This was a disappointing season for a lot of reasons. Angus never got one. Moose did not make it out at all. I flubbed two good shots at bucks and got iced on a third. However, I managed to get the freezer filled.
The big story this year was SuperCore. SuperCore got his two on Sunday of the Opener, and then went dry for the rest of the season. Part of this was that the deer were on to him-- they were on to all of us after the Opener. Part of it was that he had hardware that was not going to feel comfortable reaching out past 100 yards. Part of it was an interest in finding a decent buck. The good news is that SuperCore quickly found deer hunting and deer camp to be a end unto itself. It doesn't get much better than this, does it Pardner?
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| From Deer Hunt 2009 |
If I had set out this year to hunt nothing but doe, I would have been overwhelmed. I don't think I went a day without seeing several doe. The most I had in sight at a time was eight. It was warm. It was sort of an off year for the rut. The acorns were mostly gone before the Opener. As a result, most of the hunting from the Opener on consisted of a short window at mid-morning and an even shorter one before last light. If there were bucks out there, they were holding back until after dark.
I did have two really good opportunities at bucks that I flubbed. The first I have already reported. I finally figured out that the front Weaver Swivel Mounts on the Savage 99 were knocked up a bit. It's the first time in 28 seasons and half a dozen rifles that I've had a problem. Still, it got me to thinking that my days with the iron sights are probably over. It may make sense to ditch the Weavers and move on.
The second flub was the second weekend. I had stayed out later than usual on Sunday morning and a nice buck-- never really got a chance to count points-- walked up the ravine behind Campground. The problem was that he was perfectly up-sun from my position, and I could not see him through the glare coming through the scope. I've had this happen once before back in 2005-- same stand, same time, same problem-- nothing but pale yellow muck.
With Mooseboy out of the picture for the season, I did not want to venture too far off the top of the ridge. Schlepping carcasses out of the ravines alone is a feat I'm no longer going to attempt-- a birthday present I gave myself when I turned 50. I was also limited by the lack of acorns. Putting SuperCore over at Faulty Towers gave him a commanding view of quite a bit of territory; it also meant there were a few spots I couldn't go for fear of one of us getting shot. The answer ended up that I spent a lot of mornings at Campground and a lot of afternoons at Midway. I'm sure the deer figured this out pretty well. However it did not seem to faze them.
Which brings me to one of my lessons for the year. I was raised to believe that deer quickly pattern a deer hunter and learn to avoid him. This was not the case this year. You have to figure that between the various hunts and the pre-season scouting, I spent a lot of time at Campground and Midway. I NEVER went out that I didn't see deer. Oh sure, the deer saw me. They knew I was there, but it took a LOT of encouragement to get them to avoid me-- like pulling my rifle off its peg and aiming it at them. After this season, I am no longer as certain as I was about this whole thing about stealth.
Yes, I was caught once taking a leak off the stand. However I was in the process of shaking it off and sitting down when I got busted. The rest of the time I usually had deer come by immediately after. I theorize that they think it's a load of acorns falling. One thing is for sure: for all my whizzing, I did not see a decline in the number of deer sightings from the start of season to the end.
Scent Control? Camo? Here were other taboos shaken at the roots. As the season progressed, I was amazed at how little the deer seemed to mind me. I'm not saying I'd go out in a Hawaiian shirt with a 3 day stink on. However, I was out several times in my plain brown Carhart bibs and a barn coat and the deer made no notice of me. Also, due to the number of days I was away from home and the washing machine, I had to comprimise on my scent control regimen a lot. Basically, as long as I got a shower with sodium bicarb once a day and I made sure my outermost layer was either a) left hanging outside or b) put away in a bag the deer didn't notice. They also didn't seem to notice the Carharts and work boots if I stayed in the confines of Midway.
Here are some other bites of information from this year's hunt:
- I found a deer bedded in the tall grass as I was walking in after legal hunting. I had my flashlight on. She waited until I was 10 feet away to bust.
- In close to the same spot, I got busted before first light on my way in to hunt. I'd pass by this one stand of cedars and the thicket would erupt with deer. What I find odd is that they never seemed to learn. Hmmmm.
- I watched a doe with a goiter come by. It was this large thing the size of a football hanging off her breast. She didn't seem to mind it. I let her go.
My Yute: Angus had his second year as a participating deer hunter. He went scoreless. Yute Hunt Weekend, he passed on a trio of deer, because he saw the smaller two walk over and suckle. For the rest of the season he just never got around to pulling the trigger. Early on, he was interested in holding out for a buck. However, it was always one thing or another. I don't know if that makes him Sportsman, or he was just being lazy, or he was being like his old man and letting the doe walk by and just not feeling much like shooting anything. The other problem, and this is something I have to accept responsibility for, Angus has been shooting off a rest for so long that he could not figure out what to do when presented with a shot that could not be taken from the shooting rail of the treestand. I realized this too late. However, by next year, he'll have grown and we'll be using a different rifle-- maybe the M1 Garand.
Which brings me to my two. I ended up with back-to-back bookend doe, shot with the same rifle at the same distance from the same blind exactly a week apart at the same time-- just after sundown. The first went 178 lbs live weight. The second was 170. The only difference between them amounted to 6 chubs of grind. I gave Angus dibs on the second one. He declined, saying he didn't think she was close enough for his 30-30. He was right. She was about 170 yards when I shot.
