Donate your deer carcass to Wolfrun.org!

Here's a plea from Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge in Nicholasville, KY:

Donate your deer carcass to Wolfrun.org!

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Hey guys I think since we are all conservationist in a sense I though you all might be interested. Feed something other than your local coyote's.


We cannot use the organs but all the rest! Thanks so much. You wouldn't believe how this helps us. Not only financially but the deer is so good for the big cats and the wolves love to play and chew on the bones! Its a win, win situation for everyone out here! Let me know if you need me to answer anything other questions. We are open from 12-5 each Saturday if the weather permits. Blessings, Mare

Wolf Run Wildlife Refuge
Mary Kindred CEO

Call a day ahead to meet with Mary to donate your deer.859-881-3449 or email wrwrhope@gmail.com

How is the change from DST going to affect the deer?

Dang! I'm missing all those threads about "How is the change from DST going to affect the deer?" I always howl when I find one of them.

Occasionally I get the devil in me and start posting stuff about how the deer get confused and start getting up in the middle of the night and it throws off the rut and the bucks keel over out of all the frustration, 'cause the doe is staying in her bed and they're always late getting out into the field in the evening and it makes them get thin, missing meals and all-- you'd be surprised how many guys bite.

. . . but then I've got folks riled up over "Disney on Ice." I think it's terrible that they cart Walt's frozen carcass around to cities and then make people pay to see it. Folks tell me it's an ice pagent-- like Holiday on Ice, but that makes it even worse-- something so gruesome mixed in with what's supposed to be such wholesome family entertainment.

Progress Report on the Crossbow

I've finally done some serious hunting with the crossbow. I had it out a few times over the weekend in between hunting for turkey with Angus. Nothing really went wrong with any of it. It just wasn't as much fun as my bow and certainly not like a rifle.

For the most part a bow is flat. It can have a stabilizer or a cable guard sticking out, but the everything is fairly flat and easy to carry. Rifles are fairly stick-like. There's not a whole-lot going on there either. Crossbows stick out in all three dimensions in one way or the other, and it's just a lot harder to do everything with them. Wearing them on a sling is a problem, getting in and out of trees is more of a problem. It just wasn't as much fun.

There is no polite way to load, reload or unload a crossbow. Loading is best done on the ground. Reloading is not going to happen any time soon, so you'd best forget about taking a second shot. Unloading? It's a bit like muzzleloading. At some point, you're going to have to fire the weapon to get it unloaded.

The one NICE thing I can say about a crossbow is that it is great to prop over a shooting rail. Vertical bows have to be held or put on an overhead hook or something. Rifles are always a bit of a problem in the blind. They always want to fall over or slip or roll, so you just have to hold on to them constantly. I had the crossbow up in the buddy stand with me, and this is the one place it shown. I propped it up on the corner of the shooting rail and it remained at the ready the whole time. It acted like it wanted to hunt.

There is one other really nice thing about a crossbow. I unloaded it by putting a field point on and firing into the ground before I got down from the stand. At 20 yards there was absolutely no doubt where that bolt is going. I picked out a nice oak leaf out in front of the stand and the bolt went right where I aimed. JPH or somebody will gnash their teeth and tell me that this is unfair. Frankly I'm done with being fair. I've been 3 years off my compound bow now, and I've gotten to like hunting at compound bow distances with a 30-06. Same idea-- it takes the worry out of it.

I've been watching D&DH a lot on the DVR, and they always go and pick apart some guy's shot on a deer. It's always a guy with a bow they're critiquing isn't it? Hmmmm. I wonder if I sent in video of nailing a nice buck at 15 yards with an M1 Garand if they'd spend the time on it? Why is that? Oh well.

I had one deer come in Sunday morning, and it was moving fast and it was too far out. I've still not had anything to shoot at, but we'll see.

A new stand

So yesterday Moose, Angus, and I went squirrel hunting. Moose ran into the bionic squirrel: took 5 rounds of #6-- kept getting back up and trying to climb the tree.

Angus and I went out onto a finger ridge we seldom travel, and found a good spot for the ladder stand. While we were sizing up the tree, a doe busted us. We took that as an omen, and brought down the stand and transported it over.

Later Moose and I came back from lunch to clear a few cedar trees out. One in particular would give us 100 yards of shooting lane. When we got there, there was fresh deer scat at the base of the ladder.

Later still, KYHillChick and I drove out to retrieve some gear I'd left and get a GPS reading on the new location. Sure enough, the doe was back standing at the base of the stand.

Go figure.

Midway Phoenix-- A Deer Shack is Born

It all started back in 2008 when I realized there was an ideal spot for a treestand that would cover the length of two food plots I put up a buddy stand; and pulled two deer out of the plots that year. I'd been spoiling for years to put up a serious all-weather shooting house, and my trips out with Angus had convinced me that it would not be long before the two of us would not fit into buddy stand.

Over the winter I came up with a design that would comfortably handle two hunters, and take advantage of all the scraps I had left over from rehabbing the farm house.

The original design was set to be put up on 8 foot treated fence posts. However, there was a problem with that. The Elevator brand brackets were just not built to withstand all the weight. We found out the easy way. As we were erecting the second wall one leg let go, and I quickly found out that fat men don't fly too well. It could have been a lot worse if the it had all held together until the roof was on. Yikes.

After a month hiatus, we all went back to work. From the 8 foot fence posts, we cut stubby little legs and got the height of the floor nor more than 2 feet of the ground. One floor joist was shattered and needed to be replaced. I have to say that working at 2 feet was considerably easier than 10.

The Shamanic Deer Battery

I brought the Shamanic Deer Battery back from its secret offsite underground storage facility the other day, and it occurred to me that it might be a good idea to take pictures to share with y'all. I'm always talking about this deer rifle or that one. You can tell that I'm rather attached to them.

I have to warn you. This is not my end-all list of must-have rifles. It is just the ones that I own, and ones that have a lot of history for me. I'll try and post stories about each one as I go on the website as well

Link to stories, better pics, etc.