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» 2001 |
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The 2001 hunting
season should be a fine one. I will be hunting again as a
member of the Briarpatch Hunt Club in South Carolina.
This year, my long
time partner and buddy Ted Leonhardt has joined the club, taking
over the space left open when my great friend and uncle-in-law
Arnold Kirk left the club.
Ted and I have hunted
together since the early 90's, and to date we have spent most of
our time together hunting on game lands. This year will be
the first that we have been able to seriously share hunting on
private land.
I also hope to get
some more time in hunting with Arnold, who has also been a great
companion over this last decade.
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Whitetail Buck |
4 |
0 |
Whitetail Doe |
27 |
4 |
Turkey (Gobbler/Jake) |
0 |
0 |
Turkey (Hen) |
4 |
- |
Coyote |
1 |
0 |
Fox |
1 |
0 |
Bobcat |
0 |
0 |
Squirrel |
- |
0 |
Dove |
- |
2 |
Quail |
- |
0 |
Crows |
0 |
0 |
Ducks / Geese |
0 |
0 |
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Notes: Clicking on any picture will show you a full size image of that picture.
Click here for a "cast of
characters" for my hunting journals |
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Thirty-one deer hunting trips this
years. 3,720 miles worth of driving between my home and our
lease. 179.9 miles of riding on my ATV. Thirty-one deer seen,
an average of one per trip, although in reality I rarely saw deer
this year. Fifteen deer killed on our lease: four by me, five by
Ted, and three each by Doug and Ken. Countless memories, and a
few disappointments. It hasn't hit
me yet. It will though... by Thursday or Friday of this
week, the depression will set in when I realize the fact that it
will be nine more months before I can deer hunt again.
I get that way every year when the season is over. I mope
around the house, being careful not to trip over my lower lip...
There were many good things about this
season. Ted and I being able to hunt together on private
land was the best part about it. I got in a lot of
hunting days. I don't think I went hunting thirty-one times
in a season back when I was in college! Folks
trespassing on our land was probably the biggest disappointment of
the year, along with losing that one deer and missing a shot at a
big buck.
...And the fact that it snowed 8 inches
the day after the season closed... I really would have
liked to get in some hunting in the snow!
But it really was a great season.
I'm sorry it's over, but now it's time to think about all of the
work that we need to do to get ready for turkey season. And
maybe we'll get in a few squirrel or predator hunts before then!
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I didn't have a lot of confidence going in to today's hunt. It's
so late in the year, there is a full moon, and I haven't seen a
deer in over two weeks. All last night I though about where I
would hunt this morning, and I finally decided on stand #18,
Arnold's tower stand on the power lines.
The tower on the power lines |
I sat quietly in the tower without seeing anything
until about 8:30am. I was getting restless, so I
decided that at 9:10 I would get out of the stand, then go for a
short walk down an old county road near this stand and maybe try
to jump a deer. When 9:10 arrived, I stood up in the stand
and got ready to get down. Immediately I noticed some
movement down below me in a deep gully that I couldn't see while
seated. I carefully glassed the gully trying to pinpoint the
movement when suddenly I saw the head and ears of a big doe.
Looking even closer, I saw three more does standing in thick
canebrakes nearby.
I raised my rifle, sighted in on what looked to be
the biggest deer, then carefully squeezed the trigger. I
couldn't tell if the deer dropped or not, so I jacked another
shell in the chamber and got ready to shoot again. I
couldn't see any of the deer anymore, so I switched to my
binoculars and started looking carefully around for them. I
kept seeing something twitch down there in the cane, but I just
couldn't pinpoint what it was. Finally I made out the head
of a doe, but I didn't know if it was the one that I had shot at
or not. I raised my rifle again, when suddenly that deer and
four others burst from the cane and ran from left to right across
the power lines. I aimed at one of them, fired, and was
happy to see the deer crash to the ground as the others bounded
off into the woods.
I was shaking hard when I called Ted on the radio
to tell him that I had one definite kill and another probable one.
I asked him to meet me at the top of the power lines, but to not
drive down to where I shot the deer until I got there. There
is an impassable creek between the tower stand and where I shot
the deer, so I would have to drive more than a mile around the
lease to end up 30 yards from where I was hunting.
I hopped on my four wheeler and high tailed it
around to the top of the power lines, and Ted and I drove down to
where the second deer lay dead. It turned out to be a nice
doe, in the one hundred pound range. We started looking down
into the gully for the first deer, when suddenly Ted hollered,
"There she is!". The deer was still alive, and had
gotten up and started walking into the woods. Ted
could tell that it was wounded, so I started loading my rifle to
take a finishing shot. As I scrambled to get the rifle
loaded, Ted yelled that the deer had crossed back over the power
lines in front of us and gone into the woods. He said that
it was pretty bloody, and was obviously hit hard.
A picture of me with both of the deer that I took this
morning. |
We walked up to where it crossed and immediately
found the blood trail. It was simple to follow, and we
soon found the deer laying forty or fifty yards into the woods.
We loaded both deer on the four wheelers, and I had my first
double on deer! A great way to finish the season...
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It was again quite cold today as Ted
and I headed down to Lancaster for an afternoon deer hunt. After
putting new deer baskets on our four wheelers, we headed out into
the woods. I went to stand #4, while Ted chose stand #2. Neither
of us saw anything. It's really tough to even see deer where we
hunt this time of year. The hunting pressure has them nocturnal,
and the full moon is really making things worse for us.
I'm planning on making two more deer
hunts before the season closes, and if I'm lucky I'll get a third
in. I think we're going to have to do some deer drives to
try to push the deer off of their beds...
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When Ted and I pulled in to Arnold's
driveway this morning at 6:15, the first thing we saw were seven
or eight deer eating his new grass. Certainly an exciting way to
start this hunt. The temperature was hovering between 27 and 29
degrees, so I took a blanket with me to wrap up in while in my
stand. I chose stand #10, and Ted went to stand #3. Nothing was
moving, and I didn't even hear any shots fired.
For the afternoon hunt, I went up into one of Arnold's fields.
We had planted this field with rye grass a few weeks back, and it
was starting to attract the deer. This is the same field
where I shot my biggest whitetail 5 years ago, but nothing showed
up tonight. Ted hunted out on the power lines in stand #4.
He also saw nothing...
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Since I hit the doe that I killed on December 15th a little far
back, I decided to once again head down to the Leeds Rifle Range
and check the sights on my rifle. This time I think I found the
problem. There was a loose screw on the pedestal of the scope
mount. I tightened this up and took a couple of shots, then made
the necessary adjustments. I should be fine now.
The two shots on the left were after
tightening the scope mount screws. The
bullseye is at 100 yards, after I got the rifle
sighted back in correctly. |
On the way down to the rifle range, at 10:15 in
the morning, a nice 8 point buck jumped out in front of my truck.
I stopped on the side of the road and watched him for a few
minutes as he stood in the woods. I need to start
remembering to keep my camera handy when I am on the road...
After lunch, Ted and I hit the woods. I
hunted on Arnold's pond road, while Ted went back to his old
standby, stand #3.
Neither of us saw any deer. I did get to watch a large covey
of quail running around in the woods below my stand.
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Ted and I
hunted at Briarpatch this afternoon. We're starting to think that
we might be in a secondary rut. Scrapes that had been full of
leaves are showing up clean, and the does are once again on the
move. I hunted in stand #2 tonight with my muzzleloader. Since
my rifle appears to be shooting to the left, I didn't want to take
a chance on wounding a deer. Ted hunted at stand #7. Neither of
us saw anything.
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I intended to hunt all day with Ted today, but major problems at
work had me up late last night and working into this morning. I
called Ted and told him to go on without me for the morning hunt,
and that I'd meet him for lunch at Gus's in Lancaster.
