The ritual of Fall has begun.

The bug finally hit last night. All of a sudden, the scene changed. It came with the 10 degree drop in temperature, the accumulating leaves in the yard, the smell of my old leather shooting glove as I brought it out of the case. It was time to bow hunt, and I could no longer wait. I had been practicing for quite a while, but it had not seemed real. It was something too far off in the future to get worked up about.

I grabbed some arrows and grandpa’s old watering can and stepped off the twenty yards, set down the can and then dropped the arrows in as I have been doing for years. The points hit the bottom with the same hollow dink, dink-a-dink. I pulled one out, knocked it, drew and held. The pin sat on the target like it had been nailed there. Time stopped. Release. I saw the orange fletch pass into the target and disappear. Bull. Time started again.

The ritual of Fall has begun.

Fall is a reality of meteorology and astronomy. It is also a reality of the heart. Summer left a week ago, but Fall started last night.

The Optimal Whitetail Load

How do you know if you have an optimized whitetail load? That question is simple to answer: take it out in the woods, point it at deer and touch it off. If, in the next few seconds, you transform a graceful, warm, vital deer into a slowly cooling pile of venison, I think it is safe to conclude that you have an optimal load.

Okay, I'm a smart-a$$.

There is something I have noticed as I ever so slowly mature as a deer hunter and a reloader. There are an infinite number of mental bunny holes and most of them lead eventually to a dead deer.

Optimizing for velocity, force, sectional density, Taylor KO, all seem to lead to successful whitetail hunting. About the only projects I've tried that have not panned out are a hot 44 Mag pistol load for deer that is not too loud, and a good .223 Rem whitetail load that doesn't keyhole out of my Mini 14. All the others have been winners.

I am forced to conclude that whitetail are not that hard to kill, and they represent one of the easiest challenges for the reloading hunter.

1) Any cartridge built for human-sized game will take down a whitetail. With all the effort to find the optimal military cartridge expended over the last few hundred years, it only remains to find one you like and put some soft-point bullets on it.

2) A deer has a kill zone about as big as a pie-plate. If you can regularly hit a pie plate given a specific stance and weapon system and target distance, you will probably have a deer.

3) Reloading safety dictates that you start with a load about 10% off the maximum and work up to the optimum. With whitetail, you don't have to go much past that 10%-off-max load to have a dandy, accurate, deadly, cheap load. All my current deer loads are 5-8% off-max.

4) You can use premium bullets all you want if it makes you feel better about your loads. The deer will not mind. However, Corelokts and Powerpoints do just fine too, if you're optimizing for cost.

Whenever I was working with my Dad, he used to say " If it hurts, you're probably doing it wrong." That was a great piece of truth. It is true for spade shovels, claw hammers, and a bunch of other things. It is especially true with whitetail deer loads. If you find your shoulder hurting, you've got too much recoil for a whitetail load. If your wallet is aching, you're paying too much for your ammunition.

35 Rem, 444 Marlin, 308, 270? Yes, one of those will do quite nicely. My personal favs right now are are 308 loaded to 300 Savage levels and 30-06. If you think '06 works great at 200 yards, you should see what it does at 25!

A Day in the Field

I once said that I learn more about myself during a day in the field than I learn in a year at the office. Those were tall words, especially in the hindsight of over 20 years in business and over 20 years of hunting. Were they true?

Certainly when I said them, they were. There were so many lessons to learn back then. Nowadays the lessons come harder, and the lessons now hit so hard when they do come. It's harder now to lay a fresh edge to the wind and let it lay bare to the cold.

At the office, careers die easy. Somebody pulls some real boner and gets the sack. To the office, they are dead. Everyone does a little grief bit and moves on. It’s easy to be spiritually slack at the office. Nothing is for keeps. If it’s too bad, you just downplay it on your resume when you go to look for the next job. In the field, there is no taking back a bad shot, no telling a gut-shot deer you are sorry. It is all for keeps. Whatever you do in the field may have no impact on the rest of the world, but it can haunt you until you die.

I remember the day we all hunted at a farm beside a man and his boy out for their first bird hunt. I still remember their shotguns—matching re-blued Winchester 1897’s. It was the family’s father/son shotguns that had been lovingly kept up.

We’d get on a pheasant and the bird would go on point and the bird would flush, and the boy would shoot, and it would be a miss. He consistently shot over the bird. We’d all agreed we’d hold off until the boy had one. Finally, we came past a barn, and a pheasant flushed suddenly and the boy threw up his gun. Bang!

BANG! My buddy had had enough and decided to help out. I’m pretty sure the pheasant was dead on the first shot, but my buddy had already committed himself with his Citori. The bird flopped into the grass. The father ran forward to retrieve the bird. The boy just looked at my buddy like he had shot him instead of the bird. He was numb.

The father came up with the pheasant and shook the boy’s hand and hugged him. The boy just stood there like a statue, while the father put the pheasant into the boy’s game bag. It all ended as if nothing bad happened, all you could tell was the life had gone out of the boy’s eyes.

After that, we split up. The boy and the father took off with one of the dogs and my buddy and I went the other direction. I tried to explain it to my buddy, who was oblivious.

“That’s the way it was in my family!” He said, when I tried to explain why the kid had been less than enthusiastic. “You got your shot, and if you didn’t get the bird, it was fair game for everybody.”

Yeah, well. I found out as we walked that he’d had the same thing happen often to himself as a kid. He had had to tote a bunch of birds over the years that really weren’t his, but one’s he’d missed. He'd had to watch someone else take them. It had all been boiling in him while we were walking with the father and son and finally he had acted impulsively. I spent a good while that morning hearing about my buddy’s pent-up anger. When he was spent, it finally sunk in that he had started that whole mess over again in a new generation.

Anyhow, I was by that farm the other day. We hadn’t hunted it in fifteen years. I saw the barn, and I saw the hillside. Suddenly I could see the father, the kid, those re-blued 1897’s, and those kid’s eyes staring off into a great emptiness. I was just a bystander, but it still haunts me.

Blood Trail Philosophy -- Push or Wait?

I was reading the November 2004 issue of Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine over lunch. There was a big article on the "5 Critical Mistakes of Blood Trailing." It all boiled down to this: Let the deer lie down and die. Don't push. I remember 10 years ago this magazine was saying the exact opposite: trail the deer immediately.

Of all the deer I've shot and arrowed, I can only think of two that needed any special treatment. In all the other cases, I've could have walked to the deer and tag it immediately. However, I followed the old sage advice about letting the deer "stiffen up" up until 10 years ago and never pursued a kill until at least 30 minutes after the shot.

When D&DH came out pro-push, it was a revelation. To me, the idea of pursuing a deer immediately made sense. Dead is dead. Wounded? I probably would do more to hasten a fatally shot deer's departure from this mortal coil by pushing it, rather than letting it lay down and recover its composure.

I posted this query to the 24hourcampfire, and found that most folks tended towards pushing—that is getting on trail immediately. One respondent from Canada, CatntheHat had this to say:


”I remeber reading the "push them hard" article and thinking that was a pretty good way of stinkin' up a bunch of nice venison!

I can't remember having to trail one for any length that I shot at with any of my rifles, as they didn't go far.”



