wolc123

That’s about how I use one. It gets a little trickier when roads follow the course of rivers, streams, or around peaks and valleys. I don’t run into that too often at my current spot up in the northern zone. The main paved road I take to camp up there runs almost east-west and the main gravel road into camp, off that runs basically north-south. Even the ridges run basically north south or east west. A couple other spots that I hunted up there were much trickier. It’s even easier for me at my two spots in the southern zone . Our road runs east-west and my parents runs north-south, and it’s all about as flat as a pancake. Even the creek was rerouted, perfectly east-west across our farm, back in the 1970’s. The county did that to eliminate two bridges on our road. “Google maps” road view still shows the old course of the creek, but the satellite view reveals the current one. If you are unfamiliar with the roads, then you might run into the problem of not knowing which way to go, when you get back to the road. I mostly only use the compass, when I track a deer into some heavy cover, and I loose my sense of direction. They often head for heavy cover, after you hit them with an arrow or a bullet, and if you spook them with your scent, sound, or sight. if you are going to follow deer tracks, hoping to get a shot at one, then I would suggest getting a topo map, of the area you hunt, and practice using that with your compass.

After lunch with my parents at their place, I cut a big locust branch that they wanted down in the back yard. I used the remaining gas in my saw to clear a downed dead ash from one of the woods trails that my dad wanted to get thru with his bush hog. I brought that wood home and loaded it on my “to be split” trailer, out behind the barn. I hope to get over there one more time, before the September 10 antlerless gun opener, and cut up another truckload of dead ash (for our winter heating supply), and get my $ 8 padded swivel chair (from which I killed (3) deer in the past year) back up in the clover plot / woods edge stand, that’s right behind their house. My parents are my “trail cameras” over there. Dad mentioned seeing two does regularly on that plot, one with a large fawn (she’s the one I want), and another with a small one. I could only hunt one weekend of the early antlerless gun season last year, and that’s where I killed my deer. I jumped in the pool when I got home after I unloaded the wood (I use it more for bathing after hot dirty work, than for swimming) . It beats the heck out of dirtying up the shower in the house. Pool filter cartridges are cheap and easily replaced. We have had a nice, light steady rain at home over the last hour or two. I took the opportunity to bush hog (3) old clover plots, and the banks of my pond. I like to try to catch that at the low water level for the year and I think this is it from the looks of the weather forecast for this week. My home-made tractor canopy works great for sun and rain. Not so well for bees though.

It was too damn muggy in the house last night, so I slept out in the camper, which is in the pole barn (it has an air-conditioner which works ok on the 20 amp outlet that I have it plugged into out here). Right now, I have that ac turned off, and a window cranked open, so that I can listen to the pleasant sound of rain on the tin barn roof. That rain arrived just in the nick of time. Now I can bush-hog my old clover plots, so that they will be super tasty and attractive to the deer, for the September 10th antlerless gun season opener.

I broke open a yellow jacket nest, while bush-hogging along the edge of a ditch about a month ago. In about 45 years of bush-hogging with open-station tractors, that was the first and only time that I got stung. Fortunately, just once on my back, but it was pretty painful. What sucked about it, was at the same time and in the same place, I lost the tail wheel on my bush-hog. The pin must wave vibrated out, and it fell down into the ditch right next to the broken open nest of angry yellow jackets. I got stung when I drove back to look for the missing wheel. I have to believe that I have broken plenty more nests open thru the years, but as long as I kept on going at a good pace, I never got stung before.

This is the one I am after on the 10th. Check out those back straps. Her fawn looks to be plenty big to make it on it’s own after she makes the trip to deer Heaven (my family’s food supply). That would be a 20 yard shot from the blind I moved yesterday.

I am really looking forward to getting out there on September 10th. We ought to be just about out of ground venison by then. I got the last of my shotgun zone deer guns sighted in good today, a couple of blinds placed, and shooting lanes trimmed. I am going to pull a coon trap that I had in my back corn plot tomorrow, and try to minimize my presence back there, until September 10. I have been driving back to check that trap every day for the last couple weeks. Hopefully, the does will be very well acclimated to the blinds and trimmed shooting lanes by then. I just need to decide on what gun to take. I am leaning towards my T/C Omega 50 cal ML for several reasons: First, I have no intention on trying for a double, even though I have two dmp’s tags. It will be warm and there is only room for one in my deer fridge. Second, the old Redfield wide field 2-7 scope on that ML is much nicer than the new Leupold/Redfield 2-7 on my Marlin 512. Third, I have at least 4 times as much ammo (bullets, powder, primers) for it and it costs at least 4 times less per shot. Fourth, it kicks a lot less. Fifth, I am very confident in it, having already killed a deer with it on January 1st of this year. The downsides are not having two quick follow-up shots, like I get with my Marlin 512, or four even quicker ones like I get with my Ithaca 37 16 ga or Remington 870 12 ga. It is also just a smidge more of a pain to clean (I use T7 powder). Cleaning has got way better, since I started using Traditions foaming bore cleaner and a bore snake.