At around
10:00am, I called Ted to tell him we were still on for Gus's, but
that I'd be a little later than expected. I asked him how
he'd done that morning, and it turns out that he had done a little
bit of still hunting and had taken a doe from the very woods where
I myself had still hunted back on the 6th.
For the afternoon hunt, we were going to have to go without our
four wheelers. Arnold's driveway would be blocked all
night, so we wouldn't be able to get them out to use them.
We decided to take Ted's Jeep and drive it up onto the lease so
that we would be able to hunt in our fields. I chose
stand #4 on the power lines, while
Ted went to stand #2.
To my dismay, when I walked up to my chosen tree, I found that
the climbing stand had been stolen out of there. We've had
several incidents of trespassing this year, but this is the first
real problem that they have caused us. It's war now, I'm
calling the sheriff on Monday to see what we can do about this.
Fortunately though, Doug had placed another climber in the
vicinity of #4, so after sitting frustrated for a half hour I
decided to just hunt out of it. This made for a much longer
shot down to the field. From the original location, it was
about 150 yards from the stand to the wheat. From Doug's
stand, it was 250.
I got in the stand and got settled. Almost immediately,
and this was at 4:00pm, I saw a large doe enter the field,
followed by two smaller does. I took aim on the big one and
fired. Click. In my frustration, I had
forgotten to chamber a round! I quickly worked the bolt and
jacked a cartridge into the hole. By this time though, the
big deer was gone, and only the two smaller ones were left.
One of them presented me with a perfect broadside opportunity, so
I took aim again and fired.
Another miss. I saw the dirt splat up behind the deer.
I had aimed a little high, since the shot was so long, but I guess
I shouldn't have. To my surprise though, the deer was still
just standing there, so I took careful aim and fired once again.
This time, I saw the deer drop, and was glad that my slump was
ended. I could tell that the deer was still alive, so I took
another quick shot, but missed again as the deer crawled out of
view.
I called Ted on the radio and told him I had one down. I
climbed quickly to the ground, gathered all my gear, and walked
down to the field. Although I found no blood, I almost
immediately saw the deer lying dead just 15 yards from where I had
shot it. I called Ted again, and he said that he was on the
way with the Jeep so that we could load it up.
The doe that I took at 4:00pm today |
Once he got there and we got the deer loaded on the Jeep, I
took a couple of test shots at a tin can with my rifle. The
first missed, and the second nipped the left hand side of the can.
So, I'm shooting about an inch or more left at 50 yards.
That would really be exaggerated at 250 yards, and I did hit this
deer pretty far back, so it looks like I'll be headed back to the
range one more time to try to figure out what is wrong with this
rifle!
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Today is the first Thursday that Ted is
unable to hunt with me. We've both been lucky this year, able to
take just about every Thursday off during the season to hunt. It
was a rainy day, so I decided I'd better get in one of our boxes
so that I'd stay dry. Predictably, I chose stand #3, and, also
predictably, I didn't see anything.
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I was on my own this morning, so I
set out once again for stand #3. And once again I didn't see a
thing. I stayed in the stand until about 10:00, then did some
exploring down deep into the woods. I found a nice hardwood
valley, but it might be hard to hunt. There were no real good
trees to get up in. After an hour or so, I headed back to
Arnold's house, then into town to meet Ted for lunch.
For the evening hunt, I went down to the ladder at stand #7 again,
while Ted went to stand #4. As I got down toward my stand, I
caught a glimpse of a turkey in the woods below me, and I soon
heard the sound of several of them rushing off into the woods as
they spooked. It was good to see turkeys again anyway,
because we sure didn't see any deer again today.
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This morning I decided to try something different. While working
on Arnold's pond yesterday, I couldn't help but notice that it was
covered in deer tracks from where they had been coming down to
drink. I took my climbing stand and got way up in a pine tree in
the thick stuff back behind the pond. I spent the morning
watching a kingfisher work the pond. Other than that, I saw no
wildlife. For the afternoon hunt, I decided to hunt on the road
that leads down to the pond. There are a couple of water
oaks there that are still dropping acorns, and we have a couple of
small patches of wheat planted there.
The view from the stand where I was hunting tonight. |
The squirrels were really active, gathering as
many of the acorns as they could. Down the hill from me, I
could hear the occasional fish jump, and once in awhile I heard
the kingfisher chattering. Unfortunately, I saw no deer. Ted
hunted at
stand
#3 twice today, and although he got a quick look at a fox this
morning, he also saw nothing tonight. He did jump two deer
out on the Walker Road on the way out.
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This morning Arnold and I did some work
down at his pond, then I took off for stand #7, a beautiful wheat
field at the very far end of our lease. Last year I saw a couple
of bucks there, as well as several does. Today I saw absolutely
nothing. The full moon, the warm temperatures, and the hunting
pressure have made our deer go nocturnal...
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I went to stand #3 again this
morning. I swear, this is it. I'm staying away from that stand
for awhile. It's a great stand, and five deer have been taken
from it so far this year, but it's somewhat of a boring stand to
hunt. There is not much to look at, and the stand really needs
some work. It leans a little bit to the right, making it somewhat
uncomfortable to sit in for long periods of time. Especially when
you don't see any deer, like I didn't this morning. Ted, hunting
in stand #10, also saw nothing.
Ted's mount from his eight pointer was ready to be picked up, so
during the lunch break we ran into town and picked it up. It
turned out quite nicely, as you'll soon see when I post a picture
of it here.
After lunch, Arnold put us to work
spreading straw over some newly planted grass seed, then we moved
some rocks for him, then he sent us up to one of his fields with
the tractor, where I plowed it while Ted planted it.
For the afternoon hunt, I kept my
promise about changing stands, and chose stand #4 on the power
lines, while Ted went to stand #2. The only thing
either of us saw this afternoon was warthogs. Four A-10
"tank killer" warthogs to be exact, which spent about two hours
flying back and forth around our hunting area. Quite a
sight... they were quite low at times, and I managed to get a
couple of pictures of them.
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After thirteen days without hunting,
I'm finally able to get back in the woods. I was oncall at work
all of last week, which knocked me of hunting during
Thanksgiving. This afternoon, I headed down to Briarpatch to give
it another shot.
When I arrived, the first thing I did
was check the deer kill log to see if anything had been taken
during my absence. Nothing. I talked to Doug, who said
that they had seen a few deer, but hunting was getting pretty
slim. This time of year, you really have to work hard to
find the deer..
As usual, I hunted in stand #3, figuring
that it had been quiet up there for a couple of weeks.
Though I sat there for several hours, I didn't see or hear a
thing...
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I'm not a "car person." To me, my
vehicle simply needs to serve two purposes. First, it needs to
last. If I can get ten years out of a vehicle, then it has lived
up to my expectations. Second, it needs to be able to get me
where I am going, then get me safely home.
In 1985, I got a Toyota 4x4 pickup
truck, which we now refer to as "supertruck". From the sands
of the Outer Banks to four-wheeling in the North Carolina
mountains, that truck went through it all, willingly and
exceedingly well. In late 1994 I realized that it was time
for a new vehicle, but I intended to keep the Toyota as well.
I set my sights on a 1995 Ford Explorer, and even went as far as
ordering it from the dealership. However, in December of
1994 supertruck blew both its radiator and head gasket. I
couldn't afford repairs and a new truck, so, regretfully,
I had to trade the Toyota in on a beautiful '94 Explorer.
