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The 2003 hunting season
will once again start with predator hunting. We're going to
really give it a serious try this year, with attempts for fox,
bobcat, and coyote.
I'm hoping that in March
we'll get another chance to go for pheasant and quail at Cedar
Tree Plantation, where we had a fantastic day of hunting last
season. If we don't make it in March, then maybe we'll get
there this fall.
Then in April will come the
turkey season, one of my favorite kinds of hunting. I'm
really hoping that both Ted and I score big on the turkeys this
year. I haven't taken one since 1996. I feel
like my calling has really improved, and I am ready to get out
there and give the gobblers a try.
In September, we'll again
bring in the dove season with our traditional hunt in the
Uwharries before finishing out the year with the deer season.
I think this year we're going to back down on the number of deer
we kill in an effort to reduce the decline in the amount of deer
that we've been seeing these past few years.
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Whitetail Buck |
7 |
2 |
Whitetail Doe |
12 |
0 |
Turkey (Gobbler/Jake) |
0 |
0 |
Turkey (Hen) |
0 |
- |
Wild Boar |
0 |
0 |
Coyote |
1 |
1 |
Fox |
0 |
0 |
Bobcat |
2 |
0 |
Squirrel |
- |
0 |
Dove |
- |
0 |
Crows |
- |
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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I always seem to have a hard time
finding the words to write to capture the feeling of the end of
the hunting season. I often suffer post-season depression, a time
marked by periods of moping around the house on weekends not
knowing what to do with myself. I usually have this grand idea
that I will write something to encompass those feelings; something
to share what it's like to face the next nine months without the
possibility of going deer hunting.
Yeah, we've got a wild boar hunt
scheduled in a couple of weeks. I'm going duck hunting on
Saturday. Turkey season isn't really that far away, and we
can shoot coyotes all year round.
But it's just not the same.
This year I believe I'll just
think back on some of the hunts, the good times, the missed shots,
the heartbreaks, the successes. One of my favorite things
this year was that Ted and I cooked most of our lunches there at
Arnold's shop rather than going to a restaurant in town. We
had some fantastic meals, ranging from Ted's chili and extravagant
salads to my specialties: blackened ribeye steaks and barbecued
pork ribs. We cooked some good hamburgers a few times, and I
even made up a batch of my country fried venison steaks one
afternoon.
I got to go deer hunting on
twenty eight different days this year. That's not bad...
almost an entire month spent hunting deer. I only saw
nineteen deer this year, but seven of them were bucks.
That's a great improvement over previous years. I'm
not sure how many deer were taken on club lands this year, but I
bet it would be no more than eight. In the past we've taken
more than twice that number. I'm sure a lot of that has to
do with the fact that our land has been clear cut and there aren't
any hardwoods left to hunt.
This year I think I'll go down to
the lease more often and put out some corn to "hold" the deer and
turkeys on the property. I think I'll try to get a dove
field planted sometime in August so that we'll have something to
shoot on Labor Day. More fertilizer is a must if we want
anything to grow in our fields, and if I find out for sure that we
will get our lease again next year, I'll have a truck come in with
a load of lime for us.
Maybe I'll get down there and
look for arrowheads one day this summer. Or take Micki and
have a picnic beside Arnold's pond. Or maybe I'll just go
down there and look around on a cold winter's day when the sky is
overcast and threatening snow. I'd like that. I might
call my buddy Mark up and see if he wants to go ride four wheelers
one afternoon. If I need a day to myself, I may just pack up
and spend the afternoon in a cool spot in the woods reading a good
book.
Whatever comes, I'll be thinking
back on the deer season and looking forward to the next one.
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This is the
last day that I will get to hunt this season. It's always so hard
to watch the season end, so I decided to give it all I've got
today and spend the entire day in the woods. It was 24 degrees
this morning when I left home and headed down to our lease.
I bundled up in my new Polartec fleece inner-wear, then topped it
off with a fleece sweatshirt, my heaviest insulated overalls, and
my big hunting jacket. Not wanting to bother with my ATV
this morning, I drove straight to Doug's house, signed in, then
took the Jeep over to the power lines. I stayed in Arnold's
tower until 11:30am, but saw nothing.
By the time I got out of the tower it had warmed up a good
deal, so I decided to swap the Jeep for the four wheeler, then go
give the predators a try. I drove over to Arnold's house to
make the swap, then spent a few minutes chatting with Arnold.
He suggested that I take his shotgun and go down to the pond and
try to pop a merganser or a wood duck. I thought this was a
great idea, so I grabbed the Mossberg and some steel shot shells
and headed down to the water.
I parked my ATV a good ways away from the pond, not wanting to
scare any waterfowl that might be down there. Easing my way
down the road, I paused often to look through the trees at the
water to see if I could make out any ducks. I saw nothing
until I got to the top of the hill that looks down over the pond.
Then I noticed something black in the far corner of the pond.
Examining it with my binoculars, I was sure that it was a
merganser. I saw the right colors and the right bill shape,
and I began to shake with excitement as I thought how good he
would look mounted on the wall in my office.
I spent several minutes debating how to make a stalk. He
was on the same side of the pond that I was on, and there was no
cover between me and the dam. If I could make it to the dam,
I would then be ok, since the tall grass would hide the rest of my
stalk. Seeing no other choice, I got down flat on my stomach
and began to belly crawl down the hill, stopping every few feet to
make sure the duck hadn't spooked.
As I got closer to the water, I saw movement off to my left, at
the headwaters of the pond. Using my binoculars, I saw that
it was five large Canada geese. I debated switching
directions and moving over to take one of them, but then I decided
that I would rather have a merganser mount than a goose.
Having made my choice, I moved on. As I approached the place
where the merganser was, I slowly rose and got ready to shoot as
soon as the bird lifted off of the water. He never spooked.
I stepped loudly into the brush at the edge of the water, trying
to startle him into flight. Then I saw that my merganser was
nothing but the stump of an old log floating quietly in the water.
Blast, I thought. An awesome stalk on a real
wood duck: a stump. Shaking my head in laughter, I
started back around the pond to where the geese were. As I
got close they came alert, then finally flew. Rather than
take the shot, I merely watched as they took to the sky and flew
away.
I spent the next three hours sitting in the canebrakes hoping
that some wood ducks might come in, or maybe even a teal, if I was
lucky. Nothing came, and finally I heard Ted's four wheeler
drive past the pond on the other side of the woods. I headed
back to my ATV and then on to Arnold's shop where I switched out
the shotgun for my rifle. I drove back up on to
the lease and met up with Ted.
We decided to do a couple of predator calls. We tried 30
minutes of rodent squeals at two different locations, but had no
luck with that, so we finally headed to our evening deer stands.
I chose the power lines once again, while Ted went over to the
wheat field at Stand #2. Neither of us saw a thing as our
season came to an end.
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As the season
winds down, I had hoped that I would get in the woods at least
another five or six times before it closed. It looks like I'll
get about half of that in. It hasn't been a bad season overall,
but I'd still love to pick up two more deer before it's over
with. It could still happen... two years ago I scored a double on
does on the 29th of December.
Today I hunted back out on the power lines in the climbing
stand. It seemed like such a well set-up hunt... the wind
was perfect, I entered the woods quietly after having parked the
four wheeler a good distance away... but it just didn't work out.
Although I sat in my stand for several hours, nothing came out
into the field.
Looks like I'll have one more day in the woods, and then we'll
have to wrap the year up.
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First thing
this morning, I headed down to the Leeds Rifle Range in the Sumter
National Forest to check out my rifle. My first shot was about an
inch and a half to the right. I fired again and was about a
quarter inch left of dead center. The third shot, with the barrel
getting hot, was high left.
I thought for a few minutes, and decided that it might be time
to clean my rifle. Generally, I clean it at the end of the
season, sight it in, then never touch it again until the end of
the next season. I began to wonder if I cleaned it last year
after the deer season, and it occurred to me that I had gotten
busy on some things and may not have made time to do it.