Busy morning today. I put the bush hog on, as a counterweight, then cut the shooting range nice and low. I used my medium fork extensions on the loader to reposition a truck cap blind. It took my a while to get the floor within half a bubble of perfectly level, but it turned out ok. I will look for a north wind to hunt this spot. Hopefully, we get one between September 10 and 18th, and the old doe that I saw here last week shows up again in the same spot. Besides a shot that way (to the south), I can get a hundred yard shot to the east, from the back door, and a hundred yard shot to the east, from the front slider. I doubt I will open the south side slider, because there is thick brush that way and the property line is only about 15 yards away, After placing that stand, I drove back to the house and filled the Durango’s cargo hold with guns, shooting supplies, a big swivel chair, and my pop up blind. When I got back to the range, the only thing I forgot was my hearing protection. No big deal, as the great suspension on that Durango made for a quick trip back to get it. I won’t even shoot a .22 on the range without hearing protection. That’s my recoil pad lying next to the ear plugs on the 50 yard bench. I always keep that in my shooting box. It tames the crap out of the hard kickers like my Ithaca 16 featherlight and the 870 12 gauge. The Marlin 512 is heavy enough, that it don’t kick too bad, as is the T/C Omega, which kicks about the same as the Ruger 10/22. The shooting conditions were a lot better this morning, than last time I tried. It was quite hot, but there was no wind and no mosquitoes. I started with my Marlin 512 and used (3) SST’s to get it dialed in . It is now adjusted to 2” high at 100 yards, and 3” high at 50. I have (18) SST’s left. Next, I checked my T/C Omega ML at 50 yards and found that it was about 3” low. A quick adjustment brought 1” high (where I wanted it at 50), so 2 shots and done with that one. I changed targets and fired a 3 shot burst with my Ruger 10/22 and hollow point Rem Yellow jackets . The 2” diameter group was centered 1/2 “ to the left and 1” above the bull, and I made no adjustment. I ended the range session with a “one and done” 50 yards shot with my short 12 gauge open-sighted Remington 870. The Federal classic foster slug punched thru 3/4” high and 2” to the right. As far as the guns go, I am all set for the September 10 opener now. I will probably flip a coin between the Marlin 512 and the ML at home. I have lots of ammo for the ML, but it is more of a pain to clean. The barrel is soaking now, with Traditions foaming bore cleaner. I won’t clean the other guns until September 18. I will go with my Ithaca 16, over at my parents place. I also have lots of slugs for that and it always shoots very well on my grandfather’s old farm. Maybe that’s because he was the original owner of the gun. I would like to take one mature doe from there and another at home, a week apart. When I finished shooting, I placed the pop up blind, put the padded swivel chair in it, and staked it down. From that position, I can get a 200 yard shot down the gas line or down my range, a 15 yard shot to the turnip plot, or 20 yard shot to the corn. I will need an east or north east wind to hunt it. After that, I trimmed some brush around a “natural” blind near the center, that can be hunted in almost any wind. Some of that brush was poison ivy, so I sped back to the house, threw my clothes in the wash , put on shorts, and jumped in the pool to wash off all that nasty oil. I’ll know tomorrow if I got it all.

I will pay $ 40 for the cord if you’d sell it separate , plus a couple cream ales (or Ruby reds), and a frozen, vacuum sealed pack of 2022 button buck back strap, if you drop it off.

I have yet to kill a deer in wmu 9F, that didn’t have a belly full of corn, however the one year I didn’t get any planted at our place (2019), was the year that I killed my best archery season buck here (on a two year old clover plot). I have not killed a deer here since then, despite some pretty good-looking plots. They definitely keep deer around, and hunting is a lot more fun, when you are seeing some.

I think that’s what I paid each ,for a two box limit, at Runnings a couple months ago when they had them.

The vermin must have really been out last night. I noticed a coon got hit on the the road at the end of my driveway, on my way to work this morning. I found another adult male in a box trap just now. I didn’t even see any bait left in it when I checked it yesterday. I am now out of marshmallows, bread, and peanut butter, so I just baited the other two box traps with a little cat food, poured thru the bottom of the grate. The coons make a mess of the box-traps, so I had to take the full one back to the shop for cleanup. Two of those, that I caught earlier, had been exhumed by coyotes. As usual, those are doing a fine job of keeping the area cleared of live female and juvenile coons. To top it off, there was a dead mouse in a trap in my woodshop.

