Success!!!

At Last Food For The Family!

To say this has been a crazy hunting season would be an understatement. Basically my first full hunting season without my mentor. I have been doing my best to hunt when and where I can but for the most part I have been coming up empty.

I have found a new friend and hunting companion in a man we call Doc. Doc has a bunch of land with a bunch of stands and a bunch of deer! Doc is a hunter! He has hunted most everywhere on the planet and has trophy upon trophy. Big game and exotic, he is an accomplished hunter and has taken several very large deer off of the land he lets me hunt with him.

Just last week I had a chance to hunt with little hunting buddy. It was the first time that she was going to be able to use her new Savage 25.06 rifle. We planned an afternoon hunt. We got up in a stand about 3:15pm and settled in. My only hope for the hunt was to at least see some deer even if they did not come into range, this is something that she had never experienced, seeing deer while hunting. At about 3:30 we heard a shot from a stand to our southeast. A welcome sound to tell us the deer were out and moving around.

Around 4:15 or so I hear "daddy, daddy, daddy! I see something small on the edge of the woods." I was looking forward over an area that looked like prime bedding area hoping something would stand up. But she saw her first deer while hunting! It was a good day! It was a fawn. We watched for a moment or two then I hear. "Daddy, daddy, daddy! I see another one!" It just keeps getting better! It was momma deer. We watched her for a few moments and discussed when she should take the shot. Momma deer gets into position..... Little hunting buddy gets into position....

BOOM!

Momma deer acts hit and heads into the woods where she came from. What excitement hits the stand! I can't describe it it is one you need to experience. So we celebrate a little then settle down after all there is plenty of shooting light left and I haven't pulled the trigger. In a very brief time I here crunching in the leaves behind us so does Little Hunting Buddy. I turn and see another doe coming in behind us. Unfortunately neither one of us can turn around to make the shot. 3 deer seen one shot at! What a great day. Wait what's that across the way? Rifle up scope set yes another deer maybe 175yds away moving through a field...into the woods..awww no chance at a shot. But that makes 4 deer! After about 45 minutes we get down and find some blood. As you know by now I am not the best tracker on the planet so....let's get the dog! Yes there is a dog that can find deer on the property

After a short time of looking Doc with the dog us with another awesome hunter it is over. We are following a great blood trail but Doc and the dog are on a scent trail and he hollers out "got it, hey that's a great doe!" She turned to me at those words and the joy in her face was something I wish everyone could experience. Here an accomplished big game hunter calls all for all to hear "great doe" in recognition of my 16 year-old's first deer ever! It doesn't get any better than this!

Possibly the Worst Hunter Ever

THAT'S RIGHT YOU READ IT HERE: WORST HUNTER EVER STRIKES AGAIN!

It's with a sad heart that I write this entry today. While this morning started out wonderfully enough things change as time progressed. I took the opportunity to go rifle hunting in the big woods this morning. Hoping that I could harvest a deer and be home by lunch and go to work for the later half of the day.

I programmed the coffee pot, my wife prepared my clothes and I packed my lunch last night so I could hit the ground running this morning. Coffee brewed, alarm clock rang. I was up, ate breakfast and on the road by 5:24am. I was going by myself so there was no need to hurry. I had planned on using my good friend's sweet spot, (he has taken 8 deer out of that spot). I pulled up to the gate and no one else was there I had the whole woods to myself. It was still a bit dark but by the time I got everything situated the sun started rising. It is about a mile to the sweet spot from the gate so when I got down there I could see without my headlamp. I stowed my deer hauler and went to find "the spot". I missed it. But I found a spot that was sort of open and set up my stool. I was next to a brook so hearing anything was out of the question. I had a good view across the brook and up and down my side of it so I felt good about things. Then I started questioning myself and my spot. Then I reassured myself that I was good. I had some decent woods behind me so I tried to check there every now and again. Which was a wise thing. I happened to look back and saw a buck coming my way. He was digging his nose in the ground as he came so I had a chance to get up and turn around without him seeing me. I found him in my rifle sight, he lifted his head and BOOM!!!! He jumped and did a kick like a rodeo horse! Then he staggered around a little while. I thought about shooting him again. (note to self shoot 2x if needed) He got behind a big try and I could see him swaying back and forth, back and forth he looked like he was going to fall over any second.....Then he gets a second breath and bounds off boing, boing, boing.............