Although I was very pleased with the
Explorer at first, while its first trip to the Outer Banks I
realized that it wasn't going to live up to the standards that the
Toyota had set. We were driving in the sand... not the soft
Cape Point sand, but the hard packed Avon beach, when the Explorer
bogged down and got stuck. In ten years of Outer Banks
trips, the Toyota had never even come close to getting stuck in
the sand! Subsequent Outer Banks trips in the Explorer
were a nightmare of watching the temperature gauge rise close to
overheating every time we got out on the beach. Then,
on our honeymoon in 1998, the Explorer not only almost got stuck
in the sand, it also broke the four wheel drive system while
trying to get unstuck. I was so disgusted with it at that
point that I never even bothered getting it repaired.
The next few years were downhill.
Between 1999 and 2001, the transmission in the Explorer went out
seven times. That was just completely unacceptable,
especially since I have a four wheeler and a duck boat that I need
to be able to tow. So, finally, the Explorer has been
traded, and I'm now driving a new vehicle.
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Well, this was it. Today was my last
shot at it for two weeks. Work is going to keep me busy until
after Thanksgiving, and plans this afternoon allow me to only hunt
in the morning today. So, Ted and I loaded up the Jeep and headed
down to Briarpatch. I went to stand #10 thinking surely that a
deer would cross Walker Road today. Ted went to stand #11 down on
Cedar Creek to do a little bowhunting. Unfortunately, neither of
us saw anything.
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I had today off of work for Veteran's
Day. My plan was to go sight in my rifle in the morning, then
head over to Briarpatch for the afternoon hunt. Before I did
that, I had to go to the grocery store. My heart lifted slightly
when, on the way home, at the far end of a huge field not a mile
from my house, I saw three deer running across the back of the
field. I've watched that field for years hoping to see a deer,
and today I finally saw three there.
I hunted today at stand #14, "The
Hole". This is a beautiful wheat field deep in the woods,
surrounded by high hills on all sides. It's a perfect funnel
for deer to come into and feed. Unfortunately, I think there
are still too many acorns on the ground, because the wheat looked
untouched, and I saw no deer come into the field. Just
at dark, I did hear a deer walking through the woods behind me,
but I was unable to get a look at it.
"The Hole", a wheat field deep in the woods, a place
where you just know you are going to see a deer... |
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I was talking to a fellow hunter
named Lewis at church this morning. Lewis is Lewis Stowe,
the former world champion turkey caller. After I told him
about my poor performance on the last four rifle shots that I've
taken at deer. Last year after I lost the doe, he had given me
some comforting words of advice, and I expected and hoped for more
of the same today. This year, however, the interaction was
slightly different:
"What caliber are you shooting?" asked Lewis.
"Remington 7mm magnum," I answered.
"What kind of scope?" Lewis continued.
"Leupold."
"Then you're the problem."
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For the morning hunt, once again I
went to stand #3, thinking that since I had called in a deer there
on Thursday morning I might be able to lure him in again today.
Unfortunately, I didn't see a thing. Ted hunted in stand #4 on
the power lines, but he was also skunked.
In the evening, I went back to stand #2,
where I had missed the buck on Thursday. This time I took a
long a board, some screws, and my cordless screwdriver. I
attached the board to the tree to try to make a rifle rest to help
get a steadier shot from that stand. After installing the
rifle rest, I sat quietly until almost dark, when suddenly I saw a
big doe walk quickly across the field. I aimed, breathed
out, and fired. I saw a huge plume of dust fly up from where
my bullet hit the ground, and saw no trace of the doe. I
started down, then glanced at the field just in time to see
another deer run across. At that instant, I heard a shot
from Ted over on stand #3, so I figured that he had scored again.
I continued climbing down, then ran to the field to look for
blood.
Nothing.
Ken showed up, told me that Ted had shot
and recovered his doe, and that he would help me look for mine.
We looked for quite awhile but found nothing. Ted soon
arrived, and I showed him where my bullet had hit the ground.
This is getting really frustrating.... the last four deer that I
have shot at with my rifle I have either missed or wounded.
Although I checked my rifle before the season, it's time to head
back to the range and make sure that it is still shooting
correctly.
When we got back to Arnold's, we found
him skinning out a small doe that he had shot, his first of the
year.
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Another Thursday hunt at Briarpatch.
I really am glad that both Ted and I were able to take several
Thursdays off of work to go hunting. I thoroughly enjoy these
midweek hunts. This morning I again chose stand #3, hoping to
catch a deer out feeding early. Ted again went to stand #10.
I parked my four wheeler about a hundred
yards from the stand, then walked on down the road and got in the
tree. The sky was lightening off to the east, showing that
the sun would soon be coming up. After I got in the stand
and got settled, I decided to try out a new deer caller that I
bought yesterday. The caller is from
Primos,
and is called "The Easy Estrus Bleat", or "The Can" for short.
The caller is shaped like a snuff can,
with lots of holes in the top, and one little one in the bottom.
To use it, you simply invert it, cover the bottom hole with
your thumb, then slowly turn it upright. This causes the
internal mechanism to fall down and push the air out through the
holes on top of the can. The sound is amazingly lifelike.
I sounded the can once, waited a couple
of seconds, then did it two more times. Immediately I
heard the sound of a deer heading my way. As he approached,
he slowed down, and I gave him one more bleat to keep him
interested. I could hear him walking around behind me, and
it sounded like he was going to come out on my left.
The stand that I was in is a "condo" in a tree... an elevated box
blind with shooting windows on the left, right, and in front.
I moved to the left side of the stand and got ready for him to
come out. He took a couple of more steps, then came out on
the right side of the stand, opposite of where I was.
Because this stand is old and squeaky, I was unable to turn to get
ready for a shot. I decided to try it anyway, moving as
slowly as possible, but before I even got started with my turn he
jumped and was gone. I never got a look at him.
If you can find one of these callers, I
highly recommend it. I've been hunting deer for 16 years,
since my first deer hunt during Christmas of 1985, and in those
years, counting today, deer callers have only worked twice for me.
The first time was a "fawn in distress" call that brought a doe
running, then what had to be a buck responding to "the can" today.
Unfortunately, this was the only action
that I saw this morning. Ted was out of luck down on Walker
Road, since it turned out that the DOT was down there working on
the road today, which of course messed him up.
For the evening hunt, I went to stand
#2, hoping to see the doe that Ted has seen the last two times he
hunted there. At 5:15pm, I noticed a deer at the far end of
the field. I checked it out through my binoculars and saw
that it was a very nice looking buck, probably an eight pointer.
I raised my rifle and took the safety off. I started to
fire, but was shaking too much to complete the shot. I told
myself to calm down, and I tried again, and this time I fired.
The shot was wild; I was all over the place. By the time I
recovered, the buck was gone. We spent a half hour looking
for blood or the deer, but found nothing. I'm satisfied that
this was a solid miss. I want to hunt this stand again on
Saturday, and when I do, I am going to install a good rifle rest
of some kind to prevent this from happening again.
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This morning I was determine to see a deer. I decided, with Ted's
permission, to try stand #3, where Ted has already killed three
deer this year, and Ken has killed one. Last year we rarely saw
deer here, and this year it has been the most productive spot on
the lease. Although I sat in the stand until 10:00am today, I saw
nothing. Ted, hunting down in stand
#10 on the main road, also saw nothing. The stand I chose
overlooks a small logging road that we have planted with
Bio-Logic's "Full Draw". The stand overlooks a 75 yard
stretch of the road, which then turns and runs on out for another
couple hundred yards to the back gate of our lease. While hunting
this morning, I was sure that I had heard someone take a shot from
our land, further up the road. Since no one had signed in to
hunt there, I was afraid that we might have a trespasser.
