2022 Wolc Journal

[wolc123]

January 1:

Morning hunt:  I reached my “trailer park” stand, near the se corner of wmu 9F, about a half hour before sunrise.  This stand is “crossbow only”, because there are 5 or 6 double-wides within 400 ft of it.  I only have permission to hunt from one of the owners (the one I park next to).  
 

There is a 7 acre swamp between this stand, high and dry on the back corner of my parent’s woods, and the remainder of their place on the next road.  
 

I had high hopes for this stand in 2021, since the only other time I hunted the location was back in 2018, when I blew a chance at the largest antlered buck that I had ever seen on my grandpa’s old farm, in 40 years of hunting it.  
 

That was on the last Sunday of crossbow season, when the big 8-point had busted me in close, while I was taking a sip of hot cider from a shiny stainless steel cup.  After that, I moved my little hang on stand to the front of the swamp, 525 feet from the nearest trailer, and wrapped my cider thermos with black electric tape.  I sniped that buck from just over 100 yards,  with my scoped bolt-action slug gun the next Saturday morning, but he had busted off a few of his points by then.  
 

In 2021, I hunted this stand once during crossbow season, during the “deerless” 10-2 timeframe, and December 30th for the evening hunt.  I saw nothing on either of those hunts.  When I called to check in with my parents after, they told me that a deer had come out of the woods behind their house, to feed on a clover plot, at 4:20 pm. 
 

I broke the seat on the tiny ladder stand on that hunt, so I brought along a board to span as the rails, and it was not too comfortable.  I saw a big tom turkey fly down, just after sunrise, but that was it for the morning action on New Year’s Day.

 

Evening hunt (My last hunt of the 21/22 Holiday ML season):

After a long lunch with Mom and Pop, I headed out to my new stand on the edge of the woods, that overlooks the clover plot behind their house. There was a steady rain, so I had a finger condom over the muzzle of my T/C Omega 50 cal, which had been loaded since the start of the late ML season.  I put up my tree umbrella, when I got up in the stand. 
 

This is one of two new tree blind stands, that I started building in my shop last winter. They have floors made from plastic decking, pt lumber 2x4 frames, and pt landscape timber front legs.  The 3 ft walls are made from barnwood and the frames are lagged to the tree.  
 

This one is on a cherry tree, to which the tree umbrella is attached.  The cushioned, adjustable swivel office chair in it cost me $ 8 at a barn sale last summer (usually I garbage pick those).  
 

I had 2 remaining target bucks on this evenings hunt, “forky”, who I had passed twice previously (the last time was on opening day of gun in 21), and the twin to a button buck that I had killed from this stand one evening during the early antlerless season. I had also killed what was maybe their grandfather (a stout one-time 11-pointer that had broken a couple points off and was down to just 9 remaining) from this stand on the Friday evening after Thanksgiving in 21. 
 

Several folks here have said they have killed deer from under a tree umbrella, when it was raining, but I’d have never believed it, had “twin” not stepped out 2 minutes ahead of schedule (4:18 pm).  The drumming of the rain on the umbrella covered the sound of his approach.  He popped out of the thick brush, 20 yards from my stand, without warning.

Some say that bb’s are the “dumbest deer in the woods”, but he was quite alert.  He kept  looking up at my orange hat, which is probably all of me that he could see, above the barnwood wall.  Each time he briefly turned away, I inched my gun closer to his direction, but he kept looking back at me.  When he passed behind a big tree, I snapped the gun into position.
 

I fired, behind his shoulder, when he bent over for his last taste of clover.  The smoke cleared and he was DRT.  I didn’t think it was the bb twin when I fired, because his head looked too long and his frame looked too big.  I thought it was forky, having already shed his salad forks.  
 

I had watched those two tangle on opening day of gun season, while I was in the house eating lunch with my parents.  Forky stuck one of his little salad forks into twin’s chest, and rolled him up over his back.  

I noticed that twin’s brisket wound was still a little pussy, when I gutted him this evening.    I didn’t salvage any of the brisket meat on that one. His liver sure was good though, and twice as big as his brother’s was, back in September.

