The Hunting Times

Technically, the firearms season has just ended in Indiana; but since we all use shotguns, we consider it Shotgun Season - and it's over.  It did not end like it started - although we tried. Davey and I hit Marshall's S farm in the morning.  It was 28F and ZERO wind - you could hear for miles. I saw three doe run across the S woods heading W but too far for either me or Dave to shoot. That afternoon, it warmed up to somewhere between 46 & 50 degrees depending upon which phone, vehicle, or thermometer you looked at.  Hey - that's warm enough for Fair Weather Kathy to go out and hunt too!  Our original plan was to hunt the golf course because we had not had an afternoon hunt there all year.  With the warm weather, the wood cutters were out cleaning up the giant mess from the storms.  No need to hunt there.  Instead, Nick, Kathy, Alex and I hit Marshall, Neal, Vice for the final evening hunt. Nick sat on Vice across the creek.  I sat on the...

Dad got the call from the guy who is DRIVING our elk to Indiana from Colorado about 6:30 pm Thanksgiving evening.  Seems his refrigerator truck broke down and there was not another one to rent within 800 miles of Indianapolis.  So the guy wanted to get rid of the meat as quickly as possible - before it thawed. Dad said, "Come on over." Delivery man arrived about 8:10 with 8 boxes of elk meat - 3 for Dad, 3 for me and 2 for Trent.  We loaded Dad's and Trent's elk into Dad's freezer.  We had to rearrange things in my freezer to fit all the meat in.  Dad ended up taking the deer I had stowed in mine so that the elk would fit - I ended up with 160#s of meat. We cooked up some elk stew and grilled some elk loins for lunch, dinner, and lunch again the next day. Dad, Eric, Alex, Kathy, Shelby, Nick, Jon, me, and even Sandy had the elk - and I must say, it was delicious! Sandy had made some pumpkin pies and snicker doodles for dessert.  Perfect! I sent a cont...

Alex, Eric and Nick headed for the course again today.  It's a much nicer day, 24F with 10mph winds.  Nick took Hole #4, Alex #15, and Eric #5.  Alex's gun misfired or he would have tagged one of three doe that walked in on him.  Nick pushed a doe to Eric, but Eric was not where he was supposed to be, so no shots fired for those 3.  They ended by 9. Dave and I hit Marshall's south farm.  We sat for 90 minutes without seeing a thing and so I pushed the swamp.  Only thing I drove out was 4 coyotes.  No wonder we didn't see any deer either! Tomorrow ends the shotgun portion of Indiana's season.  We take a week off and then muzzle loader season opens up for 2 more weeks.  We're getting close to putting a close on deer season 2013. Hopefully we get a couple more to put in the freezer.  But if not, we're sure having fun!

Alex and Nick went to the golf course this morning because we did not think there would be room where Dad, Dave, Shane, and I were heading.  We were wrong.  Neal's was open and they could have hunted it. Outcome probably would have been the same... Dad, Shane, and I picked up Dave at 6:45 am.  We drove E of Mulberry to Marshall and Vice.  Dave and I were dropped out on top of Marshall's and the other two went on around E to Vice's to post.  I hadn't made it 40 yards down the road when my cell went off.  It was Shane.  He texted, Tell your Dad to circle back to me.  Oops, he left his radio.  Next text, I forgot the radio.  So I radioed Dad and he returned to leave Shane a radio. Shane set-up on the SW of Vice, and Dad on the NW - both along the creek.  I posted Marshall's bottoms and Dave the NW fence line.  We sat for 90 minutes.  I chose to sit on the SW corner of the bottoms thinking that I was only blocking.  B...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Trust yours is safe and enjoyable.  Don't overdue the eating bit. As has been a custom for the past 32 years, I shared the woods hunting with my father for Thanksgiving. I've lost count of how many ham sandwiches and crackers we've eaten in the woods for our "traditional" meal. But do not misunderstand, I have no regrets.  Sure we've missed out on some food and maybe some family gatherings, but we'll make up for that at Christmas.  What we got instead are memories of numerous deer hunts, lots of laughs, and a few deer - for sure not as many deer as years we've hunted. Usually, we go out with Cousin Shane and Uncle DC.  This year we changed it up a bit.  The land we hunt in Carroll County could not support all the hunters.  So we left Shane and DC to the north property and we all hunted down here.  Nick and Alex joined us as the next generation to continue this tradition and we hit the golf course. We all walked ...

Last year we took Eric out to the course with us.  He used our Remington 20 ga shotgun model 870.  He took a shot at about 300 yards.  We had to tell him that his limit was 100 yards. So this year, Eric bought his own 870 in 12 ga.  He hunted doves with us and came back from college to hunt deer.  He wisely bought a Remington rifled barrel with a cantilever scope mount.  So Sunday night Nick and I helped him mount his scope.  The scope has a really short eye-relief and we told him to be careful - he would hit himself in the face with the scope if he did not have the gun shouldered and held tightly.  But hey, he would not be the first, as we have all done this.  We asked for a picture though when it happened.  We also told him to keep the magnification (power) down on 2 until he had a longer shot - at which point he could turn it up as much as needed. Monday afternoon then, Eric went back to Dad's to sight in his scope.  Sure eno...

Got up early this morning and headed to Marshall's S woods with Dave.  I dropped him off at the W-end, drove around and parked at the E.  As I walked S and topped the hill E of the woods, I saw what I thought was a deer feeding.  I debated back and forth for a while because it was just too dark to tell.  Finally, it got light enough to see that yes, it indeed was a deer. Said doe fed to the W and went into the woods.  No way I'm letting her get by me, so I took 3 steps towards the woods.  She bolted back out the way she came and I dropped to a knee.  She must have thought I was another deer because as I hit the ground, she started walking toward me.  She came up the hill to within about 70 yards and turned broadside, heading back toward the E.  I figured now or never and took the shot. I texted Dave and he asked if we were going to leave.  I laughed.  No, we're going to hunt some more.  I walked around the S end of the wood...