiritual adviser who helped me through a few trials earlier in my life. He used the salesman analogy from when he was a door-to-door lackey for some concern. One of the many occupations he had which ranged from that previously mentioned to being a 21-year-old Army infantry company commander in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

He would say he would get excited about rejections because it meant the next door he knocked on could be his next sale.

What a great way to turn failure into success, if you ask me.

Plus, I recently got my spring turkey mount from Taxidermy by Ron in Columbus Township, Mich. Ron has done pretty much every one of my mounts but he really outdid himself this time. I would talk him up but he is trying to slow down and is keeping business to his longtime customers only.

RTWO photo by Mac Arnold

It's hard to stay down when you have past 

successes like my 2016 spring gobbler to

reflect on.

This turkey blew me away in all facets from what a great job he did to what a tremendous bird it was, which is a positive way to head into the deer archery opener next week, Oct. 1.

It's likely I'll be patrolling the back 40 near home for the opener despite not much turning up on the trail cam in the woods. There are other places, and they will all be hit over what I call the "90 days of insanity" with hopeful returns to old stomping grounds in the Port Huron State Game Area and even possibly at an old Army buddy's farm in Ohio.

But a final baaaaaaaaaaaass fishing gig is planned for this upcoming week, along with a long-awaited birthday bird hunt in the first week of October at one of the most sacred spots of my yesteryear in Gladwin County.

So much fun ahead in the coming months to be troubled by past failures, if you can really call them that.

To which I scoff: No geese, no problem.