Buck skinning video up at Youtube.

  Just put the video up.  Starts with buck down in the field and goes through skinning.  Skull boiling process coming up.

Update:  Skull boiling up.  Learn to boil your own skull for a nice museum quality wall mount.  Cheap.

  I know it's kind of graphic but just be thankful I'm not making sex instruction videos.

Daily Deercam

  Nothing left but a mass of acorns and mast.  Not a drop of blood or a twist of flesh.  A black vulture was overhead as I dragged him out and the rain erased the rest.  I took an acorn as a token.  Scrapes hadn't been worked but had fresh footprints in them.

  When a big deer, especially a large buck with a territory he is defining and defending, disappears then the whole herd has to adjust.  The little bucks will still slink around nervously, the does watch the four corners of the compass and his rivals will wonder where he is.  Things will shift and some other buck will pick up any slack.  I imagine most of the area does are bred by now.  He wasn't the only big buck in the area but he had to be reckoned with.  Big 10 and the buck I was hunting are here somewhere close.

  He was on cam.  24 files running up to 8:52am.  I shot him a minute or two before nine.  I'm not quite ready to hang up my aplenflage and go play vintage rifle with Alan's does in Clarksville but the buck hunting is over.

  Typical human psyche:  Hunt 'em.  Kill 'em.  Then mourn them.

  Across the creek: a coyote, the bent-horn buck, (who will be better next year) and a 1 1/2 year old three-pointer.  Rolled up my camo and went across barefoot to keep from having wet feet.  Barefoot boy with cheek of tan.  November in Texas.  Gorgeous woods.  Carried the AR in case I chanced across a coyote.  The rushing creek was saying something but I couldn't quite make out the words.

Left Handed

  Just occurred to me that I shot this deer left handed.  The branch I was sitting on only allows for left hand shots to his position.  I practice a bit both ways but hadn't thought about it before.  I do notice: THIS would be a left-handed shot.  THAT would be a right handed shot.   The rifle is in my lap while hunting bucks.  Does: more relaxed.   You don't get a lot of reaching time when a buck shows.  

Update: In comments in the debate about the best tactical training I always say:  Hunt deer.  Kill something.  Then talk to me about SOB vs inside-the-pants.  Jim Cirillo, the NYPD stakeout and shootout specialist said he picked his guys on three criteria:  Shoot competition.  Reload ammo.  Hunt big game. 

Update:  Here's the link to Amazon and Cirillo's first book.  I'd never shoot another human being but if you are of the defensive mindset it's good to know how from someone who did it a LOT.  Cirillo probably shot more people in face-to-face gunfights than anyone else in American history.

Update III: Still shaking my head over how anyone ever survives being shot.  I've killed 10 deer the last two years and been in on the shooting of another 10.  All single shot kills.  Shoot above the diaphram no matter what the caliber or jacket and it's over.

Project done.

  Nice deer, boiled to the essence.

  Gluing the jaw together.  Added glue along the front teeth to hold them.

  On the wall drying.  Jaw and teeth glued in.  Took about 24 hours of simmering in the pasta pot.  Worked with knife, toothpicks and toothbrush to get all the little pieces out.  It makes a more scientific mount than a head with skin.  

Update:  17 1/4 inside spread.

Owens Archive Shopping

  These guys are probably getting rich off of public sector photos, but more power to them.  I'm having fun just perusing their files.  If you don't like trains or WWII, the th Civil War or Aviation, or how about a Bardot photo when she was 18?  Hard to beat.  I'm Christmas shopping.

  Of course, people are going to get what I like...

Happy Thanksgiving

  Here's hoping for the best for the Nation in the coming year and giving thanks for the many blessings of the year gone past.

Media Face

  Submitting a photo for the local newspaper, but I'm switching rifles to my AR.

  Update:  Or maybe not.  Photograph doesn't have it.

Man Cooking

  Hate to leave this out.  Going to make a video of boiling down a deer head.  Cheaper and nicer than a mount or a skullcap cut.

Deerhalla

  Big body deer.  Probably over 200 on the hoof.