To be honest, my tracking skills are rather stunted. Most of my shots have resulted in the deer going down in sight or within 50 yards. That is by no means a boast. I’ve also had two wounded ones that got away in the past twenty years, and I’m not sure if pushing or waiting would have changed the outcome. They both haunt me; that is a fact for sure.

The first was in 1989. I muffed a bow shot and I have no idea where the broadhead connected. In retrospect it might have just been a slice on the foreleg. All I know is I had a bit of blood on the arrow and an intermittent blood trail. In those days, I held firm to the “wait and let them stiffen” catechism. I waited a full half hour before getting down from my stand. I trailed the buck for an hour and a half. When the buck stopped, the blood stopped. When he moved, the wound opened up and flowed. The trail came to a fence, and my buddy would not let me cross. He claimed I’d get shot for sure by the landowner. I finally finally relented after considerable arguing, but I still wish I hadn’t. I never hunted that property or with that buddy again.

The second happened last year. I hit a doe during muzzleloader season. I found out later the sight had been knocked askew and I probably hit way high. I had a small blood trail to follow for about 50 yards and then nothing. I brought out the dog and the Coleman lantern and was doing my best to locate something when we started taking incoming fire from the next ridge. I found out much later that a party had come out and started a shooting contest in their headlights. The target had been an old stump, but the stump was rotten and the shots were blowing through and traveling over the ravine and into the trees above my head. I beat it out of there. At the time, it appeared they were shooting at me. The next morning I found a big blood smear and some drag marks in the bottoms—signs of a hasty field dressing. Oh well.

In those two cases, I don’t know if pushing or waiting would have affected the outcomes. If I knew I had a gut shot deer on my hands, I would probably back off and wait. However, there are a lot of impinging factors. First, we have coyote and wild dog. Any dead deer left in the field would be scattered shreds by morning. Second, would be the chance of precipitation obliterating the sign. Third would be timing. If it’s Sunday night, and I’m due back at work Monday AM, I’m going to do what I can to reduce the deer to possession that night.

If you look at just my experience, pushing seems to be the way to go. The vast majority of deer I’ve shot have been dead in under 15 seconds. The only thing waiting would accomplish is letting the carcass stiffen a bit. The other thing I can tell you is that just getting on the trail can take what seems an eternity, especially in the dark. If the blood trail doesn’t show up for 50 yards, and it is in heavy brush, a deer that expires in 10 seconds can take an hour to find.

The two flyers in this record have nothing in them to suggest my strategy affected the outcome. Call me a pusher, but I’m still open to suggestions.

Aching with Anticipation

I had one stand that still needed some work this past weekend. It is my current best stand. While I was sprucing it up in early July, I noticed a missing bolt. One thing lead to another, and I haven't been back out. There is plenty of sign at several of my prime stands, including this one. I just got pre-occupied with family reunions and such this summer and let things slip away.

Now, there it was, 3 weeks into KY Bow Season, and it was still not done. I found the bolt, and a camo blind that goes around the outside and headed off in the truck. Barney came with me. He loves that stand site-- always gets a chance to roust up a flock of turkeys or chase a few squirrels. I don't hunt the first month of KY Bow-- it's just too hot, it gets in the way of squirrel-- you've heard my rant. BTW: I checked the site and Bracken County had 33 deer taken in 3 weeks.

I got up and managed to knock out the remains of the old bolt and put in the new one. The blind got attached with wire ties after that.

Barney had been sniffing around when we first got there. I wrapped up my gig, and was getting ready to leave. There he was, stretched out on the ground, just enjoying the day. It looked like such a good idea, I decided to join him.

The woods were perfect. The stand was just right. It was like the curtain was about to come up on my season, and everything felt just right. I sat and took in the sounds, the sights, it all felt just soooooo good. The Cervid Serial Killer squirms in delightful anticipation of his next adventure.

I'll probably start bowhunting next weekend after one more trip for squirrel. This stand will probably not see any action until mid-October. However, I have several early producers elsewhere on the farm.

BTW:

I just wanted you to know that the ". . . Funnels and Signs" thing has now hit Yahoo's search engine. That probably means that enough people have been linking to this story to make all the search engine spiders crawl on out to have a look. It's also floating to the top in some of the weblog search engines. This is due in large part to you guys telling other people to go read my piece and set the blog rolling, so to speak.

To me, that's the sincerest form of flattery a writer like me can have. The closest thing I have to this in my life is when I found out the short stories I was writing for my college degree were being copied and recopied and making the rounds as sort of an ersatz underground magazine. I was humbled then, and I'm humbled now.

Thank you ever so much. Drop by often. I try to post once or twice a day. Sometimes it's the same as what I post on forums, but usually not. My goal is to leave the world with a mix of my ramblings, while devoting a considerable amount of space to helping beginning deer hunters.

Leave lots of comments and sign the guestbook. There's also a link so that you can vote/review my weblog on Blogarama and portal.eatonweb.com. I'd appreciate your vote.

Do you need Premium Bullets?

I've killed 250 lb deer and I've seen 300 lb deer killed in the Greater Ohio Valley within 100 miles of Cincinnati. None required a premium bullet. The are awesome to look at, but that size difference is deceiving.

You have to remember that the key dimension in a deer in this discussion is the width of the chest. That dimension changes very little as the weight changes. The girth of a 157 pounder and a 340 pounder differs by only 10 inches. That's using the chart over at whitetail.com. Assume that's a circle and use trig to figure out the change in diameter. That comes out to less than 4 inches. What's more, you only have to go 3/4 of that distance to take out both lungs and the heart. In the end, you're talking about a difference of less than 3 inches of deer, assuming a broadside heart/lung shot.

Start talking to me about a difference when you see a moose.

The flesh is not any tougher. The organs aren't either. You might get a bit more resistance going through a thicker rib, but not enough to worry.

In the end, deer are not that hard to kill. My contention has been and will be that time spent on worrying about terminal ballistics inside whitetails would be better spent scouting. Stick with the Wally World specials. If you screw up, it won't be because of bullet contruction.

I hunt not to kill, I kill to have hunted.

Does anyone else remember Highmaster over at Shooters.com? Gosh how I miss him. I had the utmost respect for that guy. I honestly didn't care if he was everything he said he was; he expressed an ideal so well. It was funny; he and I had very different views on things like competition, but I really enjoyed our time together.

I got to thinking about Highmaster as I was finishing off my coffee and slowly coming to at the loading bench. A quote was running around in my head. It’s probably an Aldo Leopold or that of some other great scion of the sport:

“I hunt not to kill, I kill to have hunted.”

It’s Droptine’s signature over at 24HourCampfire. It reminded me so much of a discussion I had with HighMaster right after deer season back in 2002.

To quote the High One:

But hunting is a personal thing, I like nothing better than spending a week in the woods alone, taking a deer has nothing to do with it, it is just the way I recharge my batteries and enjoy the things that mean the most to me. The forest, the wild life, the view, the solitude and the quiet.

To which I replied:

Ah! another armed nature lover in the woods!

Nature? I love it! Of course it all depends on how it's dressed out. [ I always liked to start with a cheap rim shot so I didn’t appear pompous]

One thing I've never been able to sucessfully explain, O High One. Both my wives have asked me: Well if it's not killing things that's so important, why do you insist on carrying a gun? I've tried to explain that one many ways many times, but I've yet to do it to my satisfaction or theirs.

