Hunt Day 13 - Saturday 12 DEC

Okay, so we took a long break from hunting.  First off, we had to as there is a week of no gun hunting in Indiana.  Secondly, we spent 12 days in Cancun on the beach.  Sorry, have to keep Mama happy too!

We returned to 67 degree weather.  Tough for deer to move in the daylight when it's that warm.  We are now in the Muzzle Loading deer season here in Indiana.

Our initial plan was for Alex to hunt on Vice along the creek.  Nick would sit the killing finger in Marshall and I would hunt the bottoms.  As we dropped Alex off, the Colonel was out on his 4-wheeler.  He was heading off to check his trap line.  He also told us that 4 doe were on the E side of the property (where we do not have his permission to hunt).  We call an audible.

Alex goes to the E stand on Neal, Nick to the finger, and me in the bottoms.  Here is the shot as we are walking in at 4 pm on 12-12-15 and it's 67 F.


As I stroll N, one doe comes along the creek on the E side (not where we can hunt).  She walks to me, spooks, runs across the field E, up the ridge and is gone.  That's the only deer any of us will see.  I speculate that the Colonel scared her my way. 

I continue along the creek.  Took a few nice photos.  Easy day for a walk.  Should have been wearing shorts and my hunter's orange tank top.

Walking N along the creek on Marshall's N farm.  12-12-15.
Notice how green everything still is?


Walking along the creek on Marshall's bottoms.  Wonderful mid-west scenery.

We head back to the truck for some liquid refreshments.  Even though legal shooting light is up to 5:50 pm, we are already in the truck by 5:40 pm.  That's dark enough, especially if you are in the woods.  Too dark for us to feel comfortable shooting anyway.

Any night in the woods is a good night.  Seeing deer just makes it great!

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