For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
I’m sitting here drinking a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning during the onsetting lull of winter. My activities and plans for the outdoors are wrapping up until the black bass start spawning and the sand bass start running, and I’m reflecting on 2022.
Though there was a lot of outdoor adventure to be had in 2022, I’ll always look back on it as a hard year: we experienced our first burglary of a property, unexpected costs and maintenance, time just seeming to slip away for plans, and COVID still taking its toll on family gatherings…
But I do believe that it’s all part of the refinement process, the good and the bad years, and ultimately, as Romans say, it all works together for good… and I’m excited for what 2023 has to bring.
What Has Me Excited for 2023
Fishing the White Bass Run with Family
If you kept up with my posts or channel last year, you know that late during the white bass run, I realized the kids could no longer sit in my lap or on the high seat behind me on our fishing trips. I invested in a used Native Ultimate Tandem and documented getting it geared up for taking into the creeks during the spawn.
Life happened and we never got to get the new (to us) kayak slimed so I’m eager to get the family out on the water come early spring.
Cultivating in the Spring for Wildlife
One of the greatest joys I’ve found is the process of managing a piece of property for wildlife to thrive. I have some upcoming videos on some food plot work we did this year planting brassicas to sustain the deer through winter (and also offer a few December opportunities), and frankly, I’m loving the work.
The plan for the first time is to plant some larger plots in the spring to not only offer some variety for the deer, but also to attempt to concentrate some dove in our fields. You can be sure I’ll be documenting the process and how successful we are in planting some spring plots in the Texas heat.
Managing Our Deer Population
A great resource not everyone takes advantage of is their local wildlife biologist. In 2022, I began to engage our local biologist and (free of charge), he helped me to survey our property and to put together a plan for managing our deer population.
We had been somewhat reluctant to take does and this plan gave me the confidence to take the right animals at the right time to maintain the health of our deer population.
In 2023, I plan to continue this practice and hopefully this year, we take enough does!
Hunting Out of A Saddle
I’ve owned multiple hunting saddles over the past three seasons, but in 2022, I finally started to dial in my game to get on some deer and really use my Cruzr XC to my advantage. Frankly speaking, hunting out of a saddle is a blast!
In 2023, I plan to continue to evolve my game as I’ve just started introducing one-sticking. I’ll continue to hunt fixed sets, hang and hunts and saddle hunting as they are all tools that have their place, but I am finding myself geeking out on saddle hunting a bit
…so much so, I just restored a Pfaff 1245 industrial sewing machine to dabble in making some of my own accessories and gear for my Cruzr saddle…if you haven’t started sewing, its another great skill to have for an outdoorsman..likely one you will find showing up in videos on the blog.
Traveling West???
This is a bit of a stretch goal, but I received some recent motivation that I can be successful drawing and hunting public land out west…we shall see, but at a minimum, I’m hoping to make it out to some western states to do some fly fishing…maybe even break out my backpacker tenkara rod.
Conclusion
If you had a tough year for any reason, I’m sending some encouragement that all things serve as lessons and there is a lot more learning during the tough times than during the celebrations…tight lines and shoot straight in 2023.