I suppose therein lies the true nature of Hunting. It is the communion with that question that defines us as hunters. The answer is undeniable as a sunrise and as ineffable as the gaze of buck on the back of your head. However, neither Corbett or Hemingway or Faulkner or any one of the writers who have tried in the last two centuries have successfully explained it. Still when we take that first step off the back porch in the morning and jack one in, we are a drop of dew falling in that forest.

Ah,Highmaster, wherever you are, I wish you well.

On Rifle Selection

There was a time in my life when one deer rifle was all it took. Now I have a safe full of them, and I cannot seem to ever be totally satisfied. Do I need another deer rifle? No. Do I want another? Always.

What I’ve found that I really enjoy is the adventure of putting a new rifle into action. I like the process of acquiring a long gun, mounting a scope, building a good load and then proving it in the field. That has turned my deer hunting into an expensive hobby, where it should not have been.

There is a hidden price I have to pay for each deer rifle I own. Each rifle is a system. Rifle, scope, sling—those are easy. Then comes the ammunition. If I did not reload, it would be a fairly simple choice—maybe among a couple to a couple dozen. However, I reload, so now I have a choice in bullet, powder, brass, primer. The deeper it goes, the more varied the choices. In the end, a hundred or more variables enter into it.

I freely admit I made a mistake this past year. I put two of my best favorite deer rifles up at the end of November and did not think about them until last weekend. Both gave me questionable results at the range, and now I am faced with the choice of trying to come up with a solution to the erratic results or just putting them up for the year and moving on with what I have.

For every rifle system I own, it is like a houseplant that requires regular watering or a house pet that requires regular feeding. It needs to be taken out on a fairly regular basis and used, so that the most complex and variable part of any rifle system does not get rusty—me. All this eats up time, the most precious commodity of all. If it ends up eating into time I could be scouting, then you’re really talking expensive.

I’ll probably put the old batch of ammo for the 308 aside and just load up some new. The 30-30 will probably take a bit of doing, but it’s a necessary part of my son’s battery. I’ll load up some with a bit less powder and see if slightly reduced velocity cures the problem—it usually does.

In the end, I want 3 deer rifles ready for me to use during the season. The rest will stay buried in the safe until I get bored, or something breaks. That gives me a brush gun, a longer-range gun, and something in-between for a spare. That is a goal that is about right for a dedicated deer hunter with a day job and a family. However, that requires an investment throughout the year—not dragging guns out at Labor Day and putting them away at the end of season. If that is all you can devote to it, I’d limit myself to just a couple of rifles and factory loads.

If time allows, I’d like to pull a day with the Remington 1100 just for old time’s sake. That one is the only no-brainer I have. There is nothing to adjust and nothing else to do. It puts cheap Remington sluggers into a pie plate at 50 yards, and has been doing so since Reagan’s first term.

Then there's the Remington 742, I didn't have it out last year. Maybe I can get that out to the range. . . Oh drat! There I go again.

More On (MORON ?) Funnels and Signs

A lot of guys have responded to my piece yesterday about funnels and signs. In general, all I can say is that I think all you guys are barking up the wrong tree. It's all in the salt. You and the state have it all wrong-- deer can't read. Deer don't need a sign to tell them there's salt. All you have to do is put out a big enough pile-- more salt, bigger deer.

It's all silly anyway. They make these big yellow signs for the deer to see, but then they tell us deer can't see color and they make us wear hunter orange. You can't have it both ways. Either they can see color or they don't. Orange, yellow. It's just too close.

Another thing I could never figure out was which color to make the funnel. I tried shiny metal funnels, yellow funnels like the signs, red plastic funnels. Of course, in the end, it was the salt. It didn't matter what kind of funnel, so long as you had enough salt.

Here are some of the responses—names have been omitted, but you have a location. Thanks all for your kind e-mail.

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Loc: NW PA Re: Funnels and Deer Sign [Re: shaman]
#346535 - 09/21/04 08:19 AM
That's the problem with where I hunt. The deer are always jumping something. I can't hit the darned things when they do that. I need some signs with them just standing looking down or the other way. And while the state's at it, put a bigger rack on top.

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Loc: NW Arkansas Re: Funnels and Deer Sign [Re: Shaman]
#346535 - 09/21/04 18:19

I vote for the state putting up signs with the deer bedded down. That should make it a little easier for us all.


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Loc: Alberta Re: Funnels and Deer Sign [Re: shaman]
#346957 - 09/22/04 11:38 AM

You are of course, partly correct. In this case size does matter. You must use a "large" funnel. This is naturally hung over a deer trail, so as to be readily conspicuous to the deer. You then pour the salt thru said funnel. The salt will pool directly beneath the funnel.
Now when the deer are walking along, they will look up and see the funnel and know where the salt is, because from a distance the funnel will look like an arrow pointing to the pile.

Sometimes we just have to stand back or look from another angle for things to become readily apparent.



Thanks again for your comments.

Shamanic Guide -- More on Funnels (serious like)

Now you know, after that last post, there’s going to be some city slicker treehugger type that’s going to find this weblog and have an absolute conniption. Oh well. Some folks just don’t get the joke, do they? Then there’s the fellow (bless his heart) that’s going to take this all gospel and go out to Wally World tonight to get himself a nice shiny funnel, and a box of Morton’s.

I think it was Ray Knight that told me once that he’d come up with an idea for turkey hunting. He’d been hunting along the Ohio River, and heard all these gobblers going off all morning whenever a barge would set off its chimes in preparation for locking through. I used to hunt a ridge right above Markland Dam, and I knew just what he was talking about. Anyhow, he got the idea of coming out with the Knight and Hale shock gobbler kit. It was a small camo-covered air horn. Next season came around and here were all these fool hunters walking through the woods blasting air horns, trying to lure in turkeys. Ray said that was the worst idea he ever had and K&H stopped distributing the product immediately.

You know, I bet I could come up with a camo funnel and sell it on a website and people would buy it.

So what exactly is a funnel?

A funnel is a structure that constricts deer movement to a small area. It's that simple. Let's say you have a long fence with one hole in it. The deer go through at that hole. That's a funnel.

Fences act like funnels, the holes constrict their movement, and deer also travel along fences.

A point of trees going into a field is a funnel. Deer will travel in that point to get in and out of the field, or to cross it.

At creeks and gullies, it's the easiest way across that makes the funnel.

How do you find a funnel? Figure out where the deer sleep. Figure out where they are eating and watering. Now take a walk along the easiest route between the two. The place where they are least likely to stray from a straight line is the funnel.

Example1: I have a large creeks on either side of my main ridge. There is one saddle that cuts 50 feet of elevation from the trip between the two creek bottoms. If deer want to move between the two, there's about a 200 yard wide patch of old white oaks that they will travel through. It's easy and there's a snack on the way. All deer on my property go across that saddle at least once a day.

Example 2: I have a wooded creekbed that cuts into my largest pasture a good 200 yards further than anywhere else. If deer want to cross the pasture under cover, they come up that creek. From there, it's only 50 yards to the other side.

Example 3: I have 3 fence lines that meet at one barn. I have purposely broken down those fence lines at the barn. I call the place Broken Corners. Since I cut the barbed wire, the deer have adjusted their movement. Instead of crossing just anywhere, they can come through all three fences at once.