Thinking that, I went ahead and gave it a good cleaning, then
fired again.
You can pretty much always throw away the first shot with a
clean barrel. Mine was high right, and I discarded it and
moved on to the next target. After letting the barrel cool
for ten minutes, I fired at the fresh target and was almost dead
on the bull's-eye. Another ten minute break for the rifle to
cool, then a second shot was right next to the first. The
rifle's fine.
I decided to give Stand #2 a try, the wheat field in the middle
of a stand of pines. I saw nothing, but got in some good
reading and just enjoyed the time to relax and think about things.
Doug hunted on the power lines, and he didn't shoot, so I don't
believe he saw anything either. I think I'll try the power
lines again myself tomorrow...
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I
didn't realize it until now, but it was the day after my last hunt
that I lost my brother-in-law Billy in a tragic murder. He had
just taken a job as a taxi driver, and he was on a late call on
his first day of work when he was ambushed and killed. It's been
a really rough time for us, and I am only now able to return to
the woods for the first time since his death.
Billy was a couple of years older than me, and although we didn't
get as much time together as I would have liked, I do have
memories of some great times that we had. Billy liked to
play Scrabble with me, my wife, and their mother. I remember
the last game we played... it was just a couple of weeks ago, on
Thanksgiving. I remember giving a couple of pointers to
Billy, showing him that making two words at a time on a triple was
about the highest scoring thing you could do. Although
he never won, I was always rooting for him.
Billy, we'll miss you.
I decided to hunt the power lines today.
The power lines is a strip of property that runs the entire length
of our lease, as well as crossing Arnold's land. The section
that I wanted to hunt is about a 500 yard stretch that has a wheat
field in the exact center of it. There are two ways that you
can hunt this. You can get in Arnold's tower, which gives
you about a 300 yard shot to the field, but keeps you well out of
the area where deer might catch wind of you.
Or, you can hunt a climbing stand at the
far end of the strip, which gives you about a 250 yard shot to the
field, but puts you somewhat in the path of traveling deer.
I've hunted the climber many times, so I
decided to go to the tower this time. I got in the stand at
about 2:30 or so, then settled in with a book while I waited for
evening.
As the sky began to darken, I saw a
small black spot run into the field. Hmmm, I thought,
that looks awful small. Must be a fox or something.
I used my binoculars and was surprised to see that it was a young
doe. I got my rifle into position, then watched a large buck
run into the field chasing the doe. She immediately bolted,
running full speed into the woods along the side of the field.
The buck stood still, giving me a good shot opportunity, although
it was about 300 yards away. I fired, then watched to see if
the deer would fall. He stood still, so I cranked in another
round and fired again.
The buck started, then moved to the edge
of the woods. Sure I had missed again, I took more careful
aim and fired a third time. The buck jumped another yard
into the woods, then stopped again. I had time to get my box
of shells out of my backpack, reload, aim, and fire a fourth
time. This time I heard the bullet smack against him, and I
was sure I had him.
I waited a few minutes, then climbed
down and got on my ATV. To get to the deer, I would have to
go the long way around, since a deep creek separates the tower
from the rest of the power lines. Driving around, I quickly
found blood where the deer entered the woods.
I tracked it as far as I could, but the
blood quickly stopped. Ugh... may not have him him very
hard. I went back and got ahold of Arnold and Doug, and
though we looked a good while, we found nothing. I went back
the next morning and still found no sign of the buck. Man, I
hate it when this happens. I found where my first two shots
struck the ground, but nothing else.
Before I hunt again, I need to
head down to the range and make sure my rifle is shooting right.
Guess I'll do that on Monday morning...
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Ted was back
in action today, and we met up at Arnold's house at about 5:45
this morning. Having seen the big set of tracks on Walker Road, I
decided to hunt in Stand #10. It was really cold this morning, so
I took along my Mr. Heater Portable Buddy, a little indoor-safe
propane heater that my wife got my for our anniversary. The
heater kept me nice and toasty all morning as I sat and watched
the empty road.
Ted hunted up on the power lines, but saw nothing. After
we met up, we did a quick loop around the property. We saw
that the deer had been active in several places, so there's still
the possibility that we'll tag a couple more before the season
ends.
In the afternoon, I decided to hunt up in the wheat field at
Stand #2, while Ted hunted nearby in the cutover at Stand #3.
I climbed high in my tree, then sat quietly to await the coming of
the deer. About 15 minutes before dark, I totally blew it.
I heard a deer walking in the woods behind me, exactly like the
spike that I shot earlier this year. As I turned to get a
look at the deer, the vinyl seat of my treestand let out a loud
squeeeek, alerting the deer to my presence. It took off
running before I got to see it. Nothing else came into the
field.
Ted saw nothing in #3, but as he walked out of the woods he saw
a deer feeding down on the power lines. He tried to point it
out to me as I emerged from the woods, but it was too dark for a
shot, so we both were forced to pass the deer up.
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Ted wasn't
able to make it today, and knowing that I would have to work all
night tonight, I decided to sleep in this morning and just do an
afternoon hunt back out on the power lines. This time if a deer
came out, I decided that I would shoot it. I've got two friends
at work who need venison, and time is starting to run out.
As I drove my four wheeler along Walker Road heading to our
lease, I decided to check around the box blind, Stand #10, to see
if anything was crossing. I found a set of big tracks in the
road about 50 yards past the stand... a fairly decent deer has
been crossing here! Not a monster by any means, but
definitely a heavy animal. Wouldn't you know it, as I was
examining the tracks that the deer had made, I somehow managed to
roll my ATV tire across every single mark that this deer had made,
obliterating them all. A pity, really; now no one but me
will realize that a big deer is working this area. I don't
know how I could have made a blunder like that, but oh well, if I
remember, I'll mention it to the other guys when I see them.
Maybe in January.
I went back to the stand and quietly made my way up the tree,
but didn't see anything at all today. With only a couple
more weeks to go in the season, I really hope I start seeing some
more deer soon!
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Our
coldest morning yet. I got to the lease about 15 minutes later
than I planned, and was glad to find Ted still waiting for me. We
hit the woods, me choosing to hunt in Stand #5 where I shot the
buck a few weeks ago, and Ted hunting down near the creek
bottom. Although I stayed in the stand until 10:30, I didn't see
anything, although I definitely heard a deer bleat over behind me
on the power lines. Ted also saw nothing. Where are our deer?
In the evening, I was torn between hunting our best field, Stand
#2, and the power lines. I decided to give the power lines a
shot, and Ted went over to #2. About 15 minutes before dark,
a doe walked out into the field about 200 yards down from me and
began to feed. I watched her until dark, but decided not to
shoot.
My reasons for not shooting were varied.
This is a great spot to hunt, and I'd like to let the deer get a
little bit of confidence in it before we start blasting away at
them. Also, the doe was alone, and without other deer around
her it was hard to judge her size at that distance. I think
I'll hit that stand again next time and maybe take the shot if
more than one deer emerges.
Ted saw a bunch of turkeys over at Stand
#2, but no deer.
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I liked my
previous setup on the road to Arnold's ridge so well that I
decided to give it another shot, this time for a morning hunt.
Once again I borrowed Ted's popup blind and made my way quietly
through the woods to where I wanted to set it up. Once I found my
spot I set the blind up, then walked about a hundred yards further
on down the road. When I got as far as I could from the blind, I
poured some doe scent on a rag and then began to drag it back up
towards my stand, hoping to make a trail for a buck to follow.
By the time I got situated, I was really pleased with this setup
and was sure that I would see a deer. At about 9:30 or so, I
saw movement in the woods down toward where I hard started making
the scent trail. I raised my rifle, then snorted in disgust
as a big black dog appeared and began to sniff at the doe urine.
A spotted white dog came in behind the first one, and they began
to follow the trail up toward my stand. I tried to wave the
dogs off, but they couldn't see me in the blind. I finally
managed to scare them off by sticking my hands out the window of
the blind and flapping them at the dogs, but I knew my hunt was
over for the morning.
