Deer Hunting 2010

130 Sierra GameKing Jacket just under the skin on the exit side. The lead core went on through.





Three sets of deer came by. All focused on my buck decoy. This buck crossed with a doe and stopped a little too long to display. It's the narrow-horned buck. very handsome animal. Fell in his tracks to one shot from the Ruger #1 7mm Mauser. Fell exactly where the big buck went down two years ago. Nice 3 1/2 year old. Two does and two fawns snorted at it from inside the woodline and then came out to investigate. Monday morning a little buck periscoped in and out of the tall grass but kept a distance. Then this buck crossed following a doe who bobbed her head at it for a minute or so.

Sorry he is gone. Always gives me the blues for a day or two after shooting a nice buck. Skull nearly boiled out and ready for the wall.

First deer of the year.

Bobcat hunting mice on the corn.


Eight point on the cam after Sneed and I had left the top of the hill.


Buck on the scrape.


Uneven little buck.


Coyote leaving a message for Lucie.

Dr. Sneed and I spent opening weekend hunting the lake. I put my plastic buck decoy out for the first time and rattled from my tree while Sneed sat in the corner. I rattled up something early but it spooked when I edged around the tree. We came in for lunch, carried batteries and corn and rattled across the creek then retired back to our morning spots. Sneed had coons behind him intermittently and then texted that there was a deer below him in the woods. Two minutes later he shot a nice little eight point. His 270 went through the shoulder blowing up the bone and ended up under the skin on the far waist side. He ran about 60 yards and fell. We sled-dogged him out and field dressed him in the carport of the lakehouse. Sneeds first buck.

I got to use a couple of my vintage knives. We took the head in to boil and left the body hanging with the skin on in the 40 degree weather. This morning we skipped hunting and hit Cafe Tazza with the redhead. About 10 we loaded up Lucie and skinned it out with a Queen City WWII fighting knife and quartered it. Lucie very excited to see the deer. I rolled up the skin with lots of lethargic deer ticks inside. The pup got to go for a long cam walk- her first real experience off grass and concrete. She picked up a stickerburr for a moment but she gets those behind Brady's coffee. She's a natural hunting dog.

I hunted this evening and had the four does snorting at my decoy right at sundown. Hope to be out again in the morning.

More Cam action:

It's all about the overhang.


A little bush action.


Calling for love!




You get a lot of this action.


Two does at lunch followed a frame later by the Narrow Horned buck.


A big baby who is wondering what is going on.


Wandering Bobcat


Corn-fed mouse. I'm also supporting many coons.


Coyote sniffing the scrape.

Daily Deercam.

Scrape action by the Narrow-horned buck. I'm still not convinced he is legally wide enough to shoot. Antlers must be wider than ears inside.


Young buck on the scrape.


Narrow Horned buck on the scrape.


Narrow Horned buck on a scrape in the pasture.


Little year and a half who has good genetics. He is just barely legal but too young to shoot for me. Hope he makes it through the season.

Scrapes open everywhere and the ground is covered in deep tracks of running deer. Looks like the rut is on. All four cams going. Haven't seen a deer I would consider shooting on cam yet, though I assume they are around.

Daily Deercam.

Doe and button buck at the cam across the creek.


This guy owned this scrape last year. He's a little bigger this year but so narrow I don't think he will ever be legal to shoot. Must look spectacular from the side.


Little buck beginning to wonder what is going on.

Got across the creek though it is still running strong after the rains. A fresh scrape on the way in.

Daily Deercam.

Nice 10 point wandering around.


We saw several nice bucks circling does on the drive back from Elgin.


Fresh scrape just off the trail but not a print anywhere else. Rains re-set all the dirt and signs.


Here he is at another cam 150 yards away, just a few minutes earlier.



Big rains over the weekend while I was at the Service Rifle Championship. We needed them but I couldn't get across the creek this morning to the cams over there. Maybe tomorrow.

Daily Deercam.

Bulky young buck with terrible antlers. Yug.




Wandering Bobcat.


Doe and yearlings.


Little 1 1/2 year old with nice genes. Going to be wondering whats going on in a bit.

Never had four cams all running at one time. Everything is live. Just barely two weeks to hunting season. No big bucks in evidence but lots of activity.

Bored does and bopping bucks.

Drowned cam came back to life with a fresh battery and three months to dry out. I had nearly tossed it. Still glitchy but it's back on the tree and overlooking some corn. Cam on the hillside has gone bad with verrrrrrrrrrrry slow reset times on the software. Others running fine. 158 photos of leaves moved by the wind on the newest.
Copperhead crossing the trail when I came back down. Hate to kill anything out of the ecosystem without a good reason, but I did.

Knives.

Nepalese patch knife from Queen Victoria's reign. Horn handle. This is the bad one. The Redhead snatched the good one.


Nepalese patch knife and a PAL RH-36.

We use a lot of knives cutting up deer. I've got several plus a couple of dads old big pocket knives. When you are butchering three or four does you can run through every fresh edge you have, so you better have several. In an Atlanta Cutlery catalog I saw 160 year old Nepalese patch knives, issued with every musket to cut patch. They were on sale so I bought a couple, thinking we might use them. No point in not using vintage knives for the enjoyment of history if we are going to be tooled up. From there I discovered trench knives on Ebay, and then WWII issued fighting knives. I knew about the M3 Trench knives issued with M1 Carbines but I knew nothing about the million fighting blades issued to troops during WWII. Old used ones are cheap if they have been sharpened, have pitted blades, et. I sat down and won four or five without ever breaking 20 bucks a blade, shipped. They are showing up like Christmas presents just in time to get edged and carried in the field. The Nepalese patch knives showed up today- never issued or sharpened, gummy with cosmoline, horn handled. Also a Westcut and a PAL RH 36. Beautiful old things. I hope we can get the rust off and the edges sharp enough to enjoy them up at Clarksville. I'm enjoying them already as objects d'art. If nothing else they make the most awesome paper weights and envelope openers ever.

Daily Deer Cam

Coyotes around as always.


I love these kind of photos. Little 1 1/2 year old buck, or part of him.


Doe standing where the coyote was. There wasn't a scrape to be seen but she knows where it's GOING to be...


Doe rubbing the overhanging licking branch. They are getting interested.


Nice little buck. Not shootable size but always glad to see the traffic. There isn't any discernable rub or scrape from this year but lots of traffic on cam.


Little spike. Good genes in this area so he will be better next year. Five different bucks on this cam.


Bigger buck. Might be the one that owned this scrape last year. Shootable.

Both cams up and running. Lots of prints but no rubs and no scrapes obvious. Nice to see little bucks around. I shot some engagement photos and was given a gift card to the local Academy. Going to add a cam to replace the one that drowned in the flood when the dam on the lake broke.

Deer cams, like anything in the private sector- computers, phones, lasic eye surgery, Toyotas, cameras, computers....getting better and better fast. Government stuff, like public schooling, bureacracies and law enforcement....failing. Why is this?

K22 Grips.

K22 Grips for less than 20 bucks, shipped.


Cheap, cheesy, plastic target grips for my Colt Python. They FEEL great. Everything on Ebay somewhere.

Ebay is a great thing. These correct target grips were in Canada. Low price due to the condition but heck, my pistol is pretty beat. Can't wait to shoot it. The fellow even included a Canadian dollar coin to show the Redhead.

Update: Every time I clean the K22 I get another big hunking swag of lint, dirt and oil out of some crevice, nook or dark hole. Still toothpicking around. A=Seems to get a little cleaner and smoother every time I shoot and clean it.