Example 4: This one’s subtle, so hold on. I’ve found a trail at the farm that makes no sense at all, but it’s one of the most traveled deer trails on the place. It comes up out of the creek bottoms and kind of winds around a hillside before coming out in a grove of cedars. It took walking it to figure out—it’s just the easiest way to get from the creed up to the cedars. If you try and go any other way, you run into steep spots that will get you puffing. Deer are lazy just like us. They want the easiest way possible.

Funnels and Deer Signs

When I was learning how to hunt deer. They always told me to look for sign and hunt the funnels. Deer signs were easy. They were big and yellow and they had a picture of a deer on them. In some places, the deer were shown just standing. In other places, the deer were leaping. You wanted to hunt the ones with the walking deer; they were easier to shoot. If you were lucky, you found one with a few big slug holes in it. That meant somebody had hunted that sign successfully. You wanted a fresh sign too-- one that was all bright and shiny yellow and not some rusted old sign. Deer wouldn't come to the old beat up ones.

All you had to do was go into the woods a ways away from the sign and then wait for a deer to come through. The state had made it illegal to hunt too close to the signs. That was so it was sporting for the deer.

Funnels were a much harder thing to figure out. I looked for years for a funnel in the woods. I finally got a nice shiny metal one and put it up on a post. Sat by it for days-- I did see deer, but they were always running away. I even tried hanging my funnel on a deer sign, but that didn't work either. Trucks would come by and knock it off. I couldn't understand what the whole thing was about funnels.

They told me I was stupid-- store-bought funnels wouldn't attract deer. You'd have to find one in the woods or make your own. Now how in the heck is a deer going to know which ones came store-bought and which ones are homemade? If I bought one and left it out in the woods over the Winter to rust, could I then use it?

The more I thought about this whole funnel thing, it was just hooey. It wasn't a proven scientific method like the Jon-E Handwarmer I always carried with the special Jon-E bucklure dispenser. However, that's another whole story.

Deer Signs: they were a sure bet. But how did the deer learn to come to those signs. I tried making one and putting it out in the woods. That didn't work. Mine was plywood, and the state's was metal, but I couldn't imagine the deer cared about that. After several attempts it finally dawned on me that there was something else going on.

Salt. You needed the salt. States put down salt to clean the roads of ice, and then they put out signs to show the deer where salt was being left. All that salt was going somewhere-- it sure as heck wasn't piling up. The deer were coming by and getting it. If you put out salt and stuck a big yellow sign over it, the deer would come to it. I tried salt with a sign, salt with a funnel, salt with a funnel and sign both. It didn't seem to matter. Salt all by itself worked. You didn't need the sign. I thought about writing the state to tell them they could save a lot of money on signage, but then I figured word would get out. Besides, they'd all called me stupid. Let them go rot by their stupid signs.

I've kept this as my secret until now. Now that I'm getting deer on a regular basis, I though I'd just share it with you all. Ain't it funny how dumb some hunters are? They go for generations thinking deer behave a certain way and it's all something else entirely.

Shamanic Guide: Take no load for granted

Never take a load for granted. This weekend was proof of that. I had two rifles out this weekend. These were slam-dunk no-brainers, that I had been putting off in lieu of some tougher loading projects. The fault was mine—these were problems I should have been discovering in June, not September.

The first was the Savage 99 in 308 Win. It’s the one I’ve been talking about recently.

The other was the Marlin 30-30. See Ode to a 30-30

I thought it was going to be a quick exercise. Fire a few rounds out of each, prove the rifles were still shooting where they should and put them away for gun season.

The first problem was the Savage 99. I couldn’t get it to group with last year’s rounds at all. I tried some from a batch I loaded last week, and everything smoothed out and I was back to MOA cloverleafs. What happened to this batch that had been on the shelf since last November is anybody’s guess. Oh well. I’m glad I had a fresh batch to fill the gap.

The Marlin was a bit different. This was a light 150 Grain / H4895 load. I’d used it for two years for #2. The H4895 made for minimal recoil. I had been shooting tacks with it last year. This year I added a crimp die. The theory was a light crimp with the new die would increase pressure only slightly and even out any variations. I had expected a more accurate rather than less accurate load. To test this hypothesis, I crimped some of last year’s rounds. Blech! The crimp had screwed everything up. It wasn’t until I tried three rounds out of a hot barrel that things finally settled back into a 1 inch group. Since there is no way to get a barrel pre-heated while deer hunting, this load is now on the re-work list. My next step is to knock a bit off the velocity and try again.

Moral1: Take nothing for granted. Test every load and every batch. When moving from batch to batch of a known load, make sure to take a sample of the previous batch along to test against the new one.

Moral2: Don’t put a good deer gun away at Thanksgiving and expect it to be shooting the same at Labor Day.

More stuff of Dreams

I was talking with #3 son last night about our weekend, and he reminded me of an incident the morning before I heard the elk in the night. It got me to thinking. I've posted this on a couple of forums, and folks tell me this probably was a herd of elk.

Saturday morning (the morning before "Stuff of Dreams") we were hunting squirrel at the back of the property. We have a campsite in the midst of a large grove of old oaks, and #3 son and I were just sitting atop the picnic table waiting for a bushtail to come out onto one of the limbs. The campground is astride a saddle. Deer bed frequently on one side of the saddle and move throughout the day across the top of the saddle to feed.

All of a sudden, I heard a weird noise coming from the cedars about 100 yards away and crosswind. It was most like a deer snort, but it was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It was higher and whinier and had much less of a breathy quality to it. There were also a lot more calls than with a whitetail-- maybe 10 or so over a short period of time. Figuring it for just a weird-sounding deer, I responded with a run of deer contact bleats. I called over about a 2 minute period. Nothing happened, so we went back to concentrating on squirrel.

About 5 minutes later. There was a huge (I mean HUGE) ruckous on our downwind. Branches flew every which way, saplings bent. Leaves were coming off trees, and there was a brief thundering of hooves downhill and away from us.

The pattern matched exactly what happens when a whitetail comes out of its bed on the East side of the saddle, encounters a swirl of human scent coming from our campground and then does an end-around towards the downwind side to get a better grasp of the situation. However, the size of the disturbance left our mouths hanging open. A bulldozer could have made less noise.

If you regularly have contact with elk and have hunted them this whole thing must have sounded pretty mundane. You have to understand, for a guy who was born and raised in the Ohio Valley, a free ranging elk in the backyard is as exotic as an elephant. This is on a farm only 63 miles from Cincinnati.

Shamanic Guide: Why the poopy loads?

I loaded up a bunch of .308 Win for the Savage 99 yesterday. They’re light as 308’s go, they’re more like a hot 300 Savage. Why? Why not load these puppies up to the max? Why not hunt with a 300 WSSSSM or a SAUUUUUM?

