2014 should be another interesting year afield.  We'll again be hunting at the River Road Hunt Club where I am president, and our focus this year will continue to be on improving our food plots.

The big hunt for the year will most likely take place in Texas with Ted Nugent for his annual birthday hunt.  I've wanted to go on that hunt for some time now, and things are falling in place to make that happen this year.

We may also get another shot at the hogs at Cherokee Run if things work out for that! 

All in all, it's shaping up to be another good year.

My friend Greg Sailors and I started out the year with a predator hunt down at the Liberty Hill lease today.  As I was getting out of the shower and getting ready to go, Greg texted me to say that he was almost to my house.  That worked out well, since I too was ready to go a bit earlier than planned.  We got underway and were soon at the lease and ready to hunt.

For the first calling series, I put Greg in Stand 13, parked the truck around the corner from him, and went over to Stand 16 for my sit.  The stands are close together but separated by a triangle of woods.  I walked my caller out about 100 yards, then settled in and waited for dawn.  When the day started to break, I started playing the caller.

I tried several different sounds but initially got no real response.  Then, when we were coming to the end of our agreed-upon 30 minute sit, I switched over to a female coyote in heat followed by a male challenge call.  Almost immediately I heard something moving way down in the valley to my right.  I looked out the window of my blind and briefly saw a coyote coming.  I shifted positions, moving my silenced .223 Remington R-15 to the side window, but never heard or saw anything else from the coyote.  After a moderately short wait, I got out of the stand and went back to meet Greg.

From there we headed out into the new cutover on our lease.  Club member Ken Morse was there waiting for us, and we did a series of calls in the cutover with no response.  From there we moved to Road 10, with Greg and I setting up near old Stand 9 and Ken sitting at Old 10.  I tried a series of fox calls, and Greg actually saw something cross the road that he was watching, but it went by so quickly that there was no chance for a shot.

From there, we headed out into the woods where we made yet another series of calls.  Greg heard something coming in, but none of us got a look at it.

We ended up making six stands that day, and we had responses at three of them, which is actually pretty good for Eastern predator hunting.  Regardless of whether we got anything or not, it was great to spend the day in the woods.