Deer Firearms - Evening Day 2 Sunday 19 NOV 2017

Kathy has joined me and RePhil at the golf course.  We meet up at 3:30 pm and head out.  It's 32F and the wind is still blowing at 15 mph.

Kathy heads to Hole #4's tee box - a location that gets her out of the wind.  RePhil heads E to Jenkins.  I take up a spot to the far N along Hole #14.

We sit for 2 hours, not seeing much.  Then, I spot a yearling running in the woods to the N.  This is not property we have permission to hunt, so I do not get too excited.  She finally works her way S and pops out around #14's green, 150 yards E of me.  I have less than 2 seconds before she is gone again.  Then three doe come running from the N.  They cross and stop at the same spot the yearling was standing @ 150 yards.

Note that I have stated 150 yards twice.  I know the distance.  But what do I do?  I get excited and put the crosshairs directly on a big doe.  And then I yank the trigger.  What am I, a rookie at this?  No, just happy to have deer in range and hopefully in the freezer.  It was not to be.  All I hit was paper airplane fuel (that's "air" for you non-MENSA members).  They all run back to the N.

In the meantime, RePhil has a HUGE deer heading E.  While he can see the large body, he cannot see any antlers through the woods.  It didn't matter anyways as it was across the creek on property we cannot hunt.

After we call it a day due to lack of light, Kathy admits that the one deer she saw came running in from Sigler's on the S.  It looked like it was heading NE or out of her range.  She had her gun leaning against a tree when it appeared at 75 yards in front of her.  While she tried to retrieve her gun, she knocked it over, causing enough noise to spook the deer off to the E.

Well, the Good Lord gave us chances to harvest some meat for the freezer, we just failed to hold up our end of the bargain.  Fitting metaphor....think about it.

Our philosophy is simple - any day spent out in the woods hunting is, by definition, a Good Day!

Looking back W from the top of Hole #14.
Look at all the water!

The shadows drape across Hole #12's tee box.
Much nicer day than yesterday, albeit much colder.

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