When Ted called me on the radio to say it was time to come out of
the woods, I told him about what I had heard, and that I was going
to take a walk up the road to see what I could find. There
is an old ground blind near there, and I thought that maybe
someone had been hunting there illegally. Ted asked me to
wait for him so that he could go along.
When Ted arrived, we headed up the road, and found that several
deer had crossed our food plot sometime during the night.
Unfortunately, they didn't cross while I was in the stand!
As we arrived at the ground blind, I saw that the chair in it was
full of water from last night's rain, so apparently no one had
been hunting there. We did find a few faint footprints
though, showing us that someone did walk onto our road this
morning.
The view from Stand #3, overlooking our
patch of Bio-Logic "Full Draw"
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For the evening hunt, I again returned to stand #3, hoping that something
would cross. Ted chose stand #2, where he had seen the small
doe last time we hunted. As I was walking in toward the
stand, I rounded the last bend on the road before reaching my
tree, two raccoons came padding up the road, heading my way.
I froze and broke into a smile as I watched them come.
Suddenly they saw me, and scrambled up a small pine tree on the
side of the road. I got my camera out of my backpack
and took a couple of pictures of them as they climbed the tree.
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Two shots of the raccoons that I saw. I need to learn to
use
my flash in low light situations... |
After taking a few pictures of the coons, I put
out a wick covered in Tink's 69 estrus doe scent, then climbed
into the box and settled in. Although I didn't see a deer,
just a dusk I noticed movement at the end of the road.
Looking through my binoculars, I thought one of the coons had
reappeared, but I quickly realized that I was looking at a fox.
I've been telling myself that I was going to shoot the next fox
that I see, and I would love to have a full body fox
mount for my house, but I wasn't sure if the season was open for
foxes or not. I watched him walk up the road to me, debating
whether or not I should shoot. I finally decided that my 7mm
magnum would tear him up too bad, so I didn't shoot. If
anyone has any experience shooting foxes with high powered rifles,
I would like to know about it. Please
email me and let me know what results you have had.
Would the 7 mag, with a 150 grain bullet at 20 yards, have torn
him up too much for a good mount?
While I'm on the subject, we're starting to get a
lot of coyotes on our land. After deer season ends, I'm
thinking about doing a little bit of predator hunting, trying to
get rid of some of the foxes and coyotes that we have. I was
considering purchasing a .243 or similar caliber for this. I
would appreciate your thoughts on this, and also on exactly how to
go about predator hunting, since I have never done it.
Emails on this subject would be welcomed!
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This was an all day hunt down on our
lease. For the morning hunt, I chose stand #10, where Ted lost
his buck a few days ago. This was one of my favorite stands last
year, and I've been hoping that this year it would be as
productive as it was last season. Ted was hunting in his
favorite place, stand #3, a small road up on the top end of our
lease. At about 7:00am I heard a shot from his direction, but
heard nothing from him on the radio, so I assumed that it was
someone else that had fired. Shortly after that, I noticed
movement about 200 yards away from me, as a large deer was
crossing the road. I raised my rife and fired. When I recovered
from the recoil, the deer was gone, and I had no idea whether or
not I had hit it.
I waited a few minutes, then walked back
to my four wheeler and drove down to where the deer had been.
I immediately found blood, hair, and a small bone fragment, but a
quick look turned up no other blood. I looked for several
minutes and found nothing, when my radio clicked. It was Ted
reporting in, saying that he had shot a doe. He wanted to
know if I wanted to keep hunting while he took the deer on to the
processor. I told him that I had shot a deer, and
could use his help in tracking it.
Ted arrived, and we spent an hour and a
half looking for my deer before I finally found one tiny drop of
blood 30 yards away from where I had shot the deer. We
started tracking it, a very hard task, since there was almost no
blood. We finally found that it had gone down into the
creek, then back up the huge bank on the other side, onto someone
else's land. We continued to track as far as we could,
finally picking up a small blood trail, before we lost it
altogether. Although we ended up searching for several
hours, we came up empty.
Walking out of the woods, we ran into
Donnie Shook, a game warden who had retired last year. We
talked to him for awhile, and I showed him the bone fragment that
I had found. He confirmed what I feared, I had merely broken
the deer's leg with my shot. I've felt pretty bad
about that, and have had to take to heart a passage that Terry
Weiland wrote in his book about Robert Ruark entitled A View
From a Tall Hill. Speaking of Ruark's book
Horn of the Hunter, he says that it was
"...a frank book in which
mistakes are made on occasion by all concerned.
These are reported fairly and honestly, without judgment,
and there are regrets - for wounded animals that escape,
for easy shots missed, for difficult shots that are
attempted when they should not be and the results are hard
to live with. Anyone who professes to hunt, but who
has not endured all of the above at some time or another,
has not hunted very much. Bad things happen.
What you have to do is learn to forgive yourself and then
do your best to ensure that they do not happen again."
-- Terry Weiland
For the evening hunt, I again went
to stand #4, where I saw nothing. Ted hunted in stand #2,
where he watched a small doe for quite some time, but as it was a
very young deer, he decided not to shoot. Although I was
glad that Ted got a deer this morning, all in all I was saddened
by this hunt, since I ended up losing a deer for the second time
in my life.
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An afternoon hunt at Briarpatch. Since
all signs point to the start of the rut, I decided to take the
afternoon off of work and go hunting. I hunted at stand #4, on
the power lines, where I saw several deer last time, but nothing
showed up at all today. I found out that Ken had shot a very wide
8 pointer at stand #7 yesterday, which is very close to where I
was hunting, so this may have been why nothing showed up today.
The full moon could have also had something to do with it...
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Based on what we saw today, and what
we've been hearing, the rut is upon us.
We arrived at Doug's house early to sign
in. I was planning on hunting on Arnold's land, while Ted
was going to try his usual place: stand #3. Ken was
standing in the driveway when we got there, and he had already
signed up for Ted's spot, so Ted instead went to stand #10 on
Walker Road. It was extremely cold this morning, and I
looked forward to seeing some deer.
I hunted on "the ridge", the spot where
I killed my first deer ten years ago. Unfortunately,
the only interesting thing I saw was a raccoon. At around
8:30, I heard Ted shoot twice, so I got out my radio and waited
for him to call. He soon came on saying that he had hit a
buck, probably an 8-pointer, and was going to try to track it.
I told him to call me back in a half hour and let me know if he
needed help. I waited, still hoping to see a deer of my own,
and Ted finally called in saying he couldn't find it. I
decided to get down and go help him look for it. As I
arrived at my four wheeler, Ted called to say that Ken had showed
up with a 6 pointer (a five actually: one brow tine was missing).
Ted and I, along with Doug and his son Clint, looked for some
time, but were unable to find Ted's deer. There was only a
little bit of blood, so it looks like he didn't make a fatal shot.
We finally had to give up, hoping that the deer was only grazed,
and would be ok.
For the afternoon hunt, I was in stand
#4, which is a climbing stand overlooking a field 150 yards away
on the power lines. As evening approached, I saw first
three, then a fourth large doe enter the field and begin to feed.
I put the crosshairs on them several times, debating whether or
not to shoot, when finally I decided to wait it out to see if a
buck showed up. As I watched, the does suddenly scattered,
tails high. A buck came running into the field, trying to
find a doe to mate with. Although I only got a quick
look at him, I decided not to shoot, since he looked to be only a
six pointer. He and the does were soon gone, and nothing
else showed up for the rest of the evening.
Stand #4, on the power lines.
This stand overlooks a wheat field 150 yards away |
From what I saw, it looks like the bucks are ready for the rut,
but that the does are not quite there yet. That being the
case, I'm going to try to take some extra time off this week to
get a little bit more hunting in, and maybe tag a big buck.
