What Did You Do Today?

[Poggins]

You got to make time for the little ones , maybe some day she will spend time with you in the woods .

[Eric Krewson]

Hunted a couple of times, flintlock Saturday, bow hunting yesterday. Let a nice buck get away yesterday, thought he was alone in the thick stuff, when he turned away I shifted my rifle and cross sticks in his direction, he wasn't alone, the deer I didn't see busted me when I moved, game over. Didn't see any deer yesterday.

[Knapper]

This pass weekend , took a couple of young men out to try for their Wilderness advancement in FCF. After shooting their smoke poles, throwing their hawks and knifes, preparing their primitive shelter for their all night vigil. Both passed with flying colors. Congrats men.
Knapper

[Eric Krewson]

I started a very ambitious project that will take days, cleaning up my shop. Take bow building with scrap wood and dust, add flintlock building with a zillion tools and parts and stock blanks, plumbing failure fixes, arrow making, tractor stuff, 10 years of accumulated junk (I know I can use that some day stuff) and throw it all haphazardly into a 14X28 space, one layer on top of the next and you have my shop.

I worked all day just to see the top of my work bench for the first time in years. I threw out giant trash bags full of what I thought were treasures but decided was just more pack rat junk. At the end of the day one could hardly tell I had been working there but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Pappy]

Ya I need to do that to my shop,and all my out buildings,seems all I do when I start is just re stack. Need to hire someone to clean it up that don't know what all the stuff is. I tell folks that when I am gone my son will have the dangest yard sale ever was. It's junk mostly but it's my junk.
 Pappy

[Marks]

Pappy-I'd come to that yard sale.

Eric-That light at the end of the tunnel is just the back window of the shop . Just keep working toward it. It always gets messier before it gets cleaner.

[Stringman]

If I allowed my wife to visit me in my cave I'd have to do a little more of that cleaning too.  everybody must have their sanctuary!

My buddy called me last night with another "I just arrowed a big one" story. I was still at work so I told him to look for blood and let me know. Couple hours later while driving home he called me back and said he found the back half of his arrow but little else. So after meeting up and talking about it we headed back with better flashlights.

He took me to the place where he found the arrow and I started picking up blood. As we worked out his trail he took us through some pretty small places. I'm always amazed by their ability to work through some of the tightest cover in the area. We walked and tracked, lost blood, found it, trailed across an entire cornfield, everything was frosting up and we were having lotsa trouble picking up the frozen blood droplets. Then we followed him into some of the nastiest briar and bramble cover you can imagine. Hands and knees time for sure, when you would stop and look up we were both pointin different directions to the truck. Not lost mind you, but wishing we'd a packed a lunch.

At this point blood started dropping more freely and I was asking if he had brought a knife. Somewhere in there I recall dreading the long drag back out when the blood started thinning down again. We got a call from his wife all in a panic, asking if I knew where her husband was (he left his phone in the truck) and I sheepishly apologized and handed the phone across. We had been on the trail for over 2 hours and still finding blood. Should not have overlooked that, cause she was sincerely upset.

Anyway, back on the track and blood almost dried up. No longer finding it on the ground, only on the stalks and leaves of vegetation. Well over on the back side of "whoflungit" and realized that I no longer had a trail. Watch said nearly 11 and we started after 7. Standing in briars we were scared to walk through straight and not real sure where the truck was. I could read my buddies book and the print was plain. "&?#%! I think we lost him." I walked over the next rise and was thinking he could be laying anywhere here or not at all. Small chance of finding him tonight. Hard pill to swallow... Don't like starting a job I can't finish... Wishing don't help, but I shore wish...

[PEARL DRUMS]

What a cutey Greg! Dang!

[JW_Halverson]

No hoped to hear your story to end that way, Scott.  Sorry to hear it.   

Losing a deer is foremost in my mind every time it comes to the split second of decision making.  What's worse is that I acknowledge that I am not a good tracker.  I've been lucky in my short time of hunting to have only lost one deer. 

Something I read in Dr. Ashby's writings on arrow lethality is that due to the prey's split second reaction times, the speed of our projectiles, arrow placement is very much random despite how we make our best efforts to make a quick kill.  All we can do is work hard at getting good at putting arrows where they do the most, and then putting heart and soul into the tracking.  Sounds like the two of you did just that.

[Eric Krewson]

Went flintlocking, I sent this email to the land owner;

I walked the trail I cut off the honeysuckle road up the side of the Hamm hill. The leaves were like corn flakes so I did my deer imitation walk going in. A deer came to investigate what he though was another deer, of course he came in down wind and busted me with plenty of vocal protesting.
 
Picked a tree at the edge of the sweet gum thicket and hardwoods, sawed limbs, saplings, clanked my stand real loud putting it up but finally got up the tree.
 
Just about the time I got set a truck spun into the area across from the gate and stopped. Next it sounded like they were dragging my deer hauler out of the back of my truck.
 
Down the tree I went and hustled out to my truck to investigate. No one was messing with my truck, the Stultes were unloading a small trackhoe off a trailer on their land which made the racket.
 
I considered going elsewhere but had my stand was still on a tree so I stomped back through the corn flakes, not trying to be quiet, and climbed the tree again.
 
I thought no deer in it's right mind will come by me now after such a commotion, it was a pretty evening to watch the sun go down though.
 
About 10 minutes before dark here came the deer, several of them, feeding through the sweet gum thicket, dummies I thought, I am going to get a shot after all. They were about 40 yards away, my limit of sight through the thicket was 30 yards, they were safe, never got a glimpse of them. 

[YosemiteBen]

my coworker called in sick so I do not get to do what I wanted to do! It does look to be a good dogbane year. I should be able to get more than 3K stems.

[Olanigw (Pekane)]

...more than 3K stems...

Goodness...

[osage outlaw]

This evening I stalked my way back a ridge to where an area I haven't hunted in years.  I ended up under an old stand my Dad built in the 80's.  Its where I killed my first deer.  I sat on a fallen osage tree next to it.  The last time I sat on that tree my wife was with me and I killed a doe.  That was around 10 years ago.  Shortly before dark a small deer came up the hill and found itself on the wrong end of a 44 mag. revolver.  I dropped it right up against the tree with the old stand in it.  It was a hunt that brought back a lot of memories. 

While I was stalking back the ridge I found this guy warming himself.  I've never seen a snake while gun hunting before.

[IdahoMatt]

I got to teach my nephew and his cousins how to properly kill and clean a rabbit.  He started raising some this summer and it was high time to get one on the table. .  Makin memories. 

[RidgeRunner]

I saw a 2 foot garter snake behind the wood pile yesterday.
My Wife declined my request that she come look at it.

David