Deer Day 12 - Opening Day of Shotgun - Sat 15 NOV

First off, to all of my loyal followers, I apologize for the delay in updating our progress this week.  It's been busy.  So here you go....a week's worth of updates.....enjoy.....

For those of you in the know, Opening Day for Shotgun is like Christmas to Hunters.  In some states it's actually a holiday - because so many people are going to miss work and school that it just makes sense to call everything off.  Here in Indiana, we don't get the day off because Opening Day falls on a Saturday.

So, on this Saturday, 15 NOV 2014, Nick, Kathy, Alex, and I met RePhil at the golf course at 6:20 am.  It was cold, like 19F.  RePhil walked to Jenkins, Alex sat on #15, Nick took the bottoms on #16, Kathy sat on #4, and I originally thought I would sit on #18, but Nick suggested I overwatch #5 - so I did.

Kathy fired first at a buck that was crossing S at 7:20 am.  It never stopped and she got buck fever.  She called it a 6-point, but later said it was HUGE.  The buck was dancing in her scope due to the adrenaline rush.  Clean miss, and the buck continued S, off property.  Now I'm not afraid to admit that this shot woke me right up.  It's all nice and quiet, calm, nothing is happening, and BOOM.  Yeah, I'm awake now.

Kathy texted that she missed.  But I heard a very loud thump, thump, thump coming through the woods.  My best guess is that it's the buck Kathy just shot at, wounded, and it's coming to me.  I thought this because deer are not usually that loud in the woods unless they are injured.  A HUGE buck come across my path at 40 yards.  I attempted (please note the verb) to cock my muzzle loader.  No go.  It was not fully closed (Encore).  I had to open it, close it, and cock.  I got to the close bit before the buck spun and wheeled off to the E.  The sound was too loud.  No shot taken.  My bad.

Next shot fired was RePhil.  Said he shot a large doe at about 8:30 am.  Turns out he shot a small spike buck, but the antlers were so small (shorter than his ears) that Phil did not see them.  Phil turned it in as antlerless.

As Phil and Alex walked out, they jumped 4 doe and sent them toward Nick.  Nick fired and missed, as these deer had no intent on stopping.

All in all, we saw 7 deer that morning, missed 2, misfired on one, and got one down.  Not the best success rate.

Upon cleaning RePhil's deer, we were joined by Apollo.  He was imitating the deer.
And yes, unfortunately, RePhil gut shot the deer.  It was stinky.  I almost puked.

We went back out Saturday night, but no shots taken.

NOTE:  Graphic Picture Follows.  Not for the faint of heart.  Scroll down only if you can take it.









Cleaning RePhil's deer and Apollo matches its pose.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil.  All of that bakes in the son
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down into a channel in the housing."  Bam. 
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The two little "
Read more