outdoorstom

Luna will be back to work on Monday morning. Can’t wait to get her out there!

10/29 Much to Luna’s chagrin, Kunox and I went this morning to track a buck that was bow shot last night. The hunter and his wife had grid searched and were unable to find any blood at all. He believed the shot was good up and down, but a little too far back. As the deer ran off he could see about 5” of arrow protruding. At the hit site, Kunox immediately locked on and circled around to where the deer had stopped for a few seconds after the shot. There was no blood or hair visible. Kunox picked a trail and off we went. Much to my delight, the hunter said they had been grid searching in a different direction than we were heading. We weren’t seeing any sign, but Kunox was acting confident and at 140 yards he showed us the arrow. From that point on, we had 3 spots of blood as we went 325 yards to the dead deer. He had been hit in the haunch but the arrow had angled it’s way down into the guts. The hunter had a bracket up with his phone in it and was recording the shot. His phone had moved after the shot and apparently the arrow had deflected off it.

10/28 #1 This morning Kunox and I tracked a buck shot by a huntress yesterday evening. I was called last night, and with the report of dark blood, we agreed it looked like a liver hit and decided to meet at first light this morning. There were only a few drops of blood for about 10 yards, then nothing. Kunox appeared to lock on, and off we went. 20 yards later a deer took off out of some stuff so thick I was unable to determine the sex of the deer. Kunox went hot and we followed for a few hundred yards. Based on how strongly the deer had run off and no visible blood, I decided we were following the wrong deer. We did multiple restarts, going 400 to 500 yards each time. The hunter and her husband stayed near first blood trying to advance the track, which they did by another 10 yards. During one of our extended forays as we searched along a creek, I was called by the husband and told he had found it. Kunox and I had twice been within 10 yards of it on the upwind side. There was a slight rise concealing him from us. I’m disappointed we didn’t find it, but of course very happy the 6 pointer was found! He had been gut shot and only gone about 125 yards due to not being pushed last night…..well done! #2 We had a second track scheduled less than 10 minutes away from the first, so off we went. This huntress was in an elevated box blind when a buck materialized directly underneath her. She found him in her scope, squeezed a round off, and was able to see where the round had hit him in the left haunch. Unfortunately, her scope had been set to 9 power so all she saw was brown in her scope. She, her husband, and a friend went back in 2 hours later and found a small amount of blood which they were able to follow for about 40 yards. The husband remembered how I stress not to grid search, so they backed out and called. Kunox took us to last blood, and took off down a trail with me unsuccessfully looking for blood. We had gone quite aways when I decided to take him back to last blood and I picked him up right next to a posted sign. As we were walking back, I heard a holler of, I’ve got blood. We went over, marked it, and I put Kunox back down. We took off down the trail and before long walked right past the posted sign. Sorry about that buddy! We continued and found a bed from last night. Further down the trail we started finding fresh blood and knew we were pushing him. We continued on and Kunox started getting more excited, but never opened up. I was hopeful we could close the distance and get a shot. He took us to a large swamp and led us across a VERY long beaver dam. We were following the occasional small drop and smears on swamp grass. Unfortunately, we never even got a glimpse of him and called the track. Kunox did very well on this one.

Thanks everyone. The worst part is the fact that she doesn’t understand why she’s stuck in there:-(

Thanks man!

I’m about 10 days away from resuming tracking, and unfortunately Luna had surgery yesterday. She had 5 sebaceous cysts removed from one paw. She’s crated if not on the couch with us, for 2 weeks, then another week of staying home bound. Poor girl!