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After two weeks of no hunting, I was
really ready to get back into the woods. Unfortunately, a cold
kept me from having as much enthusiasm for the hunt as I normally
would. I decided to take it easy on the morning hunt, and just
sit in stand #10, the box blind on the Walker Road. Doug and Ken
had recently rebuilt the stand, since some vandals had torn it up
at the end of last year. Ted decided to take his climbing stand
and hunt on the main road up through the lease.
I stayed in the box until about 10:30, and saw nothing.
Ted had a doe come out behind him almost immediately after he had
gotten up his tree, however, he was unable to get a shot at her.
We met up shortly after 10:30 and decided to do a quick still hunt
up to a place where I had seen some deer bedding last year, and
although we made an excellent stalk, there were no deer on the
beds.
For the afternoon hunt, I decided to
hunt in stand #3, where Ted has already killed two deer, and Ted
went to stand #2, where I had seen several deer earlier this year.
Neither of us saw anything. Arnold hunted down in his woods,
but also saw nothing.
A look at our deer record for the year
shows that a total of six deer have been taken from the lease so
far. Ken and myself each have one, while Doug and Ted have
each taken two deer. I'm still hoping to take a total of
four this year, and as the rut starts to heat up, I'm hoping to
start seeing deer again soon.
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It's been almost ten days since I've
been in the woods. I was oncall at work last week, a situation
that occurs every six weeks, which prevents me from being more
than 20-30 minutes away from my house at any given time. Also,
over the weekend, Micki and I, along with a group from our church,
went to the Lifeway Baptist Conference Center in Ridgecrest, NC
for the annual Fall Festival of Marriage.
Now though, the conference is over, and
I won't be oncall again for another several weeks, so it's time to
get back into the woods and get ready for the rut. We've
seen a few scrapes, and the temperature is starting to drop, and
it looks like we're about one to two weeks away from the peek of
the rut. Great hunting action coming up!
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An afternoon hunt only. Micki had gone to the "Women of Faith"
conference on Friday night, and we knew she would get in late, so
I decided that in order to get a little bit of rest that I would
only hunt in the afternoon. Ted decided that he needed to check
the sights on his rifle, so we made plans to go down to the
Leeds Rifle Range in the morning
and sight it in, then go for an afternoon hunt.
The Leeds Rifle Range at Sumter National Forest |
For the afternoon hunt, I decided to try Arnold's
power lines, and Ted again chose
stand #3. I wasn't
in the stand long before I saw a doe come out into a small area
that Arnold and Doug had planted with Bio-logic "Full Draw".
The doe browsed for a few minutes, then quickly jumped into the
bushes, as if something had scared her. Another doe
soon crossed right behind the first, but also didn't stay. A
few minutes later I heard the boom of a rifle from over in Ted's
direction. My radio "clicked", as Ted called in to report
that he had shot what he thought was an 8 pointer, but that it had
run.
The view from the tower on Arnold's power lines |
Ted was going to get down to check for blood, so I
waited anxiously to hear from him again. He soon called to
say that he had found a blood trail. I told him to call me
quickly if he needed help, since there was still some light left.
About ten minutes later, Ted called to say that he was still on
the trail, but that the deer was blowing at him, and that he
needed help. I told him to stop right there and don't push
the deer, and just wait for me to get there. Although we
were actually hunting quite close together, we had a large creek
between us, so I had to take the long way around, stopping off at
the truck to pick up our "Starlight Blood Hound" tracking
solution. After picking that up and getting back on the
trail, I ran into Doug, and recounted the situation to him.
He said that he would join in in tracking the deer.
We found Ted standing on the side of the trail,
having tracked the deer as far as he could before it started
blowing at him. We went down the trail that he had marked,
going to the place where he had stopped. We couldn't hear
the deer making any noise, so we started tracking again.
Immediately we found the deer at the bottom of a deep gully, not 5
yards from where Ted had stopped tracking. Apparently it had
been a different deer blowing, since Ted's was stone dead in the
hole. It turned out to be a 138 pound 8-pointer, Ted's best
deer to date.
Ted with his mounted 8 pointer |
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A slow opening day, that's for sure.
We had six of us hunting today, four in the club, and two
neighbors. Ted, Doug, Ken, and myself all hunted on Briarpatch,
while Arnold hunted on his power lines and Doug's father Baxter
hunted the road. I hunted in stand #10, the box on Walker Road,
and Ted hunted in his favorite, stand #3. No one saw a thing
during the morning hunt. For the
evening hunt, I chose stand #7, which never failed to show me deer
last year, while Ted hunted in stand #4, where I killed one and
lost another last year. Only Doug saw a deer, a small doe,
down in "the hole", a wheat field way down in the woods.
Doug's son Clint was hunting on their property, but he didn't see
anything. Seven people, and only one deer seen.
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I had today off for Columbus Day, but
instead of hunting the morning I decided to drive up to Bass Pro
Shops to pick up a few supplies. After that, a quick trip home to
cut the grass and gather my gear, then it was on down to
Briarpatch. I again hunted in
stand #2, but didn't see anything. The weather was nice and
cool, and only slightly windy, and I was sure that I would see
something in the field. I hunted until dark, but nothing
showed up. I think it's time to give up on this stand for
the next few weeks, and maybe even put some more seed out in it...
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When I got up at 4:20 this morning,
it was raining pretty hard, so I called Ted and we cancelled the
morning hunt. Normally we would go ahead and hunt in the rain,
but with muzzleloaders I prefer not to. We made plans to meet up
at about 11:30 and head down to Lancaster for a BBQ lunch at the
McDonnell Green Fire Department, do some final work on a
treestand, then go and hunt for the rest of the afternoon.
The BBQ was decent, but was South Carolina style, which is a
mustard based sauce. Nothing like a good old North
Carolina vinegar base. We ate quickly then got down to
business. Ted had bought a nice ladder stand at Bass Pro
Shops which we had put up over the summer, however, the rifle rest
on it needed to be lowered, so we got on the four-wheelers and
went down to fix it. We quickly took care of the problem,
then put out a couple of blocks of Deer Cane in what looked to be
some pretty good spots.
For the afternoon hunt, Ted decided to
try stand #3, which is an elevated box blind tied to a pine tree.
We had put a block of Deer Cane there in the summer, and had
freshened it up with another one this afternoon. Doug and
Arnold had recently planted some Bio-Logic "Full Draw" in the
road, but it hadn't had a chance to come up yet. For myself,
I was hunting back where I did on Monday, in stand #2, at "the
little loading dock".
About
halfway through the hunt it started to rain. I knew that Ted
would be ok, since he was in a box blind, but I didn't like the
idea of getting my muzzleloader wet. Then I remembered
that Ted had lent me his "Porta-roof",
an invention that I have since decided that I can't live without.
This is an umbrella that attaches to your tree, and man, did this
thing ever do the job. It kept me dry as could be. Now
I've got to head out to Bass Pro Shops on Monday and pick one up
for myself... (...which I did before finishing this
entry!)
About the
time the rain started, I heard one shot away down on the Walker
Road, so I figured that Ken had gotten a whack at a deer.
Shortly after that, I heard a very close shot from Ted's area, so
I got my radio out and waited for him to call. Sure enough,
I heard the click of the mic button, which proved to be Ted
calling in to report that he'd shot a doe. I decided to stay
in the stand another 15-20 minutes, just in case something came
out where I was watching, but when nothing showed up, I headed
over to Ted's area to check out his deer. Turned out to be a
pretty doe, about 65-70 pounds, almost a piebald.
Ted with his muzzleloader doe |
Checking the deer-log back at
Douglas's house showed us that Ken had taken a 115 pound doe from
the box blind on the Walker Road.
