Update November Post Season 2003

With the first session of firearms deer season over with, I thought I would throw an update on here.

Friday night before the opener, we stood around the wood stove and agreed that we would let the smaller bucks slide on by. We would either take does or big bucks.

Only one doe was taken by lunch time and no bucks. Around 2pm, I had a pair of does out in front of me but they were just over 300 yards. Since I have not built up my confidence in the Ruger Compact yet, I did not try it. The scope was creating some problems too but that is a story in itself. Right around 5 pm a 6 or 8 point buck walked past my tower stand. It was all I could do not to put him down. He presented several perfect shots as he wandered for about 200 yards across my viewing area.

He is in this picture but is hard to see. I followed him with the scope until I decided I would pass on him and then I put the gun down and grabbed the camera. I used a digital but should have used the camcorder. (had both with me since the 4 wheeler was carrying the load)

Little did I know that he would be my only shot for the session. I saw a couple of other deer but never had a chance at a shot.

Got some great footage of a tom opening morning. He got as close as 10-15 feet and should have easily seen me. About 3 minutes of video.

The second Saturday of the season, I opted to sit in my brothers tower since he had seen several deer from it and taken a nice 7 point earlier in the week. One of our buddies and his son took my tower and proceeded to take an eleven point buck from it. Isn't that the way it always goes?

The new farm yielded a small buck to one of my nephews. It was a big buck until we found it. Bad case of "ground shrinkage". Poor shot placement afforded us (me and the nephew) the opportunity to do some heavy duty tracking. Of course he shot it when there was only about 20 minutes worth of daylight left. A quarter mile and 2 hours of blood drops across an open field of bean stuble. Quite a treat ! With mist falling while we tracked and rain in the forecast, waiting until the next morning wasn't an option. I promised him that now that he knows how critical shot placement is and he knows how to track, he can do it alone next time he pulls a shot like that. Of course I would help him again, it's all part of it I guess but a learning experience none the less.

We closed the session with 3 bucks and 4 does. Thank God for the meat grinder ! I have to do a product review on this thing sometime. The grinder is a #32 from Cabelas. We used the supplied hand crank until this fall when I discovered that Cabelas now sells a pulley wheel for it. The grinder alone is worth it's weight in gold but with the pulley and an electric motor, it's a God send. We ground about 100 pounds in one night with it. Check it out in the master catalog or at this link

The December extension begins on the 13th and should prove exciting. Will update again then.

Last Modified: Thursday, May 7, 2009 11:33 PM