Ted had been hunting down in the box blind on Walker Road and
reported that he also had seen nothing.
I really like the stand that we call the "pallet blind", but
the food plot that I planted just didn't take. I decided to
hunt it anyway, but nothing showed up. I think next year
I'll try to work this field really good with fertilizer and lime
and try to get something growing in there.
Ted hunted back behind me in Stand #13, looking out over our
cutover, but he saw nothing.
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Knowing that
there is a big buck somewhere in our area, I decided to get into
the woods today and give that a try. I went back up on to
Arnold's hardwood ridge. I stayed in the stand as long as I
could, but saw nothing all morning. On the way into the woods, I
did spook a deer that was near where I parked my ATV, which is
probably what messed me up for the day. Next time I go in there
I'm going to walk the whole way and keep it as quiet as possible.
After I got down from my stand, I scouted around the area a little
bit. I found a small homemade bench under an oak tree that I
was unaware of, and not far behind it I saw a really big rub.
Yep, there has been a buck moving around in this area for sure.
For the afternoon hunt, I decided to go back to the ridge, but
this time I took Ted's popup blind and walked in. I set a
few scent bombs out in front of my stand hoping to attract a buck,
then set the blind up looking down the path. Although I had
what I felt was a great setup, nothing was moving tonight.
Ted, hunting on the lease, also saw nothing.
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The rut is
on. It's a bit later than usual this year, but it's finally
here. I chose Stand #5 again today, although it hasn't been very
productive for seeing deer for quite some time. I got in the
stand just as the sun was peeking over the horizon. As the
morning brightened, I saw that all of my wheat that was growing
around the stand had died over the course of the week. Seeing
that, I considered moving quietly to another stand, but decided
that I was comfortable and would stick it out. Having seen
nothing most of the morning, I took a short snooze as time wore
on. I woke from it with the sun on my face, warming me
nicely. My watch was broken, but the sun was moving high
above the trees, and I figured it was about 9:30. I was
really feeling fine in the stand, and decided that I would stick
it out for another couple of hours.
After about a half hour, I noticed movement in the brush about
150 yards away. Just branches moving in the wind,
I thought to myself. No, wait! That's antlers!
As I watched, a big deer came into view. Buck!
Without time for more thought, I raised my rifle and centered the
crosshairs. I saw that I had the scope's magnification
selector set to 3, the lowest setting, and was about to change it
when the buck looked right at me.
I squeezed the trigger.
The buck jumped into a sprint, heading down the road, away from
me as fast as he could go. As he disappeared behind a brush
pile, I jacked another shell into the chamber and pushed the rifle
ahead of the brush, anticipating where the deer would emerge.
He appeared exactly as expected, and, moving with him, I fired
again. He continued his run, through some more brush, and
across one of our food plots. I had a brief second to notice
that his tail was down as he was running, a possible sign of a
hit.
I started to shake. Wait 30 minutes on this guy? No
way. I had to know if I hit him or not. I lowered my
backpack to the ground, climbed down from the stand, got my trail
marking tape out and stashed my pack in a brush pile. I
reloaded my rifle, then walked down the road to where the buck
first appeared. I found his tracks immediately. Big
ones. This was a hefty deer for our area.
Looking carefully around, my spirits sank when I found no blood.
How could I be so stupid? Why didn't I take the
single second to crank the scope up to 9 power for such a long
shot?
I followed the tracks down the road to where I took the second
shot. I found a big scuff mark where the deer had turned and
crossed into the food plot, but still no blood. Moving
through the brush pile into the wheat field, I continued on the
trail. In the field it took me a couple of minutes to find
his tracks, but I finally saw where he had entered the woods.
Still no blood.
I looked carefully at the tracks on the edge of the field.
What were those dark spots? I put my finger into the deep
tracks, and it came up red. Blood! I moved to
the wood line, now seeing blood a bit more frequently. As I
approached the thick woods, I heard something moving down in the
gully below me. Stopping in my tracks, I tied a piece of
marking tape to the tall grass, then quietly made my way back to
the four wheeler. Time to go get some help, I
thought.
As I drove back to Arnold's house, the shakes began to hit me.
By the time I was standing on his front porch, I could barely
speak. "Can you help me," I asked as he answered my knock on
the door. "Of course, " Arnold said. "Have you shot a
deer?"
"Yeah, I think he's a big one. I saw antlers, and you
should see his tracks."
"Did you find blood," Arnold asked? I replied that
indeed I had. "We'll get that deer then," he said.
While Arnold changed clothes, I walked back to the shop and
took my cold weather gear off. I knew we would be in for
some hard work, and the day was getting warmer. I changed
into a t-shirt and sweat pants, then loaded my gear in the Mule.
"Do you want us to take Lady?" Arnold asked as he walked up the
driveway.
I considered. "No, we better not. The deer may
still be alive, and the last thing we need is for the dog to push
him."
I was somewhat nervous about finding the deer, deathly afraid
that he had gotten away, and it was a long ride back to where I
had left the marking tape. Arnold's assertion that we would
find him did lighten my spirits a bit, but not enough to stop me
from offering a prayer to ask that we retrieve this buck.
We soon found my marking tape, and got back on the trail.
Walking downhill into the gulley, the blood got brighter and more
frequent. As we moved apart, each trying to find where the
deer had run, I heard a noise below me. A flash of brown.
Antlers. "He's up!" I shouted, then raised my rifle and took
a wild shot at him. No way I could have hit him. We
should have brought a shotgun.
As the deer ran off, we walked down and found the spot where he
had been laying. He was about 30 yards down from the field,
and there was a good patch of blood where he had rested.
"Ok," Arnold said. "Let's give him an hour or so.
We'll go back to the house and eat, then come back."
An hour. An HOUR. Man, how can I wait an HOUR.
I'm shaking now, imagine how it will be in an hour. But I
knew he was right, so we loaded up the Mule and drove back to his
cabin to get some lunch and watch a little bit of the Outdoor
Channel. While we were waiting, Arnold called Doug to ask
him to come help.
At 12:30 Doug and his son Clint showed up on their four
wheelers. Arnold and I piled into the Mule, and we headed
back into the woods. We picked the blood trail up, then
began walking, Clint and I spread out in the lead, with Arnold and
Doug taking the dregs, staying on the trail. About 200 yards
along the way, Clint hollered at me, "There he is, he may be
headed your way." I ran up the hill, trying to get a glimpse
of the deer. Although I could hear him running, I never saw
him at all.
I walked down to where Clint had jumped him, and we found a
good bit of blood there on the ground. The smell of the buck
was fierce, he was obviously rutting. When Arnold and Doug
caught up with us, we decided to wait another 15 minutes before
pushing on, hoping that this last burst of life from the buck
would help him expire quickly.
We sat quietly, talking of this and that, and I was feeling
good about the deer. I was sure that we would get him now.
When the required time had passed, we spread out again, Doug and I
taking the lead this time. "Don't look for blood," they said
to me. "Keep your rifle ready and watch for the deer; we'll
stay on the trail."
"Yep," I said, "good plan." Although it was hard
not to try to follow the blood trail, I soon found that I didn't
need to. I was on an obvious deer trail at the bottom of a
valley, and with the buck tired and wounded, he could either go
straight or go uphill to his left or right. Straight it had
to be. We pressed onward, and suddenly I saw the buck laying
on the ground 30 yards in front of me. "Doug, I see him!" I
shouted. I had hoped that the deer was dead by now, but as
he tried to stand, I put him down for good with another shot.
After such a
long story for the morning hunt, I actually don't have much to say
about my afternoon hunt. I went to the pallet blind, but saw
nothing.
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Cold,
wet, and overcast... just the way I like it. I have really been
wanting to get in the woods for awhile. This food plot hunting is
fun, but sometimes it seems that a lot of hunting has been reduced
to that. What ever happened to getting into the hardwoods? For
us, our lease is mostly pine, half of which has been clear-cut.