A tracker friend of mine in Missouri wrote this today and gave me permission to share it. Scary times ahead. Those that follow me may have noticed that I’ve avoided writing any posts that may appear “political” for quite some time. The fact is, that venting on social media does little to nothing to change the trajectory of our increasingly Marxist government. The last election was evidence enough of that. However, there is a HUGE storm looming on the immediate horizon that everyone should know about. It is likely to hasten the collapse of our medical system, in my opinion. When I say, “hasten the collapse,” I’m not talking about years down the road, I’m talking months. For those that don’t know my background, I am a hospital physician. I treat Covid daily. I’m also the Medical Director of a community hospital, member of the hospital board, and sitting member on the medical executive committee for the larger health care system I work for. That said, what follows is my own view, and is not necessarily the view of the system I work for. My health care system has actively promoted the Covid vaccine, something that I have no problem with. They have also resisted mandating the vaccine for their employees, a position counter to the other 2 large hospital systems in our area. I have been proud of our administration for that stance. Currently, health care workers are at an all time low, at a time when health care use is extremely high. Nearly every hospital in the country is working with a skeleton crew of staff. Doctor’s offices are the same. Our hospital, like most, has been forced to cap the number of patients we can admit due to insufficient staffing. Also, like most, we have been forced to close important services in our hospital, like the ICU because of staffing issues. This problem is made worse by the fact that hospitals across the country with the deepest pockets are now paying 5-6 X the normal wages of nurses in order to maintain enough staff to keep the doors open. It’s great news for nurses who are willing to relocate, but is obviously not sustainable for most hospitals. They do it with the hope that this problem will be quickly resolved. The problem is that it likely won’t be corrected before many hospitals collapse completely. The problem is already at CATASTROPHIC levels across the country, and I don’t use that word loosely. If this were the end of the problem, it would be enough. I would still have grave concerns about the viability of smaller health care systems across the country, like the one I work for. However, the problem is about to reach what is likely to be an unrecoverable tipping point with new legislation being pushed out by the tyrants who are in charge. They are in the process of issuing forced vaccine mandates for any organization that accepts Medicaid or Medicare. That includes nearly every single hospital in the country. It is also your doctor’s offices and health clinics. Granted, about 75% of health care workers are already vaccinated. I am among that crowd. I suspect another 10% or so will also fall in line. However, that leaves around 15% of employees that will leave health care immediately when this goes through in the next few weeks. Our system cannot survive that! There aren’t any reserves to fill in the gaps. Other states are already loosening restrictions on who can fill those roles, credentials are now less important than vaccination status. States like New York are looking at out sourcing health care jobs by bringing in more nurses from other countries. They are calling up the National Guard to fill gaps that aren’t likely to go away in the foreseeable future. There is no reasonable solution to this problem that they are purposely creating aside from complete government intervention. Whether that is the goal or not, it will be the outcome. In our own system, there are a number of physicians who have chosen not to be vaccinated. Many of them are among the top “producers” in the system. They take care of huge numbers of patients, in surgery, in cardiology, in primary care. These are medically educated individuals who have decided that the vaccine is potentially more risk for them due to their age and health status, than Covid is. Many of them already have natural immunity from having recovered from Covid. These physicians will be forced out of practice in this country if they don’t comply. Many of them will leave. All of this is being pushed down our throats for “the good of the community.” The trouble is, none of that is true. The only person that the Covid vaccine protects is the person who receives the shot. Their own data has shown that vaccinated people are every bit as likely to spread the virus as unvaccinated people. In fact, vaccinated people with the virus are more likely to be asymptomatic spreaders of the virus while they go on about their daily lives. Hospitals are congested, and Covid is a part of that. But it’s not the biggest part of the problem. Staffing shortages which spiked with “enhanced unemployment benefits” and have continued to worsen due to continued labor shortages across the board are the main problem. We don’t blame people with COPD or pneumonia or diabetes for “clogging up” our healthcare system, and yet it is en Vogue to blame unvaccinated individuals when they get admitted to the hospital. They are the new “lepers” among us. I don’t know what can be done to stop this looming disaster. Our state governments are feckless at best, and complicit at worse, in their handling of this disaster. The crisis is upon us, though, and soon it will be too late for us to recover.

My wife and I are moving in 3 weeks and still have a LOT of work to do. As painful as this is, I won’t be tracking until we’ve moved. :-(

10/2 Short version - high quartering to shot, loud crack at impact, arrow recovered minus broadhead and 2” of arrow. 1.9 miles total track in the rain, no buck.

Hahahaha. No kidding!