Edited January 16, 2022 by wolc123

[wolc123]

January 8:

There was a light dusting of snow at home, on the nw corner of wmu 9F this morning and the ground is starting to freeze.  I cross country ski’d to the back corner of our place.  A few fox tracks around “twin’s” butcher scrap pile up front, but the coyotes have not found it yet.

There is still some corn left on the stalks of my back corn plot and it looks like the deer are hitting it hard now, and eating some of the nearby purple top turnips.  They are also feeding out in the wheat fields by the looks of the tracks.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by wolc123

[wolc123]

January 15:

Too cold for me to go outside today, but nice inside by the wood stove.  I tied up a half dozen 1/8 and 1/4 oz bucktail jigs.  I think this tail was from a doe that my buddy shot during the winter 2020 ML season.  
 

Those jigs are my favorite smallmouth bass bait (hooks are cheap and they work good).  That was my last bass from 2021, with one in his mouth.
 

I was going to pour the jig heads from the 4/5 oz 16 gauge slug that last years 9-pointer caught in his rib cage, but I found another use for that.

[wolc123]

1 hour ago, blackbeltbill said:

The plate of food looks good. I used to look forward to Gun Club " Game Dinners". 1 scoop of everything.  Bear,Deer meat made in every way,Pheasant,Rabbit,Turkey etc.

  Best meat,I ever had was when a member donated alot of his " Big Horn Sheep" to the Game Dinner. Tender and unbelievable taste! 

 

The bulk of our family of four’s protein comes from wild game. On a good year, my venison comes in at close to $ 1 per pound, after subtracting most input costs.  We were never able to approach that level raising domestic beef, pork or chickens.   
 

The best tasting wild game that I ever had, was moose tongue, on a hunt up in Quebec when I was young:

 

Corn fed button buck liver is a close second, and I would put ruffed grouse breast in the number 3 spot.  Baked Largemouth bass fillets are right up there also. 

[wolc123]

This morning’s workout was a slow snowshoe walk around the back 30.  It looks like a quite a few deer must have survived hunting season, and are now using our place for winter food.    
 

My back 1.5 acre corn plot is nearly picked clean now, but still holding a little.  The front 2.5 acre corn plot is long gone, but did not yield nearly as heavy as the smaller, back one.   I kicked out just one dove, while walking thru the back one.  Doves will only stay in standing corn while there are still some kernels of corn on it.   All the greens are eaten off the little turnip plot next to it, and some of the bulbs are dug up.  
 

It looks like the deer are digging thru a foot of so of snow for clover in a couple spots.  The heaviest deer feeding activity right now looks to be in the winter wheat, that I planted last fall (as a nurse crop with white clover), in 1.5 and 2.5 acre plots.  
 

I didn’t take a deer off this farm last year.  I saw a spike, a small 4 point, a 2.5 year 8 point, and one doe, during the September antlerless season, and 3 unidentified deer during the late and Holiday ML seasons.  Those three were in, or headed to that small corn plot.  

 

 

[wolc123]

2 minutes ago, blackbeltbill said:

Cool and unusual  Blind.

It is comfortable, but I have yet to take a shot at something out of it.  The closest I came to that, was two springs ago when I called in a big Tom turkey.  He came in quiet, about 10 or 15 minutes after I called.   I was not ready, and he got within 10 yards before I saw him.  
 

The winter before that, I blew a chance at a coyote, because I didn’t open the little front window in the front, which was facing the wind.  It was frozen shut and wouldn’t budge when I saw the yote and tried to open it.

What I like about it, is that it is portable, and I can pick it up and move it with the loader on my tractor, using fork extensions. One of these years, I might place it in a good spot, and kill a deer out of it.   

[airedale]

Snow is a hunter's best friend, when it comes to wanting to know what game you have in an area, it's  movement and habits, it will tell the story if the time is taken to read it.

Al

[wolc123]

3 hours ago, airedale said:

Snow is a hunter's best friend, when it comes to wanting to know what game you have in an area, it's  movement and habits, it will tell the story if the time is taken to read it.