To really get into the woods, I decided to hunt on Arnold's land,
at a place we simply call "the ridge". It was here that I killed
my first deer back in 1991, and to this spot I have returned every
year. I've since passed up many deer from this stand, and have
yet to take another one here. I
drove to the top of the hill, then parked and began my walk down
to the stand. As soon as I had taken 3 steps, I heard two
deer run off; they must have been standing right on the edge of
the road. I wasn't using my flashlight to find my way, so I
never saw a thing. I saw nothing on the stand, either.
On the way out of the woods, near where
I had jumped the deer this morning, I found two rubs and a big
scrape. The rubs were on small trees, indicating that it
probably wasn't a monster buck that made them, but it's always fun
to find buck sign like this.
When Ted and I met up, he hadn't seen
anything either, having hunted on the top of the power lines.
During lunch we took a short drive over
to the bottom of the power lines, where we checked out an old
county road that runs through Arnold's property. We found a
good many deer crossings there, and we chose a place where we
could deploy Ted's popup blind later on this year.
For the afternoon hunt, the rain began
shortly before we entered the woods. I chose the pallet
blind out in the middle of the lease, while Ted hunted in #3 where
I killed the coyote earlier in the week. The most exciting
thing for me this afternoon was watching a bobcat come in.
He crossed the road ten feet in front of me, then stopped and sat
still.
I got on my radio. "Ted... you
there? Is bobcat season open? I have one right
in front of me!" Ted told me that it didn't open for
another couple of weeks, so reluctantly I made the decision not to
shoot. I got a couple of pictures of him, but most of
them came out blurry; I had the camera on the wrong setting.
It really was something to see him though. He looked really
big, maybe even three feet long. I hope to get a shot at him
later this year!
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I found my
climbing stand just where I left it last night; locked to the tree
all safe and sound. I got up into it at about 6:15, a little bit
later than normal, but right about when I wanted to be there. As
I was sitting in the stand waiting for a deer to come by, I heard
something walking quickly through the woods behind me. Fox,
I thought. This is what I've been waiting for.
As the footsteps approached, I got ready to shoot. I've
been after a fox for years, and was hoping that this would be my
chance. The animal emerged right behind me, and to my
surprise it wasn't a fox after all. As it passed
under my stand, I snapped the safety off my rifle, let it get
about ten yards out, then fired. The coyote dropped in it's
tracks, never even flinching.
This is the second time I've seen a coyote on our
lease, though I have heard them often. These animals are not
native to South Carolina, and are a major problem for game birds
such as turkeys and quail. I won't hesitate to shoot every
one of them that I see on our lease. After shooting this
one, I left him lay on the ground, choosing to remain in my stand
in the hopes that a deer would come by later. The coyote was
the only thing I saw.
For the evening hunt, I chose the tower out on
Arnold's power lines. The power company smoothed the hills
on the lines out recently, and the seed that they planted is
beginning to emerge, in what I hope will soon be a deer magnet.
Nothing showed up tonight, but as the deer finish eating the
acorns and start moving into the food plots, I think we'll start
seeing them out here.
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I pretty much
had my heart set on hunting Stand #2 this afternoon. This is a
climbing stand that looks over a wheat field in a seldom-traveled
part of our lease. I decided to do things a little differently
this afternoon. Normally, I park my ATV about 100 yards from the
stand, but today I decided to park it out on the power lines and
walk all the way in.
At first I was regretting the decision to walk in. The
forecast mentioned rain, and not wanting to get soaked I went
ahead and wore my rain pants into the woods. As hot of an
afternoon as it was, I was drenched in sweat by the time I reached
the stand and climbed the tree. At one point I had almost
convinced myself to turn back and just go hunt in the tower blind,
or somewhere else where the deer couldn't smell me. In the
end, I decided to stick it out.
I got in the tree pretty early; around 2:30, and settled in
with a book. I figured nothing would happen until the sun
went behind the trees, so I was prepared for a good long wait.
As the shadows lengthened across the field, I began to hear
movements in the woods behind me, away from the field.
Squirrels, for sure, I thought, returning to my book.
Once the entire field was in shadow, I put the book away, got
comfortable, and sat as still as possible. Almost
immediately, I heard something else walking in the woods,
something bigger than a squirrel. It sounded like it was
actually kicking things out of its way as it walked. Ok,
that's either a deer or a person.
The sound was behind me to my right; the worst possible place
for a shot. I twisted as far right as I could, trying to get
a glimpse of it. Nothing. I shifted all the way back
around to the left; much better. I can get a shot from
here. A flash of brown, and I saw that it was a deer.
I started to raise my rifle when I heard a squeaking sound,
lowered it quickly, stopping the noise. I looked down.
Binoculars. The rubber coating on them was rubbing
against the synthetic stock of my rifle. My heart was
pounding now. I shoved the binoculars to the side and
brought the rifle back up.
The deer was in the crosshairs for a second, but it wasn't a
safe shot. Wait just another minute; he's headed toward the
road. He stopped behind a tangle of brush, giving me time to
get into good shooting position should he come out into the open.
I aimed the rifle at the place I needed to be, and in seconds he
was there. He wasn't going to stop moving, and my shot was
clear. I fired. After the shot I quickly lowered the
rifle so I could see where he went. He jumped, and I knew he
was hit.
The deer turned in a semi-circle, stumbled, then ran. I
only heard his footsteps for a second. I looked at the
little pocket watch that I carry with me. 5:00pm. I'll
give it until 5:15, then get down and look for blood.
5:03pm. I couldn't wait any longer. No sounds around
me, and I was sure he was hit hard. I got down, gathered my
gear, and walked over to where he had been. Immediately I
found a huge amount of bright red blood. That deer is
dead, I thought. It was a simple trail to follow, and in
moments I found him laying 15 yards from where he was when I shot.
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My long
awaited week off from work has finally arrived, and I am hitting
the woods as hard as I possibly can this week. Due to obligations
in town tonight, I was only able to hunt in the morning today. As
I arrived at Doug's house to check in, I saw that I had the lease
to myself today. Having seen many deer tracks on Walker Road on
Saturday, I decided to spend the first part of the morning hunting
in the box blind, Stand #10, that watches a good long stretch of
the road.
Having seen nothing by 9:00am or so, I decided to head up onto
the main lease, so I drove my ATV up to the power lines, parked,
and began a goodly hike down to the pallet blind. On the
way, I saw that the new wheat patch at Stand #3 was looking
fantastic, so I decided that later on this week I'll have to hit
that stand pretty hard.
To get to the pallet blind, you have to go up a hill, then wind
your way halfway back down the other side. It sits part way
down the hill, looking over a small food plot. As I
approached the top of the hill, I heard a deer moving around in
the woods quite close to me. I tried grunting several times
at him, but he never showed.
I saw nothing from the blind, but did choose to try a little
bit of rattling. When nothing responded, it came time to
head back to town, and as I was leaving the blind I think I
heard a deer blow, just once, from down near the food plot.
I may not have waited long enough after rattling..
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November!
The greatest month of all for hunters. I'm hoping that the rut
will kick in this week, since I'll be hunting seven out of the
next eight days. I really need to take a deer this week. I
looked back at my journal of deer that I have taken, and for the
last few years, most of them have been in December. Five came in
that month, with two each in September, October, and November.
That gives me hope that if nothing happens now, there is still
another month to go, but I'm getting a little nervous about not
having taken anything so far. Sometimes I think I'm just a little
bit too selective when it comes to which deer I decide to
take. For the morning hunt, I went back to "my" ladder stand...
funny how when you hunt a stand often it becomes "yours". I
remember Ted's first year on the lease, when he took four deer
from the same stand (and another deer close by). That stand
became known as "Ted's blind". Though the ladder that I am
hunting belongs to Ted, I somehow have gained ownership of it's
location simply due to the fact that I hunt there so frequently.
I saw nothing, as expected. Ted hunted at the top of the
power lines in his popup blind, and he also saw nothing.