9/29 I was driving home this morning after spending the night with buddies at Camp Serenity, which is run by Wounded Warriors Outdoors Adventures, when I received a call requesting help with a tracking job. The hunter told me he had shot a 9 pointer at 40 yards and believed he hit him too far back. He waited 2 hours before looking, but bumped the buck out of a bed at 80 yards. Going in too soon on a gut or liver shot was the only mistake this hunter made. He made a great decision by backing out immediately and waiting until this morning to go look. He was only able to advance the track a short distance this morning due to being in the cedars….tough tracking there. This is where he made another great decision….he backed out without grid searching and called! Luna made short work of this 375 yard track. If the hunter had continued pushing that buck last night there’s a good chance we would not have recovered him. I wasn’t there for the field dressing, but the hunter reports the arrow caught lung and sliced part of the heart. The entry point was back quite a ways, but the deer was quartering away. Poor Kunox has had to track 2 deer that were still alive while Luna gets the dead ones. His luck will change soon.

9/28 #1 I was called last night and asked to track a 4 pointer that was shot at 5:15. The hunter wasn’t sure where he had hit him, but thought maybe one lung or liver. He had waited about 45 minutes before starting to track. He was approximately 100 yards into the track when he jumped the standing buck, who blew as he took off. He jumped him again about 20 yards later and found a couple drops of blood where he was standing. The hunter attempted to leave the woods at this point, but got turned around and walked all through the area trying to get out. Kunox was taken to the hit site and quickly got locked on. There was never a lot of sign, a little bright red blood here and there, but no beds, and no recovered arrow. At 600 yards, Kunox went hot. We never saw the deer or any blood, but I let him continue, figuring I could always go back for a restart later if necessary. Kunox went hot again, and this time I found a tiny bit of fresh blood on a leaf. We continued but never caught up or got a glimpse. I called the track at .9 miles. #2 This 4 or 6 pointer was shot last night at 6:10, and I got the call this morning while on the first track. Kunox lucked out and got two in a row. When I heard where the deer had been shot, I knew if we didn’t find it close, we most likely wouldn’t find him at all. He had been shot high in the neck and the hunter could clearly see his arrow still in him as he ran off. Based on the small amount of blood, an artery was not hit. He was long gone.

You’re not kidding. She was practically hyperventilating when we got there!

9/27/21 Our first track of the season! I was called by a friend that shot a doe at 20 yards this evening. He watched her mule kick then run out of sight. She then briefly reappeared a short distance away before disappearing again. Luna immediately locked on at the hit site and the hunter confirmed she was going the way the deer had ran. We didn’t see any blood for the first 100 yards, then started seeing a little on the tall grass and on trees. Luna took us in a different direction than where the hunter saw the deer reappear, so he must have seen a second deer. We found the doe dead at about the 200 yard mark and he had made a very nice shot. This was a great warmup track for us.

So, I guess the Europeans are all conspiracy theorists?? https://t.me/Whiplash347/44981

Thanks everybody….we’re raring to go!!

Finally….it’s that time of the year again! Northern bear season opens Saturday, with bow season for deer opening the 27th. Good luck this season everyone!

I found out a couple of days ago I have the antibodies. I was sick in May….guess it was covid! No vaccine here.

Good luck with your search!

I was stationed on Wellesley Island at the Coast Guard station…loved it!

That’s only 30 minutes from me now….pretty area!

Northwest - looking at Canada. We’re moving to Wilson Hill, 6 miles from Massena.

We’re selling the farm and moving to a place on the St Lawrence River. The farmer we lease to is buying 107 acres, and we’re selling 6 acres with the house and outbuildings. I was able to obtain exclusive hunting rights for my stepson and I :-) It’s bittersweet, but retaining hunting rights makes it easier. Not to mention we’ll enjoy the new view!

You should get a hold of some of this new Chinese medicine to have available before you get the jab. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.13.452194v2?fbclid=IwAR1N8gwUKfsQhOAbXrnOAGL2g7nVgFAQaJuSw6TQW5589OS52yef3xRYcIY