Best Day Ever

Speckled trout and backyard chickens (AKA My Week in Review)

I have to admit that I have a lot of really good days.

I’m one of the lucky few living out my childhood dreams. I get to run around in the woods and waste time on the water. Then, I get to write about it and get paid to do it.

While I admit that this lifestyle is never going to make me filthy, rolling-in-dough rich, that has never sounded like my kind of lifestyle anyway. I want to make enough money to fund my hunting and fishing habits and the opportunity to disappear off-grid from time to time. In that, I’ve been successful.

Like I said, I’m living the dream.

But this past Sunday stands out as extra special.

First, my daughter’s boyfriend invited me to go out on his boat. It was a picture-perfect day for catching speckled trout, and the trip did not disappoint. We put out in NC’s Croatan Sound at Manns Harbor. The bite was hot, the weather was mild, and I had an all-around good time. We brought home just shy of a four-man limit, with the biggest fish measuring right around 22 inches.

Note: If you’re looking for coordinates, you’re SOL. We had a mutually understood NDA, which is the only way to get in with the locals around here. And this guy knows his stuff, so find your own trout.

After fishing and eating some super tasty hamburgers at an Outer Banks restaurant (McGrath’s Burger Shack in Nags Head. Highly recommend), I picked up my very own backyard chickens.

I’ve wanted poultry pretty much forever, but I live in town on a small, postage stamp-size piece of dirt. So, I’ve been putting off my dreams of having my own egg-laying chickens for decades.

I’ve always said, “It will be nice someday. Maybe when we have more land.”

But with property prices and interest rates being what they are, it doesn’t look like we’ll be moving anytime soon. This is a bummer, but I’ve settled into the idea that if I have to make my homesteading dreams work on this quarter-acre lot, well, by golly, I’m going to do it.

My kids set me up with the whole chicken shebang for Mother’s Day — coop, feed, bedding, feeders, and the opportunity to pick out my very own chickens.

I picked them up on Sunday and brought them home.

I am beside myself happy with them and convinced they are the best chickens ever to peck dirt in a backyard.

Collectively, they are The Dixie Chicks.

Individually, they are Augusta, Charlotte, Florence, and Myrtle Beach (Myrtle for short).

Florence and Myrtle

Augusta and Charlotte

Those are all Southern cities for any uncultured Northerners reading this. Just kidding (mostly). I realize there’s plenty of culture up North, even though our food is way better down here, even if 90 percent of it is deep-fried.

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Where You Can Find Me This Week

My week wasn’t all fishing and backyard chickens. My writing was also featured this week in these fine publications.

RECOIL
Best .30-30 Rifles: Far From Archaic? — Sure, there are faster, flatter shooting cartridges, options that can reach out and smack a swamp donkey sneaking through cover in the next county over. However, most of those speed demon, hard-hitting cartridges, while admittedly sexy, are major overkill for deer hunting. If you want a cartridge that can put a hurtin’ on a whitetail buck at 150 yards without hurting your shoulder or bank account, it doesn’t get much better than the time-honored .30-30 Winchester.

Field & Stream
The 5 Best BB Guns for Hunting and Training — From the classic Red Ryder to a modern pellet rifle, these are the top BB guns we've tried.

The 25 Best Father’s Day Fishing Gifts — Finding the perfect Father’s Day gift for the angler in your life is hard. Cheesy Hallmark cards and flowers just won’t cut it for Dad, especially when what he really wants is to get out on the water and wet a line. If you can’t make that happen on Father’s Day, these gifts are the next best thing.

Pew Pew Tactical
Best Trail Cameras of 2024: Every Budget — Need to keep a lookout in your neighborhood or the woods? Check out our list of the best trail cameras that can go from hunting to home.

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Quotes That Made Me Go Hmmm

"The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope." - John Buchan