As I've stated before, we're cooking our lunches in the camp
this year rather than going out to eat. It's saving
time, money, and calories. Plus we get the benefit of eating
some of the things that we tell each other we like to cook...
Ted's chili, my pork ribs... Today it was my ribs,
which I've been telling Ted about for some time. The recipe
is available on the
recipes link from the Wingshooters.net main page.
Go there. Now. Read. Cook. Eat.
Between us I think we ate about 8 or 10 ribs... and man, were they
good.
"We eat good around here!" |
For the afternoon hunt, I chose
the new box blind, while Ted went down to the bottom field.
I waited until it was almost pure dark outside, but saw nothing.
Ted was skunked as well.
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In his book
The Old Man and the Boy, Robert Ruark tells of a day on
which the men got separated from the boys. It was a cold, wet,
rainy day, and only the most dedicated hunters were out in it.
Fortunately for us, the weather forecast for today was nothing
like that. Indeed, we were told to look for a high in the low to
mid 70's.
Knowing this, I packed light today, opting to leave my rain
gear at home and save room in the truck. No heavy jacket
needed... left that behind too. It was pleasantly warm when
Ted and I met up on this first hunt after daylight savings time
ended. I told Ted that I was going to #3, and he decided to
hunt in #5, the ladder stand where I have spent many mornings this
year.
As the morning progressed, I watched the sky above me go to a
dark grey color, and I felt the chill as the temperature dropped.
When the first misty rain began to fall, I looked to the
southwest, hoping to see blue skies behind this rain shower...
surely this was a fluke and wouldn't last. The temperature
continued to drop, and I began to wonder what I would do when the
first snowflake fell.
The light rain persisted all morning, and I was starting to get
a bit wet when it came time to get out of the stand.
"Surely," I said to Ted, "this will pass pretty quickly. I
mean, it can't rain all day. Can it?"
It did. All morning. All afternoon. All
evening. The weatherman really missed it today. As we
sat there glumly eating our lunch, I thought about all of my
expensive rain gear, and how lucky I was to be able to afford it.
I thought about how nice it must look right now, hanging there in
my closet back at home, dry as can be, ready to be taken out and
worn. I thought of how stupid I am not to bring it with me
every time we go hunting, regardless of what the weather
forecast looks like.
It was so wet this afternoon that as the time to get back in
the woods approached I looked at Ted and said, "Hambone, there
ain't no way I'm going to drive my ATV out into that mess.
We'll be soaked by the time we get to our stands. I think
I'll drive the Jeep out onto the lease instead. Want a
ride?" Ted agreed that this was a good idea, so when
we headed back out, I dropped him off at Stand #10 on Walker Road,
shifted into low lock, and drove out onto the mud flats of the
lease's cutover.
I've owned a few four wheel drive vehicles over the years.
Supertruck, my first, a Toyota 4x4 pickup, was built to take it.
With a lift kit and 33" mud tires, there weren't many places it
couldn't go. It has set the standard for what I expect from
my vehicles. In the mid 90's, it came time to get a new
truck, and I opted for a Ford Explorer, or Exploder, as I
like to call it. Man, what a piece of junk. It got
stuck in the sand at Cape Hatteras the first time I took it out.
Later, on another Cape Hatteras trip, the four wheel drive unit
broke when I was trying to get out of a sand hole. The
transmission went out so many times that I couldn't wait to get
rid of it.
I'm currently driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee with bald tires,
and this thing has yet to let me down. From the soft sands
of the Outer Banks to the gumbo red clay of South Carolina, this
truck will go. I made it to the top of the lease with
no problems at all, driving through mud so soft that I could
barely walk in it without falling down.
I drove most of the way to our pallet blind, which looks out
over a small, newly planted field out in the middle of our
cutover. I was able to stay dry in the blind, but
unfortunately, saw no deer. Ted also saw nothing down in his
blind.
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While looking
around the lease on the 18th, I happened to notice a lot of tracks
in the road in front of Stand #10. One set was quite big, which
made me decide to give the box blind another try. I got in the
stand pretty early, and while it was still dark out I heard what
could only be a deer crossing the road. A few minutes later, I
heard another, further down. It was way too dark to see, and
unfortunately, those were the only deer around me all morning.
Ted hunted up the lease road a hundred yards away, and he also saw
nothing. One of the things that has been nice this year is that
we're bringing lunch with us rather than going into town to eat.
Today I brought along a little charcoal grill and some hamburger
meat, while Ted brought the fixin's. The burgers that we
grilled had to be some of the best that I have ever eaten, and I
look forward to doing this again.
In the afternoon, I chose Stand #2, that beautiful wheat field
that we refer to as the "little loading dock". I saw
nothing, but later found that Doug was hunting just past me, and
that could have accounted for the deer staying away from my field,
since last time they came from the area that he was hunting in
today. Just before dark, I heard Ted shoot, just over from
me on the power lines. He took his second doe of the year,
and his first from his new popup blind.
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I had
originally thought that I was oncall at work this weekend, so Ted
had arranged his schedule such that he would not be hunting today,
thinking that I wouldn't be able to. Unfortunately, the pager
schedule got changed around, and I ended up hunting by myself
today. I spent the morning in my usual location, Stand #5, again
thinking that something would show up. I was wrong. Well, not
totally wrong; the turkeys had roosted right across from where I
was hunting, and I watched thirteen of them fly down and mess
around with my little strip of wheat. The two fields that we
planted back in August had done nothing, so I decided to go plow
them up and replant them. I borrowed Arnold's Massey tractor
and harrow and went to work. I spent a good bit of time in
each field, really working hard to get them turned over and
scraped clean of logging debris. I was quite pleased with
the end result. I also decided to plant a little strip along
the road header up where Stand #3 is. The deer are moving
through there quite frequently, and I thought that a little bit of
wheat and oats might make them pause for a critical moment or two.
I decided that Stand #3 looked so good that I wanted to hunt
it. Probably a mistake, since I had spent a good bit of time
working there just a few hours earlier, but the view is fantastic,
and I couldn't resist. I saw nothing, but that won't stop me
from going back there the next chance I get.
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Another hard
rain made the morning hunt just as miserable as it was on
Saturday. Ted and I met up by chance on the road on the way
down, a rare occurrence. We used our radios to debate where we
would hunt, both of us talking about getting in one of our boxes
so that we could stay dry. In the end, Ted said the heck with it,
he was going to get in a tree. I obviously couldn't take the
sissy way out by getting in a box while Ted sat in the rain, so I
too got up in one of our ladder stands. I used my tree umbrella
to keep mostly dry, though by the end of the hunt the rain was
coming in sideways and I couldn't avoid getting soaked. After
the hunt, we ran a few errands in town, mostly looking for me some
new rain gear. When we returned to Arnold's, there was a
note from Michelle, Ted's wife, telling him that she was sick and
needed him to come home.
For my afternoon hunt, I decided to give Stand #2 a try, where
our food plot is starting to look beautiful. As darkness
approached, I noticed movement at the far end of the field, so I
checked it out in my binoculars. It was a deer, but from the
looks of it it wasn't a big one. Not being able to
accurately judge the deer in the dim light, I decided to pass.
When I arrived back down at Arnold's house, he was waiting at
the shop with bad news. His Cocker Spaniel, Misty, had been
having serious health problems these last few weeks, and it was
time to put her to sleep. Misty was a great dog. In
the early days, Arnold, his brother Gerald (who is now my
father-in-law), myself, and another guy named Frank used to hunt
on Arnold's property. Arnold used to bring Misty, then a
puppy, along, and she used to love spending the night with us all
in the small trailer that was on the property.
She would lay down on the chest of one of us, sleep awhile,
then walk over and lay on someone else. As long as she had
one of us to sleep beside, she was happy. And I mind well
the day that I shot my first deer. The story is told
elsewhere on this website of how after searching in vain for
the deer for some time, I went back to the camp and got Arnold,
and he brought Misty along to help find the blood trail.