  He was full in the Rut.  Big mature eight point with bark in his horns and pee stains down the back of both legs.  Stanky.  Looking for love.  King of the hill. 

  Now he's dead and in Deerhalla.  Vultures are digesting his guts and Mexicans at the processor are cutting his parts into parts.  I'm boiling his head and the Kid went over and washed the last bloodstains off the neighbors driveway where we skinned him out.  Surviving lice and ticks are trying to figure out what the heck happened in a plastic sack in the bottom of a dumpster.

  On the kitchen counter: a twisted jacket from a Sierra Gameking.

Big Buck Blues

  Sons of Bitches.  In fact, DOUBLE sons or double bitches, whichever is worse.

  Doe and a yearling fawn came through...together, so I figured the rut is winding down, as it should be.  I was watching from the tree and things were very quiet after the pair came through at 7:30.  (I'd have missed them if I hadn't been looking at the spot where they came out.  Funny how that works sometimes.)  Was just about to unbranch my butt at 9:00 when I looked across and saw an enormous buck at the far scrape standing on his back feet sniffing the licking branch.

  

  There isn't much time with big bucks.  You have to get on the gun RFN.  I got on the gun and watched him dig out an old scrape.  He wasn't Big Ten.  He wasn't the buck I passed on.  I could tell he was big but he didn't look like the huge buck on last nights post.  He got antsy on his feet like he was leaving.  Decision time.

  So I shot him.  Down in his tracks, kicked a couple of times and that was it.  130 Sierra Gameking out of the Ruger #1 7X57.  130 yards or so offhand and offbranch.  Had the scope dialed back to about 6X.  Some buck I had never seen, never cam-ed.  I probably have him from last year.  

  Up close he looked bigger.  I did a quick field dress and started dragging.  Tough stuff but kept doing the next little thing and the next little thing and slowly things got done.  Hard to get photos by yourself.  Hard to field dress on the ground.  Hard to get back to the road.  Hard to get in the 4-runner.   Nobody around to help.

  Drove him around a bit to show off but the right folks weren't available to really get some jealousy going.  (Called Joe to brag and he was in Nachitoches.)  Hung him up across the street at Mary Burtons and weighed him.  160, field dressed.  Dayum.  That's big.  Must have gone a bit over 200 on the hoof.  Probably a 4 1/2 year old.  Have to have Alan take a look at the jaw teeth.  The Kid came over and helped and we found the jacket from the Gameking under the skin on the far side.  Just enough juice.

  Meat at the processor for Major Terrell.  (OK, he appreciated him)   4 1/2 hours from trigger break to butcher.   Hide rolled up and tossed in the dumpster.  Head boiling down to bone on the stove.

  The big one is still out there, but it's a one buck county.  I don't take a buck every year so he's safe from me for a couple of years.  Glad I have the deercams so I can still play even if I don't score.

Update:  Dad would be happy.

Update II:  Nothing like having your own Kid around.  He got the cooler out of the back yard.  He hauled the rifles in.  He climbed the trellis to hand the scales.  He videoed.  He took the scales down and cleaned the cooler.  Swapped knives as they went dull.  Did everything.  Everyone ought to have a neighborhood Kid.

Update II:  17 1/4 inside spread. 

Buck and Bigger Buck

  I've been hunting and willing to shoot the deer facing right.  The buck who showed up on cam is probably the one Sneed and I saw...and is a bigger animal.

  Glad I passed on the 8-point earlier.  I like big deer.

Daily Deercam

  I think he would go about 140 B & C.

  Notice the blood on the antler.

  Not camera shy.  Most of the big ones are.  I haven't seen Big Ten except with my own eyes this year, not on camera at all.  He's in the area along with another big buck I have been hunting.

  This is the 8-point I passed on.

  Instead of being a lazy bum I should have been checking my deercam.  Still fighting and the major scrapes are being worked while all the smaller ones are abandoned.  Notice the blood on his left photo side antler.

  I know this deer from a few years back.  He's slightly bigger than the biggest I have ever shot.

  There is so much blood on the back two tines on the 17th that I wonder if there is another dead buck somewhere close.  Looks like a deep puncture with both tines.