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Post by bullseye on Nov 15, 2012 14:50:59 GMT -5
Tonite we finish packing and head north a couple hours. Everything is pretty much ready to go. Our youngest daughter Beth, (33yo) is trying her luck deer hunting for the first time. We were up three weekends since early October getting primarily my stand fixed and cut one more shooting lane to the north. I could hear deer moving thru there last year but it was too thick to see them. I spent time enclosing my blind as when it was built it was pretty wide open and the wind whistled thru it pretty good. If it rained and was windy one would get wet. So tomorrow everything we need, or think we need, will be delivered to the blinds by the Gator. Guns go in Friday and stay until the end of the season. No one could find the blinds in the dark, much less find their way back out! All we need now is a cooperative buck to wander by sometime during the 9 days. I'm guessing the bear have not gone into hibernation yet so may see a few of those too! Here is home for the next 9 days during the day. Attachments:
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Post by deputydon on Nov 15, 2012 15:23:30 GMT -5
Hey that looks like a Redneck verson of my "Skybox" blind !!!! LOL LOL GOOD LUCK TO YOU GUYS !!!!!! May your coolers be full by the end of season.
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Post by jmarriott on Nov 15, 2012 15:51:49 GMT -5
I have to drive 15 minutes this year to hunt instead of 10. So I am looking forward to the new stand site myself. I wish you luck, I wish I had a blind like that.
Last year I shot a buck and doe with 20 minutes of shooting light within the season. This year the season starts 7 days later than last year. We have some good spots here but others hunt here also so we have to share. I normally pick the furthest away spots of the little places other overlook.. It has worked well in the past.
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Post by bullseye on Nov 15, 2012 16:19:18 GMT -5
Good luck to you jmarriott. We have hunted this 500 acres of cedar swamp for about 15 years. At times there were as many as 9 hunters during season. This year there will be 3, Deb, daughter Beth, and I. I walk about 3/4 mile to get to this but see no other hunters and all the deer seen are entirely natural movement. This is sometimes good and bad. It is so thick that visibility past about 10-15 yards is almost impossible so walking or even stalking is pretty much a lost cause. The best bet is to sit and wait.
While it would be nice to have a hunting spot close to home, the advantage of heading up north for a couple hours is this. If I was that close to home and not seeing any deer I might think I should be doing some kind of work at home. This way there is NO WAY that thought crossed my mind. We stay in the camper outside of our friends house. We eat dinner upstairs and have been part of their Thanksgiving dinner for as long as we have hunted there. We bring up a lot of food to share and enjoy the time with our friend!!!
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Post by Jack on Nov 15, 2012 17:15:16 GMT -5
Looks like a comfy stand. Good luck, Bullseye!
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Post by jmarriott on Nov 16, 2012 3:10:22 GMT -5
For 38 years this season my father and I have been deer hunting together. Longer than that if you consider hunting trying to follow an adult on a snowmobile trail in the dark carrying a bb gun and flashlight in upstate new york. We have never missed opening weekend or thanksgiving morning in all those years. When i started: seeing a deer in season was a good year, me with my 20 gauge bead sighted single shot with pumpkin ball slugs. Does were always spared. Now There are lots of them. I feel very blessed I have had this tradition with my dad.
One thankgiving morning a 3:30 am I was still in a bar (Only semi sober it had been a few hours since a drink) with a very cute girlfriend still managed to get laid, sober up. coffe and donut up and be at dads before 6 am. I never loaded the gun and slept a bit against a fence post but by god I was in the field. (She was well worth the rough morning and we lived together for over 10 years) A deer might have had to lick me in the face for me to have shot it.
Family farm land has been a blessing and knowing other farmers has always helped out.
Being in the electronics sector of the economy has it's advantages also when it comes to making in roads to new hunting areas. This new stand is on land next to my cousins little acerage that i got premisson to hunt on with a home theather system install. In cieling and in wall speakers and IR reciever back to a closet by the bar for the head end will have me hunting this little piece of land for years all at about 12 hours of labor time. Nice little funnel in a creek channel with cut and one standing corn field on each side. Several rubs within range.
Dad bough me my first and second deer guns. One a 20 guage single shot youth stevens at about 8 years old. The second my 870 wingmaster 12 guage. He always just used the auto-5 mom gave him for there first year of marrage. 3 years ago for fathers day I gave dad the first marlin 1894 44 mag I purchased for the first rifle season in Indiana. I had replaced it with my 1894 limited. Dad had 3 rotator cuff surgery and the 44 mag is easier on the shoulder than the 12 guage. It wears my ld redfield gold five star 1-4 scope and a vintage leather sling with the marlin logo that they used to sell to the public at 15 dollars each. Last year he shot his buck at over 125 yards offhand with that rifle. He said that he could not have made that shot with the auto-5. To me it felt like he must have felt when i shot that buck with the old 20 gauge.
So with that little message I also bid you farewell for several days, I hopefully will be back in touch with picutes of a succsessfull season. Even if it a a new picture of dad and I going afield.