I had a lot of stuff rolling around in my head as I shot these two. On the one hand, I did not want to give up on the season. Shooting that last doe was an admission that I probably was not going to see another shootable buck. However, I'd already learned to live with that one. It is always somewhat of a bittersweet thing to take the life of something so big and beautiful as a consolation prize, or just to have meat in the freezer, but I'm now getting used to that idea. Even getting used to the idea makes me a little uncomfortable. But then. . .
It'll give me something to think about on the stand next year. Speaking about things to think about on the stand, I finally broke down and bought my first pair of bi-focals. (there's a non-sequitor!) The problem has been that I have previously chosen to have two pair of glasses-- distance glasses and reading glasses, and as my eyes got worse over the years I had a hard time reading on the stand. I finally gave it up last year. This year, I was out with my new bifocals and I had lot of time to kill on the stand, so I brought out some different sorts of books to read. I picked Military History as a subject. I went through two of the three Shaara books on the Civil War and The Battle of Britain by Hough and Richards. It all made a good match for where my head was at.
For all the gunfire we heard on Opening Day and throughout the season, it was amazing that the numbers were off. The state's harvest for November was at a 7 year low. Bracken County was off its stride as well, but not as bad. Neighboring Pendleton County's harvest matched last year's. On the other hand. Meyer's in Lennoxburg was swamped with deer. It wasn't a record, but it was heavy. I had to wait an extra week to get both of mine processed. There were a lot higher percentage of bucks taken this year; that's bucking the recent trend. For a zone that has unlimited antlerless harvest, that's kind of odd too. Lord knows I had plenty of opportunity to take a buck this year.
This brings me back to the littany of disappointments. Not having Moose along was a bummer, but I'm sure this is not a permanent condition. He had some things to work out in his life. Not closing the deal on a buck was a bit of bummer, but I know that is not going to happen every year. Angus not harvesting a deer was a bummer, but a lot of that was his choice. The other bummers?
The Guns:
The Savage 99 let me down for the first time. Maybe I let the Savage 99 down. I don't know. It's been powerful mojo for me since 2003. I'm going to have to rethink this one.
The Whelenizer had to be taken out of service mid-season as well. I found out that two out of the three magazines I have for it are clicking in all right, but the bolt is closing over the top of the round instead of feeding it in. It's a perennial problem with this family of Remingtons. Mine is a 7600 in 35 Whelen. Sometimes a little tweak here and there fixes it, sometimes not.
The crossbow was a major bummer. I'm just not all that comfortable with it. Maybe a lot of practice will get me where I want to go, but I think I've become spoiled by firearms and I'm still looking back with nostalgia to my compound bow days. The crossbow is neither. It seems like the worst of both those worlds. We'll see. I may try and take it out for turkey in the Spring.
The Winchester 670 in 30-06 was the go-to deer gun this year. I got both doe with it. I'm probably going to have to take the shoulder pad off it. When I was a long-lean bean pole having a 1" pad probably made sense. I have to remember that this also used to be my groundhog rifle and I was shooting it mostly on hot summer days with nothing on but a T-Shirt. At Fifty Plus, I'm finding that the pad plus all my natural padding plus a few layers of clothing makes for quite a stretch.
My Stands:
Campground and Virginia are still good stands without acorns. However, you can forget Garbage Pit, Newstand and Glenway. Overall, the stands did not measure up to Midway, but I'm sure that with a decent acorn crop, things would have been different. I am convinced there is another opportunity for a stand near the entrance to Virginia, but getting there without honking off the deer may be a problem. The treestand skirts are a ragged mess. What Hurricane Ike didn't do in last Fall, some nameless thunderstorm did in just before season started. All the die-cut material needs to be replaced.
My gear:
If I could find a Hunter Orange Coat that was a tad warmer than the Quad Parka I've got, it would probably be a good idea. Mine is a Walmart special, and it's been great since 2003. however, its insulating ability just wasn't up to the weather of the last week of season. I probably need a dedicated hunter orange coat. The rest of the gear worked great.
I'm still trying to condense this down into a simple message for myself for next year. If I had to put down what was in my heart right now it would be this: Deer hunting is going to be a long spiral path that really leads no where in particular. To paraphrase Scripture: Like a dog to its own vomit, you'll keep running back over the same stuff with deer hunting over and over. Some days are not so pretty. Some shots are not so pretty. Some whole seasons are not so pretty. Some days get dowright grim and grimy.
The other thing I'd tell myself from the heart is that all the years I hunted alone I truly repent. I missed Moose terribly, and I really enjoyed SuperCore's company. I'm glad to have shared The Farm with somebody else. I'm down here cleaning up from season and it is particularly spooky being alone without the dogs, cooped up inside with time on my hands. I looked out the window on the last morning and for a brief moment saw a huge buck out around the Jagende Hutte. Just at that moment, he turned and ran back into the woods, but even with the distance and my bad eyes I could tell he was a monster.
As I was putting the last padlock on the sheds, I had this bizarre sound hit me. It sounded like geese and turkeys fighting. It sounded like somebody turned on a big box fan. I couldn't tell if it was an animal or the belts on the neighbor's truck slipping it was. . .
. . . it was a flight of over a hundred cranes flying overhead. DANG! Even for as high as they were and for as much noise as they were making, I could hear their wingbeats. That sight right there made the season.
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