Why? Why go to all that bother? Whitetail dear are not that hard to kill. The fact of the matter is that if you stay away from pushing the envelope, you do not have to worry as much about:

1) Recoil. It’s amazing what a 5% or 8% reduction from the maximum load does to recoil. Flinches are expensive to acquire and much more expensive to get rid of. I try to avoid the issue all together.
2) Expense. A lot of guys will tell you that you need premium bullets. I use Hornady now, and I used Remington Corelokts prior to that. I've never seen a deer that knew the difference.
3) Accuracy. Take any rifle, knock 5-8% off the maximum load and take it to the range. You can half the size of the spread in a hurry. This is a cheap quick fix to a lot of accuracy problems without the hassles of bedding, etc.
4) Safety. I’m an absent-minded professor type. I know I’m not the brightest star in the firmament. Do I want to trust my life to a guy like that loading the hottest possible loads?

I look at it a bit differently than most. To me, it's a trade-off. I can cook hot loads that can bag a deer at 300 yards, and I'll spend all summer at the range walking back and forth to the 200 yard backstop in the hot sun. Or I can cook up 50-150 yard loads and spend all September and October in the cool of the woods scouting for better spots to ambush deer. To me, a 25 yard kill beats a 200 yard kill-- it's certainly cheaper (in time, effort, and money), and to me it's more fun. What's more, I'm getting to know the deer a lot better.

Don't think you have to have full-house loads with whitetail. Both my regular hunting '06 rifles shoot reduced 165 grain loads. At 5-8% reduction from max they get very accurate. My .308 165 grainers are loaded to be nothing more than a hot .300 Savage (about 2600 fps). Using H4895, you can make very light shooting 30-06 loads that will be very accurate, cheap and fun to shoot, and they'll still knock down deer.

So why didn’t I buy a 300 Savage? I’m just cheap, I guess. I fell in love with the Savage 99 last year. I will tell you that 300 Savage is the quintessential deer load, but there are few rifles being built for it anymore. On the other hand, everyone makes a 308 or a 30-06, and they're the cheapest. I can also get cheap military brass for a 308 and enjoy years and years out of a set of those military case walls. In the end, I’ve got a slightly stronger rifle and stronger brass shooting 5 % off maximum load doing the same job a 300 Savage would be doing pumping it to the max and then some.

Here's the recipe:

Take Nato 7.62 brass (this last batch was Lake City 88). EBay is full of these auctions. They're stronger, but have less capacity. That's okay. That's a plus for what you're trying. Tumble clean and then deprime and full length resize. It's also mil brass. You'll also need to swage out the crimp in the primer pocket.

Trim back to the minimum length the first time out for uniformity. You'll hardly ever see these grow afterwards.

Use 150 or 165 grain SP bullets-- Hornady Interlock or Remington Corelokts are fine. I orginally started with 150 grain Hornadys, but for some reason the Savage 99 did not like them. I had 165 grainers on hand and they worked just fine.

I've tried H4895, Varget, and BL-C(2). All performed well, but the Varget gave the smallest group. Start with the minimum load (-10%) and work up to where you're pushing the bullet at just over 300 Savage velocity, and you're getting a reasonable pattern at 100 yards. For me, the magic number was 2600 fps. If you don't have a chronograph, figure it's about 5-8% off the maximum.

Stop. Go no futher. Get away from the bench and go scouting.

In Praise of Coopers BBQ of Llano, TX

Several folks have agreed with me on Cooper's BBQ being a shrine of the Texas Style. If you're hunting in the Texas Hill Country, this is THE place to go for bbq.

Cooper's was the highlight of my trip to Texas. I got to eat ribs under the picture of W. I figure anyone who can claim Cooper's as his favorite place to eat is the right man for leading the free world. I can't get mesquite easily at home so I've been using red oak skid runners from work. It comes real close.

For those of you who don't know Coopers, it's this little BBQ joint in Llano. They have these huge pits fired with mesquite coals. They've got beef ribs, pork chops, prime rib, chicken and sausage all done up with a dry rub (mostly salt and pepper) and basted with a sop (beefbroth and vinegar). Everything gets dipped in the sop before being slapped on brown paper and put on your tray. You pay by the pound, and all the fixins are free.

http://www.coopersbbq.com/home.asp

I found recipes for a rub and a sop that come close, and I now do most of my barbeque that way-- either on a new braunfels horizontal smoker or a weber kettle. One of these days, I'll post the recipes.

What's that Freezer Suit?

I received some personal e-mail asking what the heck a freezer suit is and how to get one. I referenced it in that piece on ponchos. I worked for a frozen foods company, and regularly had to work out on the floor. Some of the plant was kept at 40 F , parts at -2 F and some parts were -20F . They sold suits to the employees based on your work environment. I was writing the database that tracked the purchases, so I knew just what I wanted.

Mens & Boys Suits Coats/Overcoats (mfrs)
Htc Incorporated 517-523-2167
4731 S PITTSFORD RD
Pittsford, MI 49271-9623

I checked 2 years ago and they still make these suits. If you called them tomorrow, you'd get one custom made before the cold hits. Whenever I wear this suit in public, I have requests for the address of the manufacturer.

These guys make a cheap freezer suit that is perfect for sustained working in -2 F and below. Mine was green oxford nylon-- a perfect color for the woods. It had a set of bibs and a coat and a detachable hood. The whole thing ran me less than $120. I've had the suit for eight years, I haven't worked at the joint since 1998, but the freezer suit still looks new. They're built to wear like iron. It's oxford nylon, so it's a bit noisy, but with a cover-up or poncho over the top it's perfect for late season deer hunting.

When it's rifle season in KY, I can wear it under my orange poncho, and nobody sees but a small piece of the fabric below the knees. I have a skyline poncho for late season bow hunting and crow hunting. I pack the coat in in a duffel bag and only wear the bibs until I'm on my stand. Even then, I generally wait about 15 minutes to cool off until I don the coat and zip it up. From that point on, I'm toasty warm.

When it gets down below zero, I wear it to work, but I have to keep the windows rolled down in the truck to keep from overheating. It's about on a par with a good snowmobile suit-- warmer than most. I also have a snowmobile suit-- it's falling apart after a lot less wear.

The only thing I have against these freezer suits is that they are not meant for rain. They have no protection against water seeping through the outer shell. However, if you're out in stuff below 20 F, your chances of encountering liquid water in any form are about nill, unless you want to wade a creek. Above 20 F, I've got a bunch of other clothes to wear.

In between uses, I keep my freezer suit in a duffel bag, packed in sodium bicarb to absorb odor.

Also remember that this does nothing for your hands and feet. Without good mittens and boots you're still going to freeze something off. I also wear a heavy poly-pro balaclava to keep all but my eyes covered.

Shamanic Guide: Some Basic Misconceptions

Before we go further with this beginner's guide, please let me disabuse you of some of the common misconceptions held among deer hunters:

1) You cannot hunt just anywhere.
2) Always obey all the rules. The game warden can come on private land and arrest you
3) Hunter Ed is not for kids. If you have not taken it, do so.
4) Forget gimmicks. There is no magic recipe for bagging a deer
5) Most of what you hear from old timers is wrong
6) Camo is not a replacement for being a good hunter; A scent suit is not a replacement for watching the wind
7) Camping out over a scrape or rub is not the best way to get a deer

You cannot hunt just anywhere
A good part of this project will be spent telling you where to find a good spot to hunt deer. States determine when and where you can take deer on public and private land. Local municipalities may have stricter laws. Private landowners also have a say. Always make sure it is legal to hunt deer where you intend to go and always get written permission of the landowner. There is no such thing as “the land is not owned by anyone.”