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This marks my first ever muzzleloader hunt. I had not intended to
get into muzzleloader hunting for several more years, but when
Bass Pro Shops offered a nice CVA outfit for $100, I couldn't pass
it up.
Ted arrived at my house at about 5:00am, and we were soon
loaded and on the way. For the morning hunt, I chose the box
blind on Walker Road, from which I had almost always seen deer
last year. Ted was again hunting up near a persimmon tree
and some muscadines that are growing near the power lines.
It wasn't a great start to a hunt for either of us.
The box blind on Walker Road |
We parked back up at Arnold's back gate rather than in our
normal spot across from the lease main gate, since parking there
would have put the Jeep right in the area that I was hunting.
Since Arnold's gate is several hundred yards from the box blind, I
went ahead and walked to the box while Ted was still unloading his
four-wheeler and getting ready to go. I got to the blind and
got settled just in time to watch Ted go driving by on his ATV.
He got down to the gate, then suddenly came flying back past me;
apparently he had forgotten something. Sure enough, a few
minutes later he came back through again, this time entering the
gate and heading on to his spot.
Shortly after Ted drove out of view, I began to load my
muzzleloader. I got the powder in, and got the bullet
started, when suddenly I found that no matter how hard I pushed on
the ramrod the bullet would not load. I tried and tried to
get it out, to no avail. Having left most of my muzzleloader
supplies back at the Jeep, I quickly made the decision to walk
back up there and try to fix the gun rather than doing it in the
blind. Once back at the Jeep, I found that my new ramrod
bullet loading accessory didn't quite fit properly, so I swapped
to a regular cleaning jag, with which I was able to load the gun.
Once loaded, I walked back to the blind and sat back down.
I stayed in the blind until about 9:30 or so, but didn't see
anything, so I got out and did a little bit of still hunting,
walking first down to the creek across the road from our main
lease, then over onto the main lease itself. Unfortunately,
I didn't see a thing. Ted showed up at about 10:30, also
having seen nothing.
We headed over to Arnold's and helped him do a little cleanup
work in his garage, then headed into town for lunch at Gus's,
which turned out to be quite good. Once back at Arnold's, we
loaded up the four-wheelers and headed out to do some repairs on
an elevated box blind on our lease.
For the evening hunt, Ted chose to hunt alongside the creek
down off of the Walker Road, but all he saw were a few turkeys.
I hunted up on "the little loading dock", in the climbing stand
that Ted and I had put up on Saturday. I got in the stand at
around 5:00pm. At about 5:30, a large doe and two young deer
entered the field that I was watching. I watched them feed
for at least an hour. At one point, the doe must have sensed
something, because she walked to within about 30 yards of me and
stared my way for 5 solid minutes without moving. I stared
back, also not moving. She finally decided that nothing was
wrong and went back to feeding. At about 6:45pm, the
three deer left the field and two good sized spike bucks came in.
I only got to see them for about 5 minutes before they left, but
it was nice seeing some bucks.
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This was the last day that Ted and I
would be archery hunting at Briarpatch. I decided to hunt in the
same place that I have hunted every morning so far this year, and
Ted was going to be hunting a little bit closer to me, overlooking
a small road beside Cedar Creek. On the way in, I managed to
shine my flashlight right on a deer that was standing just beside
my tree. The deer ran off, and that was the only one I saw all
morning. I did hear one blowing over across the creek, down near
where Ted was, so I imagine that he might have spooked that one
going in.
We met up at the jeep after the morning
hunt, getting out of the woods a little earlier than usual this
time. We had a couple of treestands that we wanted to set up
in preparation for muzzleloader season, so we drove over to
Arnold's house to pick up my four-wheeler. We put one stand on the
power lines, in the same spot where I killed one deer last year
and lost another. This stand sits about 150 yards off of a
wheat field planted in the power line right of way, and this is
one of my favorite stands on the lease. The other stand we
placed in a spot called the "little loading dock", where the paper
companies had done some logging a couple of years ago. This
stand also overlooks a small wheat field. This field was
absolutely full of deer tracks, but I couldn't find a tree close
enough to bowhunt it, so we put the stand up and left it alone.
After lunch at Jomar's (a good buffet
place in Lancaster), we headed back to Arnold's and helped him do
some work around his new garage. They had just poured a new
driveway, so we helped shovel dirt around the edges of the new
concrete. Following Arnold's advice, I decided to hunt down
on "The Ridge" that evening, while Ted would hunt in one of
Arnold's wheat fields over on the Walker Road.
"The Ridge" is the spot where I killed
my first deer ten seasons ago, and is my traditional archery
opening day morning stand. It wouldn't be an archery season
if I didn't hunt it at least once. Unfortunately, the acorns
weren't falling yet, and I didn't see a thing. Ted also
didn't see any deer while hunting in his field.
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From the moment that I stepped out my
door this morning, I knew that the weather wasn't going to be very
conducive to deer hunting. When Ted arrived at 4:30, the
temperature was in the high 60s, and it was quite humid. We were
headed back to Briarpatch, and both of us intended to hunt in the
same stands that we used last week. I sat in my stand from 6:00am
until about 11:15, and the only thing I saw was a bunch of
pileated wood peckers. Ted stayed in a little later than I did,
and he didn't see anything either. It was so hot in that creek
bottom that I could hardly stand it. I really prefer
hunting in cooler weather... After
we had loaded up the jeep and were ready to pull away, Ted spotted
a dog coming out of the woods about a hundred yards behind us.
He asked me if I recognized it, and I did... it was Arnold's dog
Lady, and behind her were his two beagles Brutus and Molly.
When I was hunting, I thought I had heard Arnold hollering for
Brutus, so apparently the dogs had gotten out earlier in the day.
The dogs came running up to me when I called them, so we put them
in the trailer, drove them over to Arnold's, and locked them up in
their pen. They had been running in the creek bottom
that we were hunting, which is probably why we didn't see any deer
this morning.
For the evening hunt, Arnold suggested
that we hunt in his fields, which we did. I hunted in
the "middle field", from the stand that I have taken more deer
from than anywhere else. Ted was hunting in a tripod stand
in the next field over from me, and Arnold hunted down in some
woods parallel to me. Ted watched a big doe for about 10
minutes, but she stayed out of shooting range. Arnold didn't
see anything while hunting, but did have a good many deer snort at
him as he was leaving the woods. For myself, I saw nothing,
but I did hear the deer blowing at Arnold.
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Opening day of the archery deer season began with Ted arriving at
my house at 4:30, ready for his first hunt as a member of the
Briarpatch hunt club. It was a windy, chilly morning as we pulled
away and made the hour-long trip down to Lancaster. My plan was
to hunt in the woods bordering Walker Road, where I had watched
numerous deer cross last year during rifle season. Every morning
that I hunted out of our box blind on the road last year I had
seen deer, so I figured that my best bet would be to get into the
woods that they emerge from and try to get one before he crossed.
Ted was hunting about a quarter mile away, in a small flat
bordering Cedar Creek. I wasn't in
my stand long before, even through the gusting wind, I heard the
sound of something walking in the woods behind me. I slowly
turned in my stand, and saw a doe emerge from a thick cluster of
bushes not 15 yards away. When the deer looked away, I
quietly stood and got ready to take a shot if a clear opportunity
arose. As I watched the first deer, another doe
appeared slightly closer to me, and I turned around in my stand,
waiting for the chance to shoot. It occurred to me that the
deer was already in an excellent position for a shot, so I drew
back on my bowstring, centered the sight on the deer, exhaled, and
released. With a loud WHAP!
the arrow struck the deer, and it bounded off into
the woods where it had come from. I watched carefully,
making sure I knew which direction it had gone in.