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Post by deputydon on Nov 16, 2012 7:00:04 GMT -5
Hey jmarriott;
GOOD LUCK !!!!! Remember the taking of the deer is the icing on the cake!!!! We ALL love the icing myself included...... Hunting with my kids and being out "there" instead of an office is what it's relly about.... I tend to forget how blessed I have it.
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Post by bullseye on Nov 26, 2012 12:34:06 GMT -5
Well......it was a long time in the stand, 80 hours, to see 2 deer. Both of the deer were bucks. One opening day morning at 10:40am. It was a little spike buck and I watched him with the binocs for about 10 minutes until he walked into the brush. The second deer was a 4 pointer with 3 buds not quite an inch long at 4 pm on Monday, day 3. The boss, wife Debby, said we were hunting MEAT not ANTLERS this year. So down it went. The neat part is that for the first time since I have owned it, I shot it with the Savage Striker Pistol that formerly belonged to Don Goins. I bought it from Rosie following Don's death. The shot was 75 yards and went exactly where aimed. While the load Don had originally given me was too hot and too light, the one I worked up for the .243 performed flawlessly. 38.5 gr of 4350 and a 100 gr Speers boattail bullet took out the top half of the heart and also a 3" section of leg bone on the backside of the broadside deer. So while not a big one it was a special one. I stayed hunting the rest of the week hoping to see the dominant buck of the area. He was a nice 10 last year but we can't set up trail cams...the bears like to destroy them. It snowed Saturday night and there in front of my blind when I came to clean it out, in the 2" of snow, was his track. So I know he is still there and maybe we will cross paths next year.  Beth managed to bag a doe in her first year of hunting. A darn nice headon neck shot at 60 yards with the .44 carbine. |
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Post by Bill on Nov 27, 2012 8:33:50 GMT -5
Sounds like a good season for you Bullseye. Now the works starts. Its always fun up to the time you get one. Good to hear your daughter got her's too.
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Post by dovehunter on Nov 27, 2012 12:14:50 GMT -5
...Its always fun up to the time you get one... I know that feeling! Nowadays I usually hunt by myself and, at 66, it's getting to the point where I can no longer drag one out of the woods for a 1/4 mile back to the truck. I've got my big game license and am waiting for my son to be off to go with me. With two of us, the drag is not that big of a problem. Now on the other hand, if I see a turkey while I am by myself that's a whole different ball game. |
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Post by Bill on Nov 28, 2012 8:55:04 GMT -5
;D ;D Thats why I bought a game cart DH. Sure makes it easier. Unless your in heavy brush that is. Then its a nightmare no matter what you do. I remember some of those deer my family shot to the north of Dep-Don's that we used long ropes and 4WD pickups to pull the deer up and out of. Couldn't even stand it was so steep and a person had to hang onto the rope and crawl and drag all at the same time.  Anymore I am a lot more careful of where I shoot them.  |
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Post by bullseye on Nov 28, 2012 14:05:32 GMT -5
I don't have it that bad. My stand is 3/4 mile back in the swamp BUT there is a Gator trail right to my stand. I had about 120 yard drag thru some uneven and wet terrain but I took my time. Deb came with the Gator but I would not let her help me. She had a couple of bouts with poison sumac in the area of my stand so I told her to just sit tight by the Gator. While she helped me skin and quarter both deer, I would not let her touch the hair on the buck I shot. She got it the second time from the fur on the dogs that I had back with me by my stand. If I had to drag it all the way back I probably wouldn't hunt in that stand. The trails Jim and Helen build on their property and the John Deere Gator sure make that possible. |
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Post by jabba on Nov 29, 2012 7:39:26 GMT -5
Wow. I consider a 3/4 mile drag sort of an easy one.
We hunt in a BIG pack though, so there is usually help available. And there is usually not TERRIBLE terrain to deal with. Where I hunt there are a lot of 400' elevation changes, but nothing like out west.
Most places I hunt, I can't get the quad to. But my buddy built a REAL nice aluminum deer cart this year, so if a drag looks TERRIBLE, I can always walk out, get the buggy and help, and come back for him.
It's been a slow season for me so far. I usually have deer by now. I have passed on a few, missed one, and had my muzzle loader go CLANK instead of BOOM too. Totally my fault as I did not have the primer seated properly on the nipple.
We still have 4 more weekends to hunt, plus a 10 day doe only season after Christmas.
I'll still get some meat.
Jabba
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Post by deputydon on Nov 29, 2012 12:11:26 GMT -5
Wow. I consider a 3/4 mile drag sort of an easy one. We hunt in a BIG pack though, so there is usually help available. And there is usually not TERRIBLE terrain to deal with. Where I hunt there are a lot of 400' elevation changes, but nothing like out west. Most places I hunt, I can't get the quad to. But my buddy built a REAL nice aluminum deer cart this year, so if a drag looks TERRIBLE, I can always walk out, get the buggy and help, and come back for him. It's been a slow season for me so far. I usually have deer by now. I have passed on a few, missed one, and had my muzzle loader go CLANK instead of BOOM too. Totally my fault as I did not have the primer seated properly on the nipple. We still have 4 more weekends to hunt, plus a 10 day doe only season after Christmas. I'll still get some meat. Jabba Good Luck Jabba !!! |
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Anymore I am a lot more careful of where I shoot them. 
