The Hunting Times

From time immemorial, it has been the custom at Boppum Barb's and Pa Jerry's that BEFORE anyone could open Christmas gifts, you had to line up on the stairs and get a picture taken.  As an adult, I can see the value of capturing those memories on film (or digital media today).  You can look back through the years and see how everyone has changed.  However, as a kid, this was pure TORTURE.  I cannot imagine a worse fate than waiting ONE MORE MINUTE to tear into those gifts. So, we have taken to doing the same thing in the household of Craig & Sandy - but with a twist.  We "theme" our stair pictures.  In the past we've done Thugs, Guns, and Alcohol.  Here is this year's version. Full Camo Stair Picture Christmas 2013 And for the record, if we add any more generations to the family tree OR our butts get any bigger, we might have to modify how we take pictures at Mom & Dad's.....just sayin' those stairs ain't gonna hold us all!...

To end 2013 and bring in 2014, Davey, Jeff Garriott and I went out to hunt the ole bunny, rabbit, hare, cottontail.  It was a brisk Dec 31, 2013, and by brisk I mean 12 degrees F with a light wind at 8:00 am.  A light, very light, dusting of snow was on the ground. We loaded up and headed for Marshall's N farm.  Dave carried his 16 ga.  I took the youth model 20 ga. And Jeff, our dog for the day, carried a 22 long rifle (his daughter's new gun she got for Christmas - Shhh, she does not know). We tromped the bottoms and Dave picked off two from the brush in the N.  We cut up to the killing finger and Jeff shot two with his .22 - all shots were one-shot-kills and those two are batting 1,000!  The wind started to pick up a bit, so we headed back to the truck. The "haul" from Marshall's N farm.  Jeff & Dave with 2 apiece. The "heads up" picture for Re-Phil.  Makes you look taller! We then headed for Marshall's S farm and dr...

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 ...