Misty found the deer quite quickly, and even gave a little bark to
let us know where it was. And then there was the way that if
Arnold was napping on the couch, Misty would lay quietly on his
chest, guarding him. If you took a step in his direction,
she would growl at you to let you know to keep your distance.
Man, that was a great dog, and she will be missed by many of us.
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A hard rain
made this a miserable morning to be in the woods. To stay dry,
Ted and I both hunted right back where we were on the morning of
the 7th, with me in the box on Walker Road and Ted hunting his box
up on the lease. Neither of us saw anything. I got out of my
stand at about 10:00am and drove my four wheeler up to the top of
the lease to meet up with Ted.
There was no sign of him where we had talked about meeting, so
I headed on down the power lines toward his box. When I was
a couple of hundred yards away from his stand, I parked my ATV and
did a little bit of still hunting, just walking around in the rain
hoping to jump something. There were no deer to be found.
Ted finally noticed me, waved, and headed over my way.
When we met up, he told me that he had seen a hunter climb a
power pole on the adjacent lease, and the hunter was looking right
down into our best wheat field. We drove down in our four
wheelers and made a big to-do about looking at him through our
binoculars, letting him know that we were there. He waved
and pointed off to the side, acting like he wasn't watching our
field at all. At least now he knows we're on to him.
The rain had let up by afternoon, so I decided to get back in
the ladder on the secondary lease road where I had seen the three
bucks a couple of weeks ago. Ted was hunting in his old
standby, #3, just up the road from me. Neither of us saw a
thing.
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On the final
day that we would hunt with our muzzleloaders, I decided to give
Stand #10 a try. That's our box blind out on Walker Road, where
years ago you were guaranteed to see a deer. Although I stayed in
the stand until 10:00am, nothing crossed the road at all.
While I was waiting for Ted to come out of his box blind up on
the main lease, I decided to walk out into Walker Road and see if
anything was happening back behind me. Almost as soon as I
stepped out, I saw a doe cross the road a little over a hundred
yards away. Knowing that a fence would prevent her from
going anywhere, I got down into shooting position and waited for
her to cross back. She soon reappeared, heading away from me
up the road. "Hey!" I yelled, but she didn't flinch. I
finally made a "Waahhhhh" sound to imitate a loud grunt,
and she stopped dead in her tracks, turned, and presented me with
a perfect broadside shot opportunity. As I switched off my
safety and squeezed the trigger she saw me, turned again, and
jumped into the woods.
I couldn't tell if I had hit her or not, so I ran over to my
ATV, loaded up, and drove up to where she had been standing.
I found her tracks, but no sign of a hit. I was still
looking when Ted drove up, unaware that I had taken a shot.
As I told him about it, I glanced down and said "What's that?"
It was my bullet, mushroomed and flattened, laying in a groove in
the road. We inspected it carefully, found a bit of meat on
it, and decided that it was a hit. Looking further, we found
a couple of small bone fragments. This immediately put a
knot in my stomach. Bone fragments generally mean a leg hit.
We searched the woods for over an hour, finding only one small
drop of blood 30 yards from where we found the bullet. There
was no sign of the deer. This is always the hardest part of
hunting, and you never get used to it. You have to learn
from it and do better next time.
For the afternoon, I hunted in Ted's new popup tent blind,
overlooking a new growth of wheat and beans. Ted was hunting
back in his box blind, just 50 yards up the road from me. As
darkness approached, Ted radioed me to say that there might be a
small button buck headed my way. I watched, knowing I would
not shoot such a small deer. It never appeared, and as night
began I heard a deer to my right blow hard, winding me.
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After
debating endlessly with myself for hours about where to hunt this
morning, I went back to the same stand that I've spent most
mornings this year, the ladder stand on the lease's secondary
road. It paid off this morning for the first time, as I saw three
does cross the road about 175 yards down from me at about
9:00am. The shot was a bit long for my muzzleloader, so I didn't
attempt it, but it was great just seeing the deer.
Shortly after that, I looked to my left and saw another doe
standing in the thicket not 20 yards away. I decided that
she was a shooter, so I got in position for the shot.
Unfortunately, she moved behind some trees, and though I was able
to see her through the brush for several more minutes, she never
presented me a good, safe shot. As she moved out of view, I
glanced into the thicket again and saw a spike buck standing where
the doe had been. I put the crosshairs on him several times,
but knew that I would not shoot such a young buck.
While watching him, I kept seeing a
flicker of movement off to the right; something raising up and
down with some regularity. I tried to find the movement in
my binoculars several times, but at first I failed to zero in on
it. What in the world is that, I thought.
It looked like a turkey's head bobbing up and down, but I couldn't
be sure. Finally I managed to get a glimpse of it through my
binoculars, and saw that it was the antler on another buck.
It didn't have much mass, and it could have either been another
spike or a small forkhorn; I couldn't be sure. Whatever it
was, it also wasn't a shooter. As I watched, something
startled the first spike, and he jumped back towards the woods
about 10 feet. Standing there for 30 seconds or so, he
looked around carefully, trying to determine what it was that had
spooked him. He finally bolted back into the woods, taking
the other buck with him. As they ran, I got a brief
glimpse of a third buck that had been there, this one possibly a
decent deer. I saw the well-developed tips of his antlers,
but didn't have time enough to determine his full size.
Seeing seven deer from the stand this
morning put me into a really good frame of mind about the state of
deer on our lease. I really feel like we're loaded with
them, and having seen four bucks now with the season only a few
weeks old makes me believe that our doe-to-buck ratio has greatly
improved. I'm optimistic about the possibility of one of us
taking a good buck this year.
Ted hunted down at Stand #7, the ladder
overlooking the bottom field, and though he saw no deer, he did
see several turkeys. I also feel really good about our
turkey population, and am looking forward to the season next
April.
Over the lunch break, we ate some
venison chili that Ted had prepared for us, then went over to
Elgin to get some chain to try to tighten up the stand that I had
been hunting in. We got that fixed, then headed back to
Arnold's for a nap.
In the evening, I hunted in Stand #2, a
wheat field up at the top of our lease, while Ted took his popup
blind over to Stand #4, another wheat field in the middle of the
power lines.
Sometimes you do everything right and it
still doesn't come together. I parked my four wheeler a good
ways away from my stand, shutting off the engine and coasting as
far as I could to keep things as quiet as possible. I was as
silent as ever on my approach to the stand, and also climbed the
tree without even scaring off the doves that were feeding in the
field. The wind was perfect, right in my face, and the new
crop of wheat and beans was looking beautiful. The doves
would serve as an early warning for me; I knew they would fly the
moment a deer appeared. I sat quietly, watching for the sign
of the doves.
When they finally did fly, my heart
started pounding, and I got in position for a quick shot if a deer
came into the field. I sat there, waiting. Nothing
happened. I waited more, and still nothing happened.
There is one corner of the field that is not visible from the
stand, and if a deer was in the field already, it was probably
right where I couldn't see it. As I watched, I heard a deer
blow a ways off behind me, back where I had parked. I bet he
saw my ATV and took off running. I waited more, but still
saw nothing.
When it was finally too dark to see, I
started to come down, and another deer blew from off to my left.
He had probably been standing there on the edge of the woods the
whole time, never quite daring to emerge.
Meeting up with Ted, he told me that he
had seen two does down in his field, and had heard a buck sniffing
off in the thicket. Although there were no deer taken today,
seeing 9 deer between us is not bad, so we'll count this day up as
a victory.
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October
arrived today, bringing with it cooler weather and the opening of
the muzzleloader deer season. It was just over 40° when I began
my long drive down to the lease, and I was sure these lower
temperatures would push the deer into moving a little more than
usual this morning. I decided to hunt in that same new ladder
stand. I've got great confidence in this stand, but today I saw
nothing from it. Our wheat and oats are starting to sprout, but
the turkeys have really scratched up a lot of the seed. The doves
are after it too, as I saw about fifty of them walking up and down
the road trying to get to the good stuff.