Al

I love the snow, and I feel sorry for the poor bastards down south, where they don’t often get it.

In addition to making it about 10 times easier to see and kill the deer during hunting season,  it sure makes it easy to see what they are eating and what they like best.  Local conditions are very good for them right now.  I imagine they are still packing on the fat.  We got about 20 inches of snow a couple weeks ago, before the ground was frozen.  

Now, that snow is insulating the ground, keeping it from freezing.  The deer don’t need to work very hard to get thru it, to the green winter wheat and turnip bulbs down below.  It looks like they are hitting the wheat harder than even the remaining standing corn right now.  
 

I am glad that I switched to wheat, from rye, that I used to use as a nurse crop for the white clover.  Deer like wheat a lot better than rye.  I didn’t realize how much they liked it, before today’s snowshoe walk.  Wheat is also cheaper and easier to find.  
 

It sounds like we are supposed to get a thaw, mid-week.  That might make an ice layer, when it refreezes, making it much harder for the deer to get at the wheat and turnips.  
 

From the looks of the tracks and scat, they prefer the winter wheat over the white clover, by about 10X right now.  
 

The tracks indicate that there might be too many deer back there.  I hope the DEC opens up an early antlerless season this September, like they did last year.  If they do, I will try harder to use my (4) dmp tags on mature does, instead of button bucks.  

I only filled two of my four prior year dmp tags (one was technically filled this year).  I  couldn’t be that fussy, because my brother got married in the middle of the early antlerless gun season.  That took out half of the weekend days, that I could have hunted during that “special” season.

 Between that wedding and our daughter’s playoff field hockey run (took away most of my crossbow season), I am thankful that I was able to take any deer last year.  

 

[Marion]

The bulk of our family of four’s protein comes from wild game. On a good year, my venison comes in at close to $ 1 per pound, after subtracting most input costs.  We were never able to approach that level raising domestic beef, pork or chickens.   
 
The best tasting wild game that I ever had, was moose tongue, on a hunt up in Quebec when I was young:

 
Corn fed button buck liver is a close second, and I would put ruffed grouse breast in the number 3 spot.  Baked Largemouth bass fillets are right up there also. 

Are these the same pair of glasses from your first post of pictures aka your current glasses?

[wolc123]

7 hours ago, The Jerkman said:

On 1/16/2022 at 9:10 AM, wolc123 said:

The bulk of our family of four’s protein comes from wild game. On a good year, my venison comes in at close to $ 1 per pound, after subtracting most input costs.  We were never able to approach that level raising domestic beef, pork or chickens.   
 
The best tasting wild game that I ever had, was moose tongue, on a hunt up in Quebec when I was young:

 
Corn fed button buck liver is a close second, and I would put ruffed grouse breast in the number 3 spot.  Baked Largemouth bass fillets are right up there also. 

Are these the same pair of glasses from your first post of pictures aka your current glasses?

Same prescription, but different pair.  I mostly go with single-prescription, $ 4.99 a pair Zeni optical glasses for hunting these days.  Back then, I paid hundreds for imported lens, single-prescription glasses.

For other than scoped-gun hunting usage, I usually go with the Zeni-optical $ 59 no-line bifocals.  They are no good for hunting with a scope, because they throw off my vertical, somewhat randomly.
 

 Lawd clued me on that phenomena, which saved the lives of several deer a few years ago.  I’ve killed every one  that I shot at, since going back to single-prescription glasses with scopes.  

[wolc123]

We are up north of Harrisville this weekend, to visit the in-laws.  There is about 20 inches of ice on the lake.  I caught a 12” perch (kept for mother in law), and three 14-16” smallmouth bass (released)on minnows with tip-ups yesterday.  
 

The temperature was in the low twenties yesterday, but it was quite windy and only comfortable when I used the sled for a windbreak.  I drilled some holes Friday, but it was too cold (10 degrees) for much fishing then.  Too cold again this morning, when it was -1 at sunrise and is up to 12 now.  
 