We are hitting the freezer hard, trying to make room for an early September gun-season doe or two. Spaghetti squash with meat sauce was awesome. I had to go back for seconds. It’s way less filling than regular spaghetti. I took a little of the green bean casserole, as a side on the second trip. That was pretty good also.

I am super careful with mine, after that misfortune (2) years ago. Unless I am in one of my very well concealed blinds, I only bring it out when I am damn sure there is no deer in close. The 3 ft high, weathered-barnwood walls that I have around most of my blinds, are great for smart phone usage though. Even a sharp-eyed hen turkey, 10 yards away, had no clue when I was texting away in there this spring.

Beware of your number one. Mine cost me a monster Adirondack buck, 2 opening day of gun season’s ago. While you are hunting, the best place for that smart phone to be is in your pocket.

The Imperial Whitetail tall tine tube tubers are starting to pop pretty good from the morning dew and the few brief showers we have had over the last couple weeks. I sure hope we get the rain they are calling for early next week though, so I can start cutting some old clover plots. I have seen droughts a lot worse than we are in right now. My little pond is still holding some water (it dried up completely about 5 years ago), and even the creek bed still has a little water in it.

Not personally while hunting, but JC has steered close to a hundred my way, over the last 40 years. He sent one to me already on New Year’s day of this year, during my new favorite time to hunt deer, the Holiday ML season: Beats the hell out of tag soup.

I don’t go to quite that extreme with them, but I do write the purchase date on the boxes, and use the oldest ones first. The SST’s also grouped better than any other slugs that I tried in my Marlin 512. I always carry some off/brand “finishers” in case a point blank finishing shot is needed, but it seldom is.

That can be good or bad, depending on where they hit. I put a couple thru a buck’s chops, mid way back, a few years ago (due to a busted scope) and I was very surprised at how little meat was destroyed. Tracking is definitely tougher on center-lung hits, because the expansion is negligible and the exit hole is small. A plain old, full-diameter foster slug leaves much better blood trails on hits like that. I usually try to aim for the shoulder blade with the 12 ga SST’s. They are DRT every time, if I hit it. The meat damage on those shoulder blade hits, with that 12 ga SST, is no where near as bad as when a .243 hits there.

I ran over to Runnings this morning and picked up shooting sticks. They still don’t have any 12 ga Hornady SST slugs, nor does Lockport Walmart. Those have always grouped ok out of my rifled Marlin 512, except for the last time, on the range in adverse conditions (real hot, lots of mosquitoes). I have less than 20 left. Hopefully, I can get that gun hitting right where I want it, using less than half of those. I would like to try a few from the shooting sticks, at a 150 yard range. That is about double the range, where I am comfortable with my smoothbore Ithaca 16 gauge. I have plenty of ammo for that one. I plan on simultaneous squirrel hunting, during many deer and turkey hunts this year (especially the September antlerless ones). I will bring along my open-sighted pellet gun for that, and limit shots to under 15 yards, when there is no deer around. I got that Marksman dialed in with (6) .177 pellets this morning, off the back porch. Hopefully, I will need less SST’s than that, to dial in the Marlin 12 ga deer gun, back on the range. If not, I will be using the Ithaca 16 ga, and keeping shots well under 100 yards. I guess I could break out my in-line T/C Omega ML, if the September does won’t get in close enough for the Ithaca 16 shotgun. I also have plenty of bullets, powder, and primers for that. It was right in the mark on a deer I used it on last year and one on New Year’s Day this year (as was the Marlin 12 and the Ithaca 16 on the other (2) last year). It’s a little more of a pain to clean that ML though, and I am not crazy about the one shot limitation. I will throw it in the Durango, and confirm the 100 yard zero, on my next trip back to the range. I have no intention on going for a double on deer in September anyhow, because I only have room for one in my deer fridge.

We got about 1/16” yesterday on wmu 9F. It looked like that was enough to boost the turnips just a little, that I planted a couple weeks ago, when I checked on them this morning. I am going to wait until we get at least 1/2” of rain, before I mow my old clover plots, or try and work up the spots where I will put in new ones (mixed with wheat) after September 1. This 2 acre corn plot is looking pretty darn good now, but with the deer hitting it as hard as they are, I doubt it will last even until opening day of gun season. It should make for some fine mid-September antlerless gun hunting though. It definitely seems to be their preferred browse right now, judging by all the chewed up ears and tracks leading to it. There was a bachelor group of (3) bucks in it Sunday morning, including a decent 2.5 yr 8-point. Knowing that I would be lacking standing corn this year, I left a few acres of tall grass/hay, that I normally would have bush-hogged. Hopefully, that will provide the cover, and the wheat and turnips will provide the food, to keep some deer around thru the Holiday ML season. The odds of there being any corn left back there by then is slim to none. That 2 acres of grass to the right of the big Poplar tree (where I have a very comfortable blind) is extremely thick and over 8 ft tall. It probably would of taken 10 gallons of $5 diesel fuel to get it cut, so leaving it for deer cover this year was a win win deal.