At about 9:30am I heard the long echoing
rumble of Ted's .50 CVA muzzleloader, and I got my radio out from
my backpack and waited to hear from him. He radioed me to
see if I was copying, but I didn't hear anything else from him.
I figured one of us was having radio problems, so I decided to go
on down and see what he got. As I was leaving, I saw Doug
headed that way on his four wheeler. I soon caught up with
him, and we all walked down and looked at Ted's deer. It was
his second muzzleloader deer, and his 14th overall. A
nice doe weighing in at around 90 pounds.
After taking Ted's deer to
the processor, we went back to Arnold's house to rest and get
ready for the afternoon hunt. On the way back to the house,
we saw 5 does standing in a little gravel road. The clock in
Ted's truck showed 11:30am, which means that we may have gotten
out of the woods a bit early. It's quite possible that the
deer are active during the day right now. Looks like we'll
need to stay in our stands until at least noon on Saturday!
For the afternoon hunt, I
originally planned to hunt up at Stand #2, one of our new wheat
and bean fields, but we ended up sweating a little bit while
helping Arnold cover his pool, so we decided to get in some of our
box blinds instead so that the deer wouldn't get wind of us as
easily.
On the way into the woods,
we jumped about 13 hen turkeys on Walker Road, then 5 move on the
way up our main lease road. Looks like this is a day for
turkeys, if nothing else!
I headed for Stand #17, the
new box overlooking a small clover plot, while Ted decided to hunt
in the pallet box over at Stand #16. As I sat in the box,
occasionally reading a page or two from a novel, mostly just
enjoying the cool breeze blowing through the windows, I heard a
quiet whine off to my left. That, I thought,
sounds like a turkey. I looked out the small window, and
sure enough, there was hen turkey standing not two feet away.
I managed to get several great pictures of her before she got
scared and ran off. There were four other hens with her.
Not long after that, I saw no less than ten gobblers come into the
field and begin to feed. I also got a few pictures of them
before they walked out of range.
Just
before dark, I watched a good sized spike buck come into the
field. Not wanting to shoot a spike, I contented myself with
watching him through my binoculars. He fed for a few minutes,
then headed over to where we have a block of Deer Cane hidden.
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Today I
had the lease to myself, as no one but me took to the woods. I
hunted again in the new ladder stand overlooking the secondary
lease road, but this time I didn't see anything. I stayed in the
stand as long as I could, but they just weren't moving through
that area this morning.
After hunting, I headed back to the house, hoping to catch up with
Doug to see if he wanted to do something about getting our food
plots planted. I found him and he was willing, so we plowed our
three main fields, then planted them with a mixture of oats,
wheat, rye, soybeans, and clover. I used my new
Agri-Fab spreader for the first time, pulling it behind my
four wheeler, and it did a fantastic job of getting the seed
sowed.
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While
planting the sides of one of our roads, I noticed a certain place
where there were a great many deer tracks. They were coming out
of the woods, then walking in the road for a good ways before
heading back into a thicket. I decided to set up a climbing stand
overlooking that area for my evening hunt. I had a great view,
but saw nothing all evening.
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This was
originally going to be an all day hunt, but I ended up going to
bed a bit later than planned, and decided that getting up at
4:00am would have been a little too hard to do. I went on down to
the lease at around 8:30, taking my tow-behind spreader with me in
the hopes of getting our food plots planted. Our fields, however,
had been drenched the previous night by three inches of rain, so
they were just too muddy to mess with. I ended up spending most
of the afternoon sitting around reading while I waited for it to
get late enough to get into the woods for my afternoon hunt. I
entered the woods at about 4:30pm, choosing to hunt in our new
ladder stand overlooking some clover plots (which haven't started
to come up yet). I got into the stand and got settled,
then started looking around, admiring the view. To my
surprise, I noticed a doe standing in the road about 50 yards
below me. I got my binoculars out and saw that there was
another doe standing with her. As I watched, they ran off
together. It was surprising to see two deer so early in the
afternoon, and unfortunately, they were the only two that I saw.
Leaving the woods at dark, I use my new Surefire flashlight to
make my back to the four wheeler. Surprisingly, the little
light is much brighter than even my big Maglight. With it, I
easily find my way back and strap my equipment to the rack on the
ATV. The last glow of the sunset peaks over the top of the
power line right of way as I ease my bike into gear. Wanting
to get back home to my wife, I decide to cut through Arnold's back
gate rather than follow the trail back down the main road.
This saves me a mile and a half of travel, and as I approach his
shop I see his dog Lady waiting to greet me. She runs around
to the back of my four wheeler, hoping that there is a deer there
that she can smell. "What kind of hunter are you?" she
laughs, as she sees that the rack is empty. "Just wait till
next time," I respond, smiling as I scratch her head.
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I had to sign
on to work pretty early this morning, which also meant that I
would end my work day earlier than usual, so it was only natural
to spend the afternoon on a bowhunt. This early season archery
hunting can be pretty tough. The temperature was 90° this
afternoon when I left the house. That meant that it would be
stiflingly hot up in the cutovers of the lease, but at least it
was a chance to go hunting. When I got to Arnold's house, he was
smiling broadly, so I knew something was up. I soon found
out, as he told me about the hunt he had had the day before on his
own lease. While hunting a food plot, he had seen seven
bucks at one time, four of which were eight pointers. He
took the biggest of the lot, and is shown below holding his
antlers.
I stopped by Doug's house on the way into the woods to talk
about getting something planted in our big fields so that we would
be ready for rifle season. We made tentative plans to do
some planting on Tuesday of next week, after my scheduled morning
bowhunt.
After that, I headed up into the lease, wondering where in the
world to hunt. I checked one of the small fields that we had
planted a few weeks ago, and nothing was coming up yet.
Seeing lots of tracks in the field, I decided to hole up in some
of the large growth hedge that was around the edges of the field.
I made myself a little blind where I would have a decent shot at
anything in the fields, then sat back and began my long wait.
To my left, two hundred or more yards away, I had a clear view of
a large ridge, and I just knew that sooner or later I would
see deer on it. I was right; about a half hour before dark I
got a quick look at two fawns as they sprinted across the opening.
Nothing came into my field.
On the way out, while making the 2 mile four-wheeler ride back
to camp, I jumped another deer out on the dirt Walker Road.
A yearling, she jumped in and out of my way several times before
crashing away into the underbrush.
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4:00am comes
mighty early when you got to bed at 11:00pm the night before. My
truck was already packed, so all I had to do was shower, dress,
and get on the road, which I did in short order. Yesterday
afternoon I drove down to the lease and hung one of my climbing
stands on a tree so that I wouldn't have to deal with it this
morning. I chose to hunt down by the creek on our small, 30+ acre
tract.
I sat in silence, waiting, watching for a deer to appear.
None did. At one point I heard one blow at me as he came
from downwind, so all hopes of seeing that one were lost. I
heard another deer blowing about 300 yards away a little bit
later. Aside from that, the only excitement I had this
morning was when a bobcat briefly appeared about 40 yards from my
stand.
In the afternoon, I hunted on Arnold's ridge, where I shot my
first deer so many years ago. I always get at least one bow
hunt in this stand, and I usually see a deer from it, but this
year... nothing. Ted also saw nothing all day, nor did Doug.
A slow start to the season.
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Tomorrow is
it... opening day. And once again, I'm not ready. Again I've
barely had time to pause and think about the coming season. My
backpack contains a mixture of last year's deer and predator
gear. My hunting clothes haven't been aired out, and my new snake
boots haven't been broken in.
The only thing I've had time to do to get ready is to spend
about an hour each day for the last week practicing with my bow.
I can say that I'm pleased on that front... I'm hitting the target
right where I want to out to 30 yards.
At about 10:30pm tonight I finally sat down and went through my
backpack, removing bullets, rut scents, and the like. I
added in all of my bowhunting gear and changed the batteries in
three of my four flashlights with the sound of Eddie Reasoner
singing the Buckmasters theme in the background.
There's an interesting story behind that Eddie Reasoner song.