Shaking, I sat back down on my
stand and nocked another arrow. Instinct makes you want to
get right down and go look for the deer, but when bowhunting, it's
best to wait at least a half hour after a shot before
coming down. So, I waited for what felt like 30 minutes,
then I pulled out my copy of The Silmarillion and read
the first fifteen pages, willing more time to pass. As I
read, another deer approached slowly, then suddenly snorted and
ran off into the woods. I guessed that she had scented the
blood from the deer I had shot.
Finally, the time came for me to
get down. I debated calling Ted on the radio and telling him
that I had one hit, but I decided to track it a little ways myself
first. If I could find it, I would just take it to the
processor myself, without disturbing Ted's hunt. I knelt to
the ground and asked a prayer that I would recover this deer, then
walked to the tree that the deer had been standing beside when I
shot it, and immediately found my arrow stuck in the ground.
A single glance told me that I had made a pass-through shot, and
that the deer was definitely hit. I made a quick, wide sweep
of the area to see if the deer was laying there, and when it
wasn't I returned to the arrow and began to look for blood.
I soon found the first drop, and immediately marked the spot.
Soon I was able to establish a direction by finding more spots,
and eventually the blood trail became pretty heavy. The
blood was bright red, so I felt pretty good about the shot.
I tracked the deer for about 30
minutes, sometimes losing the trail, always finding it again.
Suddenly, as I thought I was getting close, a deer jumped up from
in front of me and ran off into the woods. I stopped,
squatted, and watched where it ran. At that point I decided
to call Ted, since it was possible that this was my deer. I
radioed him and told him I needed his help. Ted answered
that he was on the way, so I stood quietly and waited for him to
arrive. As I stood there, I saw a deer cross the trail about
30 yards away, go over to the creek, then cross back to where it
had come from.
About 20 minutes later, Ted drove
up on his four-wheeler, and I told him the situation.
I pointed out the last blood spot that I had found, told him to
wait there, and I would walk over to where the deer had jumped up
from and see if there was a pool of blood there. I found
blood immediately, and we began to track the deer, trying again to
establish a direction. We lost the trail right away, so I
decided that we had better give the deer a little more time so
that we wouldn't push it. I suggested that we go back and
get my bow, which I had left laying in the woods, and Ted said
that maybe we could put all of our gear in the jeep. We did
this, then returned to the spot where we had left off tracking.
Although we searched for quite
awhile, we only found two more tiny drops of blood. We
had no luck finding the deer. Ted began to go upward on the
hill, not looking for blood now, hoping to find a trail that the
deer may have taken. I walked back down to the trail where I
had seen a deer cross, hoping to find some tracks there.
As I was beginning to lose hope, Ted radioed that he had found the
deer. I dashed up the mountain toward him, and there it was,
a big doe, lying dead on the ground.
My first deer of the 2001 season |
For the evening hunt, Ted took a
stand around a persimmon tree, but unfortunately jumped two deer
on the way in, and he saw nothing else that day. I hunted on
the edge of a field, but our seeds hadn't really sprouted yet, and
all I saw were a couple of turkeys.
All told, this was a great start
to the season for me. As you may notice, the topic for this
day is shown with a green text color. Green will be used to
indicated days that Ted or I got a deer. Red indicates that
a deer was lost or missed (hopefully you won't see any red
headings), and yellow is a day when we did not take a deer.
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Ted and I originally planned on going
down to the lease today to do some work on some of our
treestands. However, at church on Sunday a friend and I got to
talking about dove hunting, so I called up Ted on Sunday evening
and asked him if he would mind going hunting instead of doing any
work. Ted was agreeable, so our plans were made: we would take
my friends, Jonathan, Phil, and Craig Collier dove hunting up at
Uwharrie. It was raining really
hard on Monday morning, and Ted called up asking if we were still
on. I was disappointed with the weather, but decided to go
anyway. Ted said he would go too, and I was pleased when the
Colliers showed up ready to hunt.
Our chosen field, the same one Ted and I
hunted in on Saturday, was taken, so we picked a field adjacent to
it, separated by a large hedgerow. The weather was rainy,
cool, and windy, a beautiful day for hunting, but the doves
weren't flying nearly as well as they were on Saturday. We
got several shots off, but I never managed to bring anything down.
Jonathan got one, and Ted tagged and lost two, and the rest we
missed.
The downside of the day was the fact
that five of the sorriest excuses for hunters I've ever seen were
hunting... no, I won't call it that... were using the
field next to us. These guys were loud, cussing, yelling,
shooting at tweet-birds, and were even shooting at birds that were
obviously over our field. These guys had no
courtesy, had no idea of the limits of their weapons, and had no
actual knowledge of hunting at all. I guess that's what you
get when you hunt public lands...
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Today was a great day, a perfect
start to the 2001 hunting season. Ted showed up at my house at
about 6:30, and we headed up to our usual opening day location.
Although dove season opened at noon, we needed to sight in a
couple of guns at the range in preparation for deer season, so we
got an early start to ensure that we would get a spot on the
range.
We made it to the range by about 8:30,
and there were plenty of shooting benches available. We
grabbed one and began to sight in our weapons. First, I had
to try out my new CVA Magbolt 150 muzzleloader. Although
I've stated for years that muzzleloading doesn't really interest
me, when Bass Pro Shops offered this gun for less than $100, I
couldn't resist. And now, I'm very glad that I didn't.
It turns out that muzzleloading really is fun. It took about
12-15 rounds to sight my gun in. We had used Ted's boresight
to try to get it "on the paper," but that didn't work, and we
couldn't tell where the first several shots went. Finally, I
removed the breech plug, put the gun on the rest, then looked
through the barrel and lined it up on the target that way. Then we
just dialed in the scope, and the next shot was on the paper.
A few more shots and we had it in. For Ted's muzzleloader,
we started by manually boresighting, and were able to zero it in
less than a half-dozen shots. After that, a single
dead-center bullseye shot from my 7mm mag told me that it was fine
and to put it away. Finally, we had to zero in Ted's
new seven-mag. The first shot was about 8 inches high and 6
to the left. I started fiddling with the sights, cranking it
to approximately where I thought it should be. While I was doing
this, Ted went over to help someone out with a Contender pistol,
and he told me I could go ahead and shoot his gun to get it closer
in. My first shot after fiddling with it was another
dead-center bullseye, so after Ted tweaked it to his eye with a
couple of minor adjustments we were ready to go.
It was about 11:15 when we left the
range, 45 minutes before dove season officially opened.
Since the fields have never been crowded, and since it was raining
a little bit, we decided to go ahead and get lunch at Troutman's
BBQ, then just get into the fields a little before 1:00.
When we got back to our favorite field after lunch, to our
surprise and disappointment it was absolutely packed with people.
Discouraged, we drove down the road to another field, which also
turned out to be quite crowded. Finally, we drove
another half mile down the road, where we discovered a beautiful
(and empty) field, where we were able to set up quite nicely.
The doves were flying fairly well. Ted took the first one.
The second one was questionable; I think we both got it. Ted
hit it first, but it kept flying, and I'm pretty sure my shot
finished it. We ended up taking 5 birds home, with two lost.
Oh, and we heard a rumor that the sheriff had run everyone out of
the first field, since it was too close to a horse farm, so we got
lucky there!
Two grilled dove breasts, an ear of corn, and some
baked rosemary red potatoes |
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In a chapter of The Old Man's Boy
Grows Older entitled "Hang Your Stocking in August", Robert
Ruark wrote about the agonies of August in the life of a young
boy, how the month dragged on and on, and never seemed to end.