I wanted to try for brook trout thru the ice, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  Looks like I will have to delay that pursuit, until we come up next over Easter.  Ice fishing, on days like these, really makes me appreciate warmer weather, open water, and a boat.  Ice fishing is a lot better when the sun is shining and the wind ain’t blowing.  No such luck this year.  

Edited February 20, 2022 by wolc123

[wolc123]

I did about 5 minutes of food-plotting this afternoon, frost seeding a couple pounds of clover over at my parent’s place .  The deer and turkeys have been hitting this plot pretty hard lately.

I seeded the front half today  and I plan on disking up the back half, and putting in a wheat/clover mix, in Early September.

[wolc123]

It has been a few weeks since my parents have seen any turkeys feeding in the clover plot. Undeterred, I got my 16 gauge modified choke patterned today.  
 

Tasks remaining, before the May 1st turkey opener, include setting up my pop up blind over there and sighting in my smaller crossbow, to use in it.  I need to use the crossbow because the planned pop up blind location is closer than 400 ft (but more than 250 ft) from a trailer park). 

 

I grabbed a bucket full of dirt from a pile on my way back from the range (plus had to go back for (3) more) to repair some winter lawn damage.  
 

[wolc123]

I burned a tank of chainsaw gas in my parents woods today, clearing away a dying ash that was leaning over an atv trail, and chunking up a decent sized cherry that fell in an early winter wind storm, near my new deer/turkey blind.  
 

The base was rotted and I left the first couple chunks, but the rest was pretty solid.  4 trips back with dad’s Ranger made about half of a truck load.  I have been burning mostly ash in our wood stove at home for about 10 years (since the ash borers started killing them).  I can’t wait to burn this cherry. It makes more heat than ash, but the best part is, it does not leave lots of ashes in the stove for cleanup after burning like ash does.    

I probably won’t hit those woods again until Turkey season opens, but I will definitely be hauling back some more cherry and maple.  That edge of the woods is high and dry.  It will probably be months before I can get into my muddy woods at home, where all I have to cut is ash.
 

I stopped at the Res for gas on the way home  ($ 3.90 per gallon there today). 

 

[wolc123]

I finished splitting the cherry from Sunday this afternoon.  It splits quite a bit tougher than ash.  I wouldn’t want to do it manually.  It made about 1-1/2 face cord.  There is about that same amount of cherry still down in the woods over at my parents place, that I got to get in May.

It will end up being in the middle of my wood stack, so hopefully it will get burnt during the coldest part of next winter.  I will start out with ash and end with ash, which does not make quite as much heat.  
 

I usually go thru 6-8 face cords each winter.   There is about 4-1/2 face cord cut and split an that stack now.    I hope to have about 15 done by June 15.  I like to try and stay two years ahead, but I have fallen behind lately, because of too much other stuff to do (new barn building and old barn dismantling). 

[wolc123]

First time out on the open water this year.  I wanted to try out this electric motor that my mom got, along with some other fishing grear, for $ 5 at the auction at our family reunion.  One of my cousins has a lodge up in Canada, and he always brings some type of old fishing gear.

Patience is a virtue that I have very little of.  Certainly not enough to fish on a windy day with an electric motor.  It was ok, when it was calm early, but not so hot after the wind picked up.  

I was trying for brook trout and perch, but only smallmouth bass were biting.  The 16 incher next to the motor was my first, and the 19 incher was the biggest, with about (10) more in between over the first two hours of daylight.  All on a 1/8 oz brown bucktail jig.

The biggest one didn’t fight all that hard, but the mid-sized ones pulled real good for water temp in the low 40’s.  Way better than they did thru the ice, when I was up here in February.  
 

I tried fly casting a little bit early with a Royal coachmen, but no dice there.  Lots of work to do getting the docks straightened out, but I may try fishing again at sunset if the wind lets up.  

[wolc123]

54 minutes ago, blackbeltbill said:

Catch + Release or a good Dinner with the Larger Bass?