Always obey the rules. The game warden can come on private land and arrest you

There is somebody watching. Over the years I have had a few occasions where I was glad the warden was not watching. I have never purposely counted on it.

The game warden can and does come on private land. As a matter of fact, I had my first meeting with a game warden just this Spring on my land. My wife saw him pull up. He got out, introduced himself to her and when he heard that I was hunting, he set off to find me. My son and I were coming in from Turkey hunting. My wife watched him put the sneak on us; he was quite good and got within less than 50 yards before we saw him. He was pleasant and polite, but managed to get all the important questions in nonetheless. In our 20 minute encounter, I produced both hunting licenses and tags.

The fact of the matter is that game wardens can go nearly everywhere in the outdoors they chose. The state gives them the right to do so. Anytime you hear from a landowner that no warden is ever going to set foot on his land and live you can be certain the landowner has no experience in these matters. Think this through: landowner shoots game warden in the back for simple trespass and then calls local police to retrieve carcass.

Yeah, right.


Hunter Ed is not for kids. If you have not taken it, do so.
In most states, first-time buyers of hunting licenses are required to show completion of a Hunters Education class. Some folks are grandfathered in and are not required. I was, and I did not attend in my first twenty years of hunting. I finally went with my son when he wanted his first license. It was a weekend well spent. I learned a few things along the way, and I had my head re-arranged on a few other things. This is not a waste of time.

Forget gimmicks. There is no magic recipe for bagging a deer
I have a collection of scents, calls, gizmos and decoys. I have had some success with many of them. None of them have ever seriously improved my chances of bagging a deer. This project will have discussions of all of these gimmicks. Suffice it to say that there is no shortcut to hunting deer. That is one of the things that makes it so special. Furthermore, the gimmick that worked at this time last year, may not work this year. There are more variables at work than you know at this stage of your development. Stick to the basics.

Most of what you hear from old timers is wrong
When I started hunting, it was common knowledge that the bucks sent the does out in front to scout out trouble. It was common knowledge that if you found a rub or a scrape, you had a buck well patterned. It was common knowledge that round-nosed cartridges were brush busters, and that you had to wait a half-hour after shooting a deer before pursuing it so that it would bed down and stiffen up.

It’s all wrong. Learn to trust your own senses and sensibilities.

Up until the past twenty years, most of what was written about deer hunting was based on less than scientific knowledge and less than vast experience.

There were not that many deer around years ago, and anyone who could remember a decent-sized herd was dead. As a result, a lot of anecdotal stuff worked its way into deer hunting culture.

If Uncle Jed managed to bag a deer once while cooking his lunch by a stump, Uncle Jed might think it wise to go out in the woods and cook soup in order to attract big bucks. Jed’s kids might do the same. If twenty years later, someone bagged another buck using the trick, the legend would be considered successful.

Camo is not a replacement for being a good hunter
Every maker of camouflage clothing wants you to believe that you will disappear using their brand of camo. Balderdash. There is a chapter in this book on clothing and camo. You cannot clothe your way to success. I have a few favorite patterns, but after 20 years, I recognize they are my favorites and not necessarily that of the deer. If you stay quiet, don’t move very much and stay downwind of the deer, you will be successful, no matter what you wear.

Activated carbon scent suits are no replacement for simple good hygiene and common sense.

Camping out over a scrape or rub is not the best way to get a deer
Rub activity starts as early as August. Scrape activity starts in October or November. Scrapes and Rubs are a good sign of wear a deer has been, not where he is going. A lot of deer activity is nocturnal—so is rub and scrape activity. If you see a rub line, you know you are on the right track. If you see a scrape, you are in the right neighborhood. That’s it.

The Stuff of Dreams

As a shaman, I have to expect the world of dreams to regularly supersede mundane reality. It is just part of the job. Saturday night was no different. It was a wonderfully boring day at deer camp. I had done some touch-ups on the utility shed, done a little squirrel hunting with #3 son, taken a nap and done up a mess of ribs on the grill. I do Texas style beef ribs modelled after my memories of Cooper's BBQ in Llano-- W's favorite.

I checked the web before turning in: nothing on Drudge. Weather.com was predicting no rain for a week for Cincinnati as well as our patch out on the northern edge of the Bluegrass in Kentucky. After a month of spending weekends on the road and a hard summer at work, this had been the ideal way to decompress. We turned in about nine—too early to actually sleep, but Girlfriend and I just lay about listening to the late summer night noises and eventually drifted off.

Along about 2 AM, that perfect lull ended. I awoke for no apparent reason from a sound sleep. As I lay in bed, I saw a flash of lightning. I figured it was car lights—remember, no rain for a week. Then thunder rolled out over the ridges. That’s odd. It just could not be. I waited several minutes. There were a couple more flashes. The cattle on the neighboring farms took to lowing. Then, it happened.

They told me getting stung by a hornet was like getting hit with a baseball bat. I’d heard that since I was in short pants. Sure enough, the first time I got stung by a hornet, I immediately knew what had hit me. They were right. It does feel like a baseball bat. I had watched outdoor shows all my life. I knew exactly what it was; it just took a long while to believe what I was hearing. It was loud, it was close, it was clear. It was electric. It was an elk-- One bugle, followed by three chelps. My guess is that it was within a few hundred yards of the house, and undoubtedly on my land. I sat up and listened for more, but that was it. Barney was up and at the windows in the flash, but all he did was peer through the screen and listen as I had.

In a while, I went out on the porch and listened some more. The cows were still going off now and then. The lightning and thunder were intermittent. What I was listening for was now gone, submerged back into the ocean of the night. While I was up, I closed up the truck windows and put a few tools in the shed and locked it back up. When I went in I fired up the PC and checked the weather radar. Sure enough, a large thunderstorm was moving through about 5 miles to the south. Mount Olivet and Cynthiana were getting pummeled, but we would probably get no rain until much later. I went back to bed and listened for a while before drifting back to sleep.

We had one elk through here a couple of years ago, came through about 5 miles to the south sporting a tracking collar. A few people saw it, and then it was gone. Every year now, we send in our $10 to the elk lottery for a once-in-a-lifetime chance at one of the 10 yearly elk tags. The elk are coming—more counties are getting included in the Elk Restoration Zone every year. Outside the zone, including my area, deer hunters can take an elk without even burning a deer tag. They just need to alert the wildlife officer so he can come out and inspect the carcass before processing.

So there you have it. The stuff dreams are made of—an elk in the backyard.

In Praise of Ponchos

Some hunters I know sound like girls from my Mom's generation waiting for the Paris fashion shows. They blow big bucks when the new fall styles come out-- tree bark is out . 3D Sticks and mud are in. Goretex? That's so last year, Man.

I can't say I was ever poor, but I have had little discretionary income to spend on hunting. My first hunting bow was bought used and I hunted with it for over ten years. I don't spend a lot on hunting clothes. I still have a lot of clothes to hunt with however. Back at the dawn of my hunting experience, I couldn't afford a full set of camo. I still don't own a Goretex anything. What I do own is a few coveralls and a vast array of camo cover-ups and ponchos.

I have a fabric store up at the strip mall that has a small section of camouflage. When I was single, I got a few strange looks. Now I can drag the wife in as cover. I look over the selection for sturdy 100% cotton and buy 2 yards of the stuff. Years ago, I bought an old used sewing machine and I take the fabric home and sew it into a poncho. How do you make a poncho? Try this.