So I 'm thinking AWESOME I FINALLY SMOKED A BUCK!!!!!! I take my time gathering stuff together. Not too much. He did not fall over so I was thinking I may have to put another bullet in him. I go to where he was standing..Blood! Yeah! I follow as far as it goes, basically to his bounding spot. I see some footprints ahead but no blood..... Long story short! For over three hours I roam the woods making half circles out from the last blood spot, busting through thickets and underbrush, every once in awhile I smell the musky, wet dog smell that deer have and it turns out to be a scrape. Then another scrape more foot prints, no blood.

I finally had to give-up. I was so discouraged I felt like crying. We see deer on the side of the road all the time and feel no remorse but I inflicted a mortal wound and was unable to harvest the bounty of the hunt! It is an interesting emotional whirlwind.

So, yes, I am officially the worst hunter ever! It surprises me how much I enjoy hunting even though I have little to no return on investment. I spend hours and dollars on an activity that can bring dividends. Other activities like golf, you invest time and money and there is no reward. Sure your skills get better but unless you go pro there is only time and money spent. At least with hunting the reward of a harvested animal puts food on the table. Yet, alas, I am no good; if this were another activity and I failed this miserably I would hang it up and move on, yet...I am looking forward to this weekend and going out again..To The Hunt!

ANT MAN

YEAH IT"S SOMETHING TO MARVEL ABOUT

Time is slipping by for primitive weapons season, only a few more days until the start of rifle season here and I still have not let an arrow fly on a deer!

Fortunately I have been allowed to hunt on a 1000 acre plantation this year, which is a good thing since the other area has been sold! This new area is awesome the owner has several stands set up around the farm but doesn't always use them. Case in point: last night, (my first time there) the owner was unable to meet me to show me around so he guided me, via cellphone,to a stand that is under an oak that he saw a big doe at the night before. After driving there (1 hr 20) I find the stand right where he said it would be. Let me back up just a little during my drive through areas I have never been before I see 3 deer on the side of the road one a young buck , so it is obvious this area has deer to spare.

Anyway I get to the stand, nothing special 15' ladder stand, it has a piece of camo material wrapped around for concealment. So I climb up and see there are 2 foam seats which is nice it is a "buddy" stand. In between the two cushions there is a pile of leaves and some ants on the seats. No biggie, I wipe the ants from the seats and reach in and grab a handful of leaves to start clearing them away, did I mention there were ants?! Good. Well not too good....who knew fire ants would make a home out of a bunch of leaves fifteen feet in the air!!!! Not me! Fortunately I had gloves on so I only suffered a couple hundred bites rather than thousands! Needless to say it did not take long to figure out a different way to clean out the ants. All I had was an arrow! But it worked I got all the leaves and debris out of the stand and threw the seat cushions to the ground. Then after a heavy dousing of Dead down wind evolve 3d scent killer most of the ants were either dead or leaving quickly. But I still have plenty crawling on my gloves and shirt. Thankfully it was still early and all the noise and motion wasn't scaring the deer off. I finally settle in I was able to use my brandy new range finder and ranged a few landmarks 22yds, 27yds, 29yds feeling good, feeling confident, but I wasn't about to sit and lean back against the tree still too many ants.

Not sure if you've ever gotten into a mess of fire ants but for me they always tend to go under my watch band and bite. Or in this case under the strap of my release. So now I sit here typing this feeling the bites on both wrists!

Back to the hunt.....I wound up standing on the seat of the stand which worked out good it got my bow above the rifle rest/shooting rail and the seat area was actually larger than the floor section so I could turn easier.