I've always loved the theme to the Buckmasters TV show.
It sums up the essence of deer hunting, and for many years I
wanted to get a copy of it on CD. One day I did a search on
the internet for any information about that song, and I found a
brief reference to the songwriter on an obscure message forum.
In fact, the songwriter himself was the one who had posted on this
forum. I got his email address from there and sent him a
note to see if the song was available on CD.
To my surprise, he replied and said that it actually was
available, along with several of his other outdoor TV show theme
songs. He gave me a phone number to call to order it.
A few days later I called the number, asked the man who answered
if this was where I could order the Eddie Reasoner CD, and to my
even further surprise he said "Yes, this is Eddie." I
told him how much I enjoyed that song, ordered my CD, and have
since played it every year just prior to the opening day.
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For various
reasons, we didn't get my muzzleloader sighted in last week, so
today it was time for a quick trip back to Leeds to do just that.
Results to come...
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The annual
trip down to the Leeds Rifle Range in the Sumter Nation Forest.
Ted and I head down here every year before deer season to sight in
the rifles. My 7mm mag was dead on for windage, but was shooting
about 1 inch low at 100 yards. It took about four shots to put it
right on the bullseye. Ted had recently free-floated the barrel
of his 7-mag, so we had to basically start from scratch on that
one. It took us a while, but we got it set up the way he
wanted it. We also worked on his muzzleloader until that was
grouping very nicely. We've switched from 180-grain sabot
bullets to 245 grain powerbelts. These seem to be much more
accurate with 100 grains of powder than the old bullets, so I
think we'll be really pleased with them.
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Ted had to
work today, so for the first time in many seasons, we ended up not
being able to hunt opening day together. Instead of going to
public land as we normally would, I decided to hunt over a couple
of the fields on our lease. Our deer food plots haven't started
coming up yet, and it turned out that the doves had nothing to eat
on our land, and I only got off a quick shot at one that happened
to pass over me. He was out of range anyway, but I tried... I
think next summer we'll take one of our deer plots and plant it
for dove sometime in late summer, then we'll hunt it hard on the
dove season opener. After that we can plow it under and
replant it for deer.
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For the last
couple of days I have felt like we might not have gotten our food
plots seeded as well as I would have liked, so after work today I
took a couple of hours and went back down to the lease. I put
some more seed mix in each of the three food plots that we made on
Saturday, and now I think they'll be perfect.
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Today we put in a fantastic day's worth
of work on our lease. We started the day off by putting together
a box blind that Ted has had stored in his garage for several
years. It came out looking great, and it now overlooks a new food
plot out in one of our cutovers.
After getting the box blind together,
we went over to repair a bridge that crosses a creek down on the
bottom part of our property. Did I say "repair"?
I should have said "rebuild". The old bridge was four wooden
pallets sitting on top of two cedar posts. The pallets had
rotted almost completely away, so much so that you could no longer
safely walk across the bridge. Ted brought four hard plastic
pallets, which we quickly installed, thus making the bridge safe
for many years worth of crossings.
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Next we met up with Doug Beaver, who
was busy cutting some trees down that were blocking the view from
one of our stands. We helped out for a few minutes on
this, then headed over to move a ladder stand that we had tried to
install previously, but it had turned out that all the trees in
that area were too small. We ended up moving it to a
nice pine tree overlooking a road running through the lease.
Once we had the stand up, we built a rail around the top, then
hung camouflage burlap from it to help hide the hunter.
After that, we moved on up to a
"loading dock" that the loggers had left, and we used three wooden
pallets and a piece of roofing material to build a blind
overlooking what would soon be a food plot on this loading dock.
It was finally lunch time, and we
were feeling pretty good about what we had already accomplished.
Doug had headed back home to get lunch, then he was going to get
Arnold's tractor and come disk up the new food plots at each of
the stands we had installed today. Ted and I sat back and
enjoyed our lunches and a nice break from the hard work.
We had one more stand to put up; a
ladder, which we installed looking out over one of our roads.
We decided next to spend a few
minutes sighting in one of Ted's rifles, but it turned out to be
just too hot to mess with it, so we gave up on that and agreed to
work on it another day.
Next, we decided to run to town to
get a few things, and to check with the taxidermist to see if the
pheasants that we had shot late last year were ready yet.
They weren't quite ready, but he said they should be done late
next week. We stopped and got a few blocks of "deer cane",
then picked up several bags of fertilizer and headed back to the
lease.
Once back on the lease, we swapped
our trucks for four wheelers, and loaded them up with fertilizer,
seed, and spreaders. As we started to head out to check on
Doug's disk work and get the stuff planted, we discovered that Ted
had locked his keys in the truck. We spent a bit of time
trying to break into it, which we finally were able to do, and off
we went.
The hard work began, as we spread
several hundred pounds of fertilizer by hand on our new food
plots. We got them planted with various seeds (mostly
clovers), and were both exhausted by the time we were done.
We also put a Deer Cane block near each of the food plots as an
added attractant. A nice four wheeler ride back to the
base camp at Arnold's house, and the day was over.
I want to head back in about ten days
and see if any of our seeds are peeking up yet... I might take a
half day from work and see if I can get that done soon.
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When I first
heard that Ted Nugent would be signing books at Borders up in
Charlotte, I wasn't sure if I'd go or not. I recently finished
reading
God, Guns, and Rock-n-Roll, which you can read about on my
Reading Journal (note: no longer in existence). On
Friday, I decided that yeah, I'd like to go meet him. I told
Micki that we may have a long wait to get to see him, but let's
give it a try. We ended up only having to wait for twenty to
thirty minutes before we got to the front of the line. On the
way, we picked up copies of
Kill it and Grill it, Ted and Shemane Nugent's cookbook,
along with Shemane's new book
Married to a Rock Star. Just prior to meeting the Nuge,
we got a chance to say hello to his oldest son Toby, then we
turned our attention back to Ted, as he was talking to the kid in
line in front of us. The kid, a teenager of about fourteen,
asked Ted for his autograph on a paper guitar that he was
carrying. Nugent said "Sure. You play the guitar?
You're going to stay away from drugs and alcohol, right? You
don't use them now do you?"
The teenager looked away as he replied, "No, I don't use them."
"Look me in the eye and tell me that, " Ted said. "If
you're on any of that crap, I won't sign this stuff."
The kid managed to do it, and Nugent signed his paper, but
shook his head as if he knew a different story as the kid walked
away.
Micki and I spent a minute or two with Ted as he signed our
books for us. We shook his hand, and he told Micki how
pretty she was. We thanked him for the stance he takes,
which I'll discuss in a minute, and we walked away.
I've struggled a little bit over where I stand in my opinion of
Ted Nugent. His message is straightforward. He's
pro-gun, pro-hunting, and is more active in conservation than
anyone you'll ever meet. He plants more trees in a year than
most tree huggers do in a lifetime. He's on the board of
directors of the NRA, speaks regularly at high school D.A.R.E
programs, is a special deputy sheriff in Michigan, runs an archery
camp for children, and is extremely vocal to politicians about the
right to keep and bear arms. He is anti-drug and
anti-alcohol. He is a man who stands up for what is right
and all that is good.
He's so far right that he makes Rush look liberal. Of
course, being pretty far right myself, I have to admire this.
Where then, is my problem? It's pretty simple, and I'm
quickly getting past it. It's in his language. I feel
like he uses way too much cussing in his speech... but if that's
his biggest problem, then I think I can get past it.
I admire him for the fact that he will say what he believes,
and will not give a feel good, no purpose apology for the
things he says. I can't tell you how much I hate how
politicians call for each other to step down when they offend
someone. What's the big deal about being offended? Nugent's
language offends me sometimes, but I'm not out there calling for
him to step down from his NRA directorship.
America, get your feelings off of your shoulders. Quit
crying every time someone says something you don't like.
Quit whining about being offended. Oh, did I offend you with
these remarks? Well, get over it.
Where do I stand on Ted Nugent? I love the man.
America needs Ted Nugent.
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