Start with a paper grocery bag. The magic of a poncho is in the hole in the middle. Everyone needs a different hole. Mine is a diamond shaped hole a little more than 6 inches across and a little more than a foot long. It's narrower than my head, but it stretches out and slips over my noggen easily. The front half is a bit longer than the back half. I went through a few paper bags until I found the hole that worked for me.

Take two yards of camo material. Pin the hole pattern in the middle across and a few inches further forward than half way back to front. Cut out your hole. If you have a machine to sew it up, you'll want to put a half-inch hem all the way around the outside and around the center hole. If you don't have access to a machine, buy a pair of pinking shears and use them to make your cuts. The fabric store has them.

When you are stalking or walking to your stand, wear the poncho belted across the front and flowing free out the back. Belted, it won't catch on much. If you wear a pack, slip the poncho over the pack. In your stand, undo the belt and let the poncho hang. It really breaks up your form. On the ground, you will become an amorphous cammo-covered blob when you disappear under your poncho.

Forget the $500 super quad goretex parka's. I wear a cheap green freezer coat when it gets too cold. I can wear anything under the poncho and as long as the arms aren't something too electric. Snowmobile suits are great too.

I use a poncho turkey hunting. It covers my hands nicely, so I can work a box call with impunity. When it rains, I wear a plastic poncho underneath. It keeps my rifle dry in gun season. It keeps the snow off my muzzle loader.

Sometimes I've tied the poncho between two trees and peaked through the hole. In a heavily hunted area, I've covered a deer carcass with it after tagging to keep it from being snagged by the next guy through.

All total, I have about a dozen ponchos. My Hunter Orange poncho is painful to see in the sunlight, but it gives me maximum visibility while still insuring that I remain a light-grey blob to the deer. Some are tree bark pattern. Some are sticks and leaves. I have one for tall grass. The best one is a brown and orange and yellow splotchy-looking pattern that cost less than $2 a yard. For some reason it's fooled more early-season deer than all the new 3-D stuff. I couldn't figure it out until I used it as a tarp one day to cover my gear while I stalked on the ground in a light drizzle. Coming back in the fog, I absolutely couldn't see the pile until I was standing on it. The camo pattern had taken on a life of its own as the folds of fabric had created ramdom shadows and bunchings and so forth.

Shamanic Guide Forum

I have been dinking around with the Snitz forum software since January, and I decided this was as good a reason to bring it out. I have created a forum at

http://forums.blackholecoffeehouse.com


I would invite anyone to come and:

1) Let me know what you think
2) Let me know you're out there
3) Pitch in and lend your wisdom on whitetail deer hunting.

Shamanic Guide to Whitetail Deer Hunting

I got up early this morning and something got me to thinking of my first deer season. This was not exactly a memory to be proud of. While I sat with my first cup of coffee, I got to thinking how goofy things were those first few seasons. Despite honestly trying to learn all that I could and devoting an incredible amount of effort, I could never quite get the hang of it all. Those hunts are now treasured failures.

Besides getting a laugh out it, I resolved that I would try and spend some effort in trying to pass on what I have learned. There are blessed few of us deer hunters out there, and we are getting older. Maybe I can do something to ease the way for someone else and give an aspiring hunter a better chance. I will therefore devote a sizeable part of this forum to passing on the few shreds of wisdom I have gained in twenty-some years of deer hunting.

Who are you?

I am going to make some guesses. I am going to guess that you grew up in the suburbs, you are a young adult with a little time on your hands, and you have very little hunting experience. You got the idea for deer hunting from either a magazine, or a TV show, or one of your buddies has invited you on a trip to go deer hunting and you located this site find out what it was all about. You have a longing for the outdoors, but taking a walk in the county park has ceased to do it for you. You are looking for something more. From the looks of things, whitetail deer hunting appeals to you because it is cheaper than hunting elk. Whitetail deer are plentiful and accessible in your area. This is a great way to get into hunting.

I am also going to tell you up fron that I am an Eastern Whitetail hunter who come from Ohio and has hunted all of the surrounding states. My current main concentration is Zone 1 of Kentucky. However, what I have to say goes for all of the greater Ohio Valley and most of the rest of the world east of the Mississippi. This is not about hunting Western whitetails, mulies, etc. However, there is a lot here that will apply to the Northeast, the Southeast, and the Northern tier.

Let me give you some basic facts: First off, you have a 1 in 4 chances of bagging a deer in the next year. Second, the average deer hunter tries for 3 seasons and quits. Third, this is all just averages of state-compiled statistics, and includes a lot of successful deer hunters who have been at it a long time and normally harvest one or more deer per year. Your actual chance of bagging a deer through fair chase in the next year without spending $3000 for a fully-guided hunt like you saw on TV is about squat, with or without my advice.

Still reading? Thanks. Not many people do. I don’t think it is because I am a bad writer; I make that part of my daily affirmations. I think it is because no one likes to be told they are trying the impossible. Actually, you are not. Killing a deer is very easy. What makes this sport so hard is:

1) Finding the right place to hunt.
2) Making a commitment to hunt until you are successful
3) The overall long-term hardships of deer hunting.

Your chances are going to improve if you have friends or family that are willing to fulfill the role of the guide for you. If this is the case, treasure this relationship. If you are like me, you had encouragement from friends, but you found their enthusiasm flagging about the time you actually decided to go for it. Sooner or later, you decided to go out on your own, and at this point you realized there was a lot more to this sport than what you originally thought.

They know something you don't: deer hunting is hard. Deer hunting is demanding. Deer hunting requires a commitment. Deer hunting is not like golf. You cannot just go shoot a round of deer. It takes the whole year to prepare properly, and you will find that it will swallow up a good deal of time. While others are sitting at home watching football or out raking the leaves, you will be hunting or scouting or out at the range sighting in. Your friends that are encouraging you already know this; that is why you will quickly find yourself alone. In three years, you will find yourself joining them around the TV on Sunday and that will be that.

Anytime you sit down to a venison dinner or see a nice rack on the wall, chances are the hunter has made a terrific sacrifice of time, money, and personal comfort. If you were the hunter, that is something to be proud of in a way that few people that have never hunted will be able to understand. I have dedicated myself to getting you to that understanding, and getting it done on the cheap.

Scent Reduction

The first batch of clothes is out of the washer and out on the line. The timing was a bit off-- it's supposed to rain tonight and there's rain in the forecast until Thursday. However, I don't think I'll have too much of a problem.

Although I agree with those who say hunt the wind, and you won't need anything else, here's what I do additionally to cheat:

1) I wash all my clothes in nothing but baking soda. Nothing. Ever. When I'm washing, I run the washer once with nothing but baking soda to clean out whatever stink has accumulated in teh machine.
2) I wash the outer camo layer separate from the inner layers (underwear, etc.)
3) I air dry all my stuff-- almost always on a clothesline outside. Nothing ever sees the inside of a dryer.
4) I pack it all in a trash bag or plastic bin with a handful of baking soda thrown in. I do this sparingly, so there's not all that much to shake out. Inner and outer layers get packed seperately.
5) When I'm hunting, I shower before going out with baking soda. I also use an unscented deoderant.
6) I hunt with an outer layer of camo that never sees the inside of the house.
7) When I'm done hunting, my clothes go back in a separate bag for dirty clothes.
8) I never hunt in the same clothes two days in a row.
9) In warm weather I change the outer layer between the morning and afternoon hunts.