My host said that he saw a 150# doe the evening before right at dark under the big oak. I am ready....I am waiting.....Just as the sun settles past the treetops...BOOM....off goes a muzzle loader in the distance. Awesome!..deer are moving! Boom goes another I am feeling good! Sun keeps dropping no deer, sun drops some more..no deer..then I hear something I have only heard people do on video..a grunt! Man how cool is that, mind you it is in the woods behind me I am pinned against the tree and my grunt call is in my zippered shut backpack. I was settled in but not quite set up as normal to have access to all my items there were no hooks in the tree and I did not have any on hand...(insert sad face). So I waited and listened another grunt..then another..wait that last one was my stomach growling. Sun drops some more no deer, I see donkeys up the hill though. Finally at exactly 7:30pm out pops a doe. There is some light left but not much, she is too far away and facing in such a way that there is no shot. She moves closer, she is at a fence post that I have ranged at 25yds!!!! It is so dark now that when she turns her head I can't tell if she is looking at me or away. I think about raising my bow...its now or never my red sight pin isn't even glowing its so dark (yep that is my 25yd pin). I'm ready, I'm gonna do it, nope says she....snort, wheeeze, hop, bound and she gone! Maybe next time! In a few days I will have the Marlin .30/.30 lever action with me and that too far for bow shot will be a plink.

A beautiful day none the less. I started out hunting my stand in 55 degree weather in the morning and ended at a great farm with lots of possibilities. I even went to work for a couple of hours in the midst of it all.

A Success story!

So yesterday was the season opener for Bow hunting in my zone! I wanted to be out all day but due to a conflict with the people that pay me....I had to attend a midday meeting so I did not get into the field until around 2pm. I sat there until dark and saw nothing. (insert sad face) But I think I may have the beginnings of a new song about hunting, more on that when I get it done!

But as they say even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.

I totally forgot to write about TURKEY SEASON.  I got a new camo rain suit from Cabela's for $14.99 with mega sale, clearance and Cabela bucks it was a great find and well worth it. My first turkey hunt it rained on me but I stayed dry, at least from the outside. That seems to be the problem with rainsuits they keep the rain out but act like a sauna on the inside! Anyway I went down to the WMA and came up empty actually even lost my mouth call somehow! But it was a decent day I picked up credits for 300 clay birds at the shooting range, now that's a cool story too! I also saw some turkeys while driving so it wasn't a total bust. The next Saturday the family went up to Rock Hill for a youth area wide devotional/retreat so I had the morning to hunt and then hightail it up there for the evening.
I went back to the WMA where we were accosted by green pants back in beaver season, there is a nice little field not to far in that I had seen some turkeys at while hunting with my Bama Buddy! So I thought I would set up there and see how my luck would do. When I pulled up to the gate there were 3 guys with rifles (?!) getting out of a truck. I asked what they were going for and turns out they were hog hunting...(not rifle bearing season but I did not say anything to them). They said they were headed to the end of the trail near the river, I was only going about 400yds in so it was all good. They headed out and I got ready. It was raining again...but I brought my pop-up blind this time! Set it up on the top end of the field, set out my decoys and hit the slate!

Here's the view from inside my blind.

those are my decoys

Gobblers came from the right side

 Then the rain came, it came down, down, down in rushing rising rivlets...man was I glad for the pop-up blind. Me and all my gear stayed dry! I did not think it was ever going to stop raining so I pulled out my smartphone to check the radar and no sooner than I do that I see motion at the far end of the field. I could not tell if it was turkey hens coyotes or what. Then I saw the grey heads. It is a little bit of a hill so I could only see the tops. I was thinking cool if they are hens gobblers won't be far behind. then they made their way up and towards me. It weren't hens! A group of gobblers! Then they saw my decoys and they got excited grey heads started turning red all 4 of them getting all worked up! It was cool. They started heading towards the dekes so I laid my 16 gauge Remington model 1148 up on the rail, put the bead on the head of the biggest of the bunch. who was also out in front and BOOM! he drops, DRT (dead right there) the other three start gobbling. Then two of them pounce on my bird and start digging out his tail feathers. So I am watching all this amazed at their actions and the third bird starts moving away. Then it hits my...I can shoot 2 a day....I was worried that if I aimed at the two thugs beating on the down bird I would hit them both so I aim at the third, he is already moving farther away, maybe too far for the old 16ga BOOM-gobble gobble, BOOM-gobble gobble, BOOM-gobble gobble. It was humorous that the gobble after every shot. I think the third shot may have bounced of his back because he took off flying into the woods. I ran after him into the woods but couldn't find him anywhere so I think it was too far for the pellets to do any damage. But hey I got my first ever bird!