"Where are you, September," he wrote. August was an
unending torment for the Boy, and that clear morning of September
the first never seemed to dawn. And yet, he said, August was just
possibly the best month of all, because of all of the potential
that it held. The sky might be full of doves on opening
day, the quail might be everywhere you look for them, and
the ducks might always show up right on time. None of
the woes of the season have occurred yet, there have been no
doveless days. Looking back, the anticipation itself may have
been the best part of the whole hunting experience.
As I grow older, I find that the seasons actually come
around too quickly. I don't have time for the anticipation
anymore, and I deeply miss it. Last night my wife and I
rushed over to our rental storage unit, and I grabbed a couple of
shotguns and several boxes of shells. After work
today, after I've cooked supper, talked to our realtor, updated
the church webpage, after I've done my daily Bible reading, I'll
inspect those guns, maybe clean them one more time, maybe run a
hand lovingly down the barrel of a favorite 12 gauge. Or
maybe I'll just admire the look and feel of a fine shotgun that's
been too long out of hand.
I need to charge the batteries in my
radios so that my hunting buddy and I can keep in contact tomorrow
while we sit somewhere in a dove field. And where did I
store my decoys after last season? Did I put film in the
camera? In fact, where is the camera? Did we pack it
away before we put our house on the market? Two camo
t-shirts ought to be enough, right? It'll be hot out there
tomorrow, but I think two will do it. Maybe I should have
grabbed one more last night while we were at storage? I
really wanted to take that old Remington Model 11 out this year
and try it on opening day. I wish that I'd had the time to
get it ready, but I guess it will still be there next year.
Here we are on the day before the
opener, and I haven't even had time to sit back in my favorite
reading chair and just think about the upcoming seasons. One
day, before too many more years get away from me, I'm going to
slow down and just take the time to anticipate what joys the
season might hold.
Oh yeah, and try writing about Ruark's
writing some time. He did it so durn well that it's hard to
write about his writing without just writing down exactly
what he wrote!
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Turkey hunting sure can be frustrating
when they aren't making any noise. Ted and I hunted this morning
down at the McConnells game lands, but didn't see a thing.
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Ted and I spent
the morning hunting on the game lands at McConnells. On the way
in we only passed one other truck, so we had our pick of where we
wanted to hunt. We walked back on the road where Ted shot his
7-pointer back during deer season, but didn't hear any turkeys. As
we got to the end of the road, a dog came running up the trail
towards us, which explains the lack of turkeys in this section of
the woods. We walked across the main road to another section of
game lands, walked another logging road, but still didn't see or
hear anything.
After lunch we
decided to see if the Draper WMA was any good for turkeys. We
found some awesome dove fields, but it didn't look like there had
been any turkeys around, so we decided to try another spot back on
the other game lands. On the way back over, we saw two hen
turkeys in the woods just off the road, so we circled around,
parked, and walked through the woods to get to the area we had
seen them at. We sat for about an hour, but no luck. We did find
an incredible spot for deer hunting though...
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Morning only hunt at Briarpatch. I
didn't have as much time today as usual, since I had to be back
home for work pretty early. Parked out on Walker Road and went in
the "Cedar Creek" entrance to the lease. I followed the creek for
about a mile, from the road to the power lines, trying to make the
turkeys gobble. At one point, I was able to get one gobbling
pretty good, but he was over on the lease owned by the game
wardens, across the creek from us. He wouldn't come close enough
to the creek for me to even see him. Other than that, it was
again a quiet morning. I did find one really good scratched up
area and sat there for awhile, but nothing ever came in.
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Another hunt at Briarpatch. Since I was
planning on doing some work at our church tonight, I decided to
make this a morning only hunt. Arnold was not up when I got to
Briarpatch, so I went on in to the woods myself, planning on
making the same 3-mile circuit that we had made on Saturday. On
the way into the lease, I scared one turkey out of its roost, but
I was unable to tell what it was. I walked on down our trail
toward the creek, and as I approached I was able to make one
turkey gobble twice using my owl hoot call. After that he shut up
and I was unable to find him. I walked the full circuit, jumping
one deer on the way around, but heard and saw no other turkeys.
When I got back to the house, Arnold and
William Poole, our new game warden, were sitting on Arnold's
porch. William had been hunting in the same area as me, and he had
heard several turkeys gobble. We got to talking about different
calls, and about how a peacock call can often make a turkey gobble
when nothing else will. Arnold got his out, and we decided to take
a walk around the land to see if we could get one to answer. We
did another long circuit of the land (giving me about 6 miles of
walking for the day), but were unable to get anything to answer.
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I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to
be able to hunt today... but a last minute cancellation of a
project at work enabled me to get to bed early enough to go ahead
and hunt. Left out for Briarpatch at about 4:30, and when I got
there I found my friend Arnold Kirk just getting ready to hunt. We
did a long circle around both Arnold's land and the lease,
covering a distance of three miles, but we only got a couple of
turkeys to gobble. Although fun, it was a rather discouraging
start to the season. That afternoon, I took the four wheeler down
to the furthest field that we have on the lease, down on the power
lines right beside a large creek. I put three decoys out, then
made a little blind to sit in on the edge of the field. I saw one
hen go through the woods behind me, and that was the only turkey I
saw all day.
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Got a call from Chuck Wechsler this
morning, the editor of Sporting Classics
magazine. Many years ago, while doing research on Robert Ruark
for a college term paper, I learned that in the late 40's or early
50's Ruark filmed a documentary about an African safari. Called
"Africa Adventure", the film was an hour long look into the truth
about safari, describing what safari was really like, and
putting to bed some of the myths created in the popular safari
movies of the time.
I spent the better part of 15 years trying to
find a copy of that movie. Late last year I decided to go another
route with it. I sent a note to Sporting Classics telling them
about the movie, and that I thought it might be profitable for
them to try to find a copy of it, obtain the rights, and then
release it on video for Ruark collectors all over the country. I
didn't hear back from them for quite some time.
Then, early this
year, one of their writers, Roger Pinckney, contacted me to say
that he was doing an article about Ruark for an upcoming edition
of SC, and he wanted to know if I had had any luck in finding the
film. At exactly that time, I did manage to locate a 16mm B&W
copy of the movie, which I quickly bought. I loaned it to
Sporting Classics for them to review, then finally sold the print
on eBay, since I had to way to store the film long term. Also,
if Sporting Classics were to eventually produce a version of the
movie for retail, they would want an original color copy, and not
my black and white print.
Anyway, at about the same time,
Jim Casada, who lives just one town away from me, contacted me
to say that he was unaware that the movie existed. Since Dr.
Casada does some writing for Sporting Classics, I told him my
story and pointed him back to Chuck and Roger. During the call
this morning, Chuck told me that they were very interested in
distributing the movie on video tape, and they are now deep in
search of the copyright owner. It has undoubtedly been quite an
experience for me, hearing from all these outdoor writers, and
hopefully seeing my idea come to fruition.
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Wood ducks!
On the way home from
church this morning,
Micki and I were driving along quietly when I shouted "Oh my gosh!
Oh my gosh!" She didn't have any idea what was up until I started
saying "wood ducks" over and over. We had just driven over a
small bridge near Lake Wylie in Belmont, NC, when glancing to my
right as we crossed the water I saw a whole mess of ducks. I
turned the truck around and drove across the bridge two more
times. Sure enough, there were about twenty wood ducks, mostly
males, congregated in a flooded creek channel. Quite a beautiful
sight.
Making today doubly special, while we
were sitting in our pew this morning, a world champion turkey
caller whom we go to church with put his hand on my shoulder and
said "after the service, go out to my truck... I've got something
on the front seat for you." It was a new turkey caller, hand
made by the champion himself. Quite a nice gift! My wife and I
are lucky to be in a church full of so many good people!
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