When I'm meticulous in this method, I can be within 20 yards upwind of a whitetail deer, and they won't bust me. If I screw up and wear the same shirt two days in a row, I can be busted from 70 yards down wind or 20 yards upwind of my stand. The deer always let me know when I've screwed up.

It is my belief that UV is a non-issue. A mammalian eyeball built to use the UV spectrum effectively would be useless at visible wavelengths. The UV hype of a few years ago was pure bunk.

More thoughts on the Opener

So here is what I want to know: the low body count in September—is it me or is it the deer? More precisely, is it the lack of hunters or a problem with deer behavior that causes the September’s low take?

If I am any example, it’s mighty hard to get things going in September. Cold is a lot easier to deal with than heat (my hats off to you guys down South).

On the other hand, it’s hard to see deer in September. You see lots of sign, but no Bambi.

When you have a whole county of prime whitetail in Zone 1 having a harvest record of 18-45 for the whole month of September, something is wrong.

KY DNR has got to be looking at the big picture and scratching their heads. They expand the season and the deer herd keeps exploding in the northern counties. They increase the bag limit to a doe a day and the herd keeps exploding. My take on it is that they are looking at this all wrong. What they should do is:

1) Increase the number of hunting opportunities. Make it easier for hunters to hunt. We need some incentive for private landowners to allow hunting.
2) Make it easier for out of state hunters to hunt by lowering license fees.
3) Make it easier and affordable to donate excess doe.

They need to get more creative. How about a Zone 1 only, 1-weekend antlerless shotgun, pistol, and muzzleloader season in late December with a 3-day out-of-state license/tag for $65? You’d have Buckeyes flocking into the state in droves. You would have 10's of millions of out of state dollars flowing in . Lastly, all you would need is to park a reefer truck at every Walmart to take in the excess carcasses for free.

Thoughts on the Opener

So here it is, two days to the season opener for archery in Kentucky. I haven’t got my gear prepped. I’m still not practicing with my bow the way I should be. I’m just not into it yet. I’m getting away this weekend for some hiking and to visit some in-laws. Why?

For years, I hunted only Ohio, and the opening of bow season was and is the first weekend in October. That is what I lived for. That is what drove me. That is what still drives me. Like the bucks, my neck does not swell until the leaves turn. I don’t start knocking over saplings or raking my ears against bushes (ouch!) until there is a bit of a chill in the mornings. It just is that way, and I realize I cannot help it.

Labor Day weekend was always my time to get out and prep the stands, clear brush, prune a shooting lane or two, then hightail it out and wait for a month. Now that I own a place to hunt in Kentucky, that work was done clear back in June and July.

Next week I’ll get out the bow and start shooting a few shots in the evening. Next week, I’ll start washing the clothes and sorting the gear. By mid month I’ll be sporting a nice bruise on my left forearm from taking that one last shot when my concentration is beginning to flag. The family room will be coated with a thin film of sodium bicarb settling on large plastic tubs of freshly washed clothes.

That still does not answer why I’m not hunting the opener. I could have done all this back in August.

Here’s a few ideas:

First, looking at the harvest numbers for September for my county, there seems to be about as much chance of bagging a deer as finding Bin Laden in my bathtub. Harvest numbers jump by a factor of ten in October. I’ve hunted September in Kentucky—short sleeves and mesh baseball caps and and lots of liquids. It’s hard not to work up a sweat and it’s hard not to work up a stink. The deer act like kids in school—barely moving in the classroom, chafing in their new fall clothes. They stay inside and do homework and do not come out to play until the sun is down.

Second, this is the time of year when I need to be plowing something back into the sport. It’s Squirrel Season and #2 and #3 son need time afield. This it when I pull down the .410 and my big floppy hat we go and sit in the big oak groves and listen to the acorns fall. This is when I drag out Grandpa’s Winchester 1897 for its annual trip to the woods and Old Whitey and I go hunting together and I try and listen for him amongst the trees. This is the time of year when fathers hand the gun to their son and tell them to take this one themselves.

Third, it just ain’t the right time. No, not yet. The processor is not answering his phone yet. There is no one in camo at the diner to greet. There are no posters for big deer contests. I haven’t yet caught a high school football game—gotta watch the boys lose at least once, so you won’t feel bad missing the rest of the season. (For those of us in Cincinnati, that includes the Bengals) . No one has put up a sign for a single bond issue, and I have not seen the Halloween stuff in the yards yet.

No, this part of season is unnatural to me. I want to watch the golden maples glowing in the sunrise. At the end of the day, I want a carcass that steams and I want to warm my hands in a body cavity instead of swatting away flies.

There is another reason still. As I delve deeper into the psyche of this cervid serial killer I see in the mirror, I realize that I am slowly passing from being a bow hunter that does gun to a gun hunter that does bow. There was something lurking deep within me, that was awakened hunting with a rifle here in Kentucky, and now it has grown and matured. Bow and muzzleloader has now become merely a prelude to modern firearms. I am loading up some more of the light 308’s. I’ll probably do another batch of 30-06 in 165 grain. I’m working with a new crimp die for the 30-30. It would be a shame to take anything but the largest buck before the Savage 99 had a chance to speak again. I need a day or two out with the Remington 742, and the Winchester and the Marlin. So much to do, so little time until November.

How still is still?

They always tell you to be as still as you can when you hunt.

How still is still? Hmmmm.

I've been so still at times that a squirrel once climbed up my leg. On the other hand, I've taken a buck from the ground at 10 feet with a bow, while his sister stood and watched me draw from 3 feet away. I shot my first deer after standing up in plain sight to take a whizz, but I've also been busted sitting in a 25' tree stand with a stiff wind blowing in my favor.

It has a lot to do with the deer's expectations. If deer know they are being hunted, then no amount of stillness or concealment will work perfectly. On the other hand if their guard is down, they are relatively blind to your activities. The trick is being where the deer don't expect you, and striking that balance between concealment and being able to shoot.

It started to rain around 10 AM one morning of luckless Spring Turkey hunting. My buddy and I sat down against the trunk of a large oak and he lit up a cigarrette. A few minutes later, a deer came by and started eating next to me. I tried to get my buddy's attention, and he finally crawled around the tree and laid over my lap with the lit cigarette to see this doe that was completely at ease with our presence.

"Oh that deer," he said.


Some basic tips:

Use your eyes rather than your head and body to survey the terrain-- Look first, then move your head.

Avoid all quick motions.

When you have to move, don't change your silhouette. Keep your hands close to your body.

Hunt from within shadow, or edge,where the shadows move and are confusing to the deer.

Hunt with the sun at your back, but try not to cast your shadow direct and unbroken on the ground.

Stay warm. If you get cold, you'll be unable to keep still. If you find yourself getting cold use isometrics to warm yourself up. Isometrics are exercises that pit one part of your body against another or against an immovable object. These can be done effectively without much movement, and are far better than shivvering. I lean hard against the tree and push with my whole body, or grab my seat and pull. Done right, you'll warm up quick and silently.