I took the day off from work, to take our youngest daughter to college, so I had a little time to kill this morning. Her and my wife are late risers. I got the .177, $29 Marksman model 90 sighted in with the oem fiber optic sights. (2) 3-shot 1” groups, from 11 yards, and I am good to go. My first two shots (high right) were touching. It put those 7.9 grain hollow points thru 1/4” of yellow pine, from that range, so should be good for squirrels at least up to 15 yards or so. The rear sight was easy to adjust with a screwdriver. I think I used 4 or 5 pellets from that tin to sight in the scope it came with, so I should have about 490 left. If I miss or wound a squirrel or two, I’ll sight it in again. Otherwise. I should be good to go for quite a few years, as far as the ammo goes. I was glad to see that my rangefinder is working again, after replacing the $ 5.50 battery. I will need that for some more sighting in work on my Marlin 512 bolt action deer shotgun, that I hope to get done back on the range, over the next couple weeks. It’s nice to be able to sight in the pellet gun from the back deck without waking up the wife and kids. The hard trigger pull on this pellet gun is a lot less noticeable at short range with the open sights than it was at 50 yards with the scope.

I didn’t cut my hay fields until August of this year. Maybe that’s why there seems to be a lot of turkeys around here now: I don’t see how increased numbers of spring turkey hunters could be hurting the population much, since they are mostly killing toms only. I have yet to kill or even take a shot at a tom turkey. I have only ever killed one turkey (a hen in the fall). Even so, I think they I personally have done a lot more good than harm for the local population. I do that “good” by: 1) never cutting hay before July, 2) eliminating raccoons, 3) Planting clover, corn, and wheat, solely for the benefit of the wildlife. I will admit that there was a time when I did not like seeing wild turkeys around, because I always saw them in my field corn, and I wanted that for the deer. I considered them nothing more than “feathered rats”. This was compounded by the fact that I love the taste of venison, but never cared much at all for turkey (tastes like dry cardboard to me). I have since learned that turkeys will not touch field corn, unless it is first nocked down for them by raccoons. Take out the coons, and the turkeys don’t touch the corn. Now, I like the turkeys a lot more. That young hen that I killed a few years ago, was actually somewhat tasty. I am looking forward to a hunt or two for them this fall (probably on weekday evenings), if I can squeeze them in at home (in the southern zone), around the northern zone early ML week and opening weekend of gun. I am going to do my best to target a tom, hopefully that big one that I saw out in the gas line, earlier this week.

I hope so, and I definitely aim to find out first hand. Besides eliminating boredom, and providing tasty “treats” for the crock pot, the best thing about the simultaneous squirrel / deer hunting, is the additional “live fire” practice that the little nut-eaters provide. All of the same skills are required to kill a deer, which has a kill-zone approximately 13” on diameter, as are required for a squirrel having one of approximately an inch. Too many folks put too much reliance on paper target shooting. Being able to cleanly dispatch squirrels at close range in the woods might be more beneficial to the deer hunter, than punching holes in paper targets from a bench rest across an open field. I haven’t killed many reds, and I can’t ever recall eating one. Their smaller kill zone and increased figitiness, makes them a greater challenge than greys, and certainly worth “wasting” a few pellets on. If I can take out a few reds with my pellet gun, my confidence, shooting at deer, would increase significantly. Gaining that confidence, hours or minutes before needing it on a deer, is priceless. I put a sling on my $29 Dick’s special Marksman break action pellet rifle, and there is plenty of room in most of my blinds and stands. Bringing it along on most deer and Turkey hunts shouldn’t be a big deal. It came with a scope (which I have removed) and fiber optic open sites. I still need to site it in with those - hopefully in the next few days. It has a horrible, heavy trigger pull (what do you expect for $ 29), so the scope was a bit of a waste, plus I don’t want to have to handle it very gently. The open sights look like they would be a lot more durable.

Another advantage of the pellets is cost and availability. I have yet to shoot at a squirrel with it though, so the jury is out till I see how it does. I don’t have the .22 ammo to spare though, so no squirrels for me, if the pellet gun don’t work.

I am going to try a little of that this year also, but not as my “primary” objective. I will bring my open sighted .177 cal Marksman pellet gun along with my shotgun, during the early antlerless deer season in September, turkey season in October, crossbow deer season in November, and maybe even with my ML, during the December Holiday deer season. The advantages of the pellet gun, in those situations, would be the relatively silent report, will not spook as much of the “primary” objectives (deer and turkeys). It will also relieve some boredom, and hopefully provide some tasty food.