Not a limb hanger or any record but a gobbler nonetheless.

Play Robin To The Rescue online for Free - POG.COM

Play Robin To The Rescue online for Free - POG.COM

This game is hilarious! You have to try it!

Wow! It's Been that long!

I can't believe it's been a year since my last post! Good thing I don't have followers or they may be disappointed!

So much has happened since my last post...alot has gone on in my personal life but we won't speak of that! Let's get "to the hunt".

To sum things up, I lost my sweet little farm land when my friend moved to Texas. That stinks in more ways than one. So we had to try to find another spot. A gentleman from church hooked me up with his grandson to hunt about 30 acres with a huge soybean field taking up much of that.

What a story we have here...so I meet the grandson (20ish) and he seems to be an avid hunter, he seems to have a clue and he has been working this property for a couple months trying to get ready for deer season. So we come to an agreement I give him $50 and he'll get a couple 55 gallon drums of corn from a relative. Fair enough I think. He is set up on what is the 'sweeter' area of the land and I am in a smaller area that looks ok. He has cameras all around and has seen several big bucks and is convinced that there are 2 buck that look similar but, he does not want the bigger one shot (apparently he is a budding land/herd manager). I only see one big buck on my camera! Then he proceeds to tell me to age the deer on the hoof and don't shoot anything under 3 years old! (Insert confused look.) I agree....somewhat...
So all is well I am getting good pictures of deer, several bucks coming in and so on. I have my stand on the edge of the woods looking over the soybeans with about a 20 yard swath of grasses between the woods edge and the beans. I bait it heavily with corn and the deer come.

See that guy in the center? Makes your heart skip a beat doesn't it? 

The deer come alright they come at night, early in the morning.... just not during the day when I am there! Well not in the field at least. I was sitting in my stand one afternoon and heard noise behind me the woods are crawling with deer but I am faced the wrong way and slightly out of bow range. 

Fortunately I had an old, rickety, homemade ladder stand to set in the woods. I got that stand up, sort of strapped in and I was got to go. Or so I thought...I climbed up in it and it wasn't quite as stable as I had hoped. No sooner than I got in it I saw movement coming my way. Sure enough an old saddle-backed buck with broken antlers comes up with a yearling buck in tow. They lead deer nearly bumped into the ladder that I was on! But because the stand was so unstable I felt like I was gonna fall out if I drew my bow! 

Hall Pass for those two. 

Because of the unsteady stand I used the bean stand until I could bring out tools to fix the it. 

Remember the big guy up above? I had him at 17yds broadside from the bean stand! And I passed because of the grandson! I texted him and told him I passed on it and he said it would be worth it! Worth it!???!!! ....That was the biggest buck I have ever had an opportunity to arrow and I passed! It better be worth it! Later that day he checked his camera and sent me a picture of the buck I passed on and he says "oh you could have shot him"!!!!!(insert angry face with hands out to choke someone). 

Wait it gets better. Grandpa shows me a picture of grandson's deer that he shot. Grandson thought it was a doe...until they retrieved it and it was a spike buck with 4" antlers! He thought it was a doe! I'm supposed to age them on the hoof and he shoots a spike because he thought it was a doe!!!!

Wait there's more. I talk to his younger brother and he tells me that he went to the field to check cameras and saw a big buck in the field in the beam of his flashlight while walking down there, so he goes back to the truck to get his bow. He shines the deer, sets down his light, shoots an arrow, then shines his light back, sees that he misses and tries again! 

And here's me passing on the biggest buck of my hunting career! I got one brother telling me to age them on the hoof while he shoots a yearling buck thinking it's a doe and his brother is attempting to poach deer at night!

All in all I passed on 6 deer out there last season.

Not this year! 26 of the 30 acres has been sold this season and guess who is on the last four that did not get sold? ME! that's right! I have the legal area! (do a little dance). 

So we moved the stand off the field back into the woods, I cleared a small spot, and planted a miniature food plot,

And we hung an automatic feeder a little ways off. Hopefully we have created a staging area and I will be able to arrow some venison this year! I will try to put up some trail cam pics soon.