All catch and release of these bass that were caught “by accident” while I was trying for perch.  I couldn’t find any of those this morning.  There is a strong west wind blowing out there now.  
 

We got the docks straightened out and I put the motor on my father in law’s big party boat.  The new waders that I brought up last fall worked good for that. If the wind lets up this evening, I will try fishing again.

[wolc123]

I could not find the perch again.  Just this one 16” “snowmouth” bass.  I had to pull the plug on the fishing before hypothermia set in.  That might be the first open-water bass that I have caught while it was snowing.  It didn’t fight as hard today as the ones that size did yesterday morning. 
 

 It was pretty out there with the snow, but not too comfortable.  Hopefully, it will be a bit warmer, the next time we come up here (Memorial day weekend). 

The $5 electric motor worked very good this morning.  I probably could have stayed out longer, if I had used the oars, and generated a little more body heat.  

 

[wolc123]

My 12 ft Sears rowboat got swamped at the dock early Friday afternoon, while I was napping in the in-laws lake house.   I probably shouldn’t have left the stern facing the wind, when I noticed it increasing, as we were out working on getting the docks in place in the late morning.  

 

The boat contained the $ 5 Mariner electric outboard, that my mom got at an auction, My father in laws medium sized marine battery, a set of oars, two of my fishing rods, two small tackle boxes,  needle nose pliers, a tape measure, a 5 gallon bucket, and a flotation cushion, at the time of submergence.

I was rudely awakened from my nap by my daughter yelling: “dad your boat sunk”.  She was taking a video of it.  That was a little more entertaining, after i donned my waders and recovered all the gear.  
 

I hooked a long chain to the bow line and my father in law pulled it out of the lake with his tractor. The picture was taken when I had all the recovered gear out and drying on shore.
 

He was worried about his battery, because it was completely submerged for over an hour.  Fortunately,  
it and everything else still worked good this morning.  I was surprised that the 50ish year old foam “upright and level” floatation in that old Sears row boat still worked.  
 

[The_Real_TCIII]

Thats a beautiful setup. Id like to drink beer on that dock


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[wolc123]

2 minutes ago, The_Real_TCIII said:

Thats a beautiful setup. Id like to drink beer on that dock


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

That part on the end on the right is a barge that is powered by a 10 hp Honda 4 stroke gas outboard and a min-Kota electric.  The lake has a 10 hp max limit.  We had a good view of the fireworks at the end of the lake, and drank some beer from it, the last few forth’s of July.  
 

It was too cold for cold Ruby reds up there this weekend, but I picked up a 12 on the way home ($10.39 in Brewerton).  I will be bringing some up for Memorial Day for sure.  
 

I am also going to use one in the crock-pot with a neck roast  next week.   I need to find out how a mature buck neck roast cooked in Ruby red, compares to the button-buck butt roast that I did a last week, with a Spring Bock. 

[wolc123]

I have not had time to do any additional shotgun patterning, as I take on the somewhat daunting task of cleaning up the wreckage from this old barn, in my “spare” time.

 I was out shoveling shingles since sunrise and didn’t hear any gobbles out back.  I am still  going to give it a shot (with my 12 ga and extra full choke, 3” lead # 5 shot) tomorrow morning.

[wolc123]

1st turkey hunt of the spring for me, out back this morning.  I heard a total of (10) gobbles from what sounded like two different birds, both less than 200 yards away.  Those started about 5:40 and ended before 6:00.   
 

I tried a few yelps from my loud mouth call, and the first gobbler answered that with a gobble, then shut up.  The other one I heard was a little farther away, about 15 minutes after my calls.  Other than that,  just made a few clucks with my little wood push button call.  I heard two distant shots, just before 6:00. Nothing heard but a few series of “hen” yelps after 6:00.

 

It looks like this blind is needing some work.  I will need to cut a piece of 3/4” marine plywood, 2 ft wide and the length of my 870 to patch the floor of the lower (enclosed) level.   I will also need to clear away that downed ash and patch the upper deck wall up top with a piece of barnwood.

[wolc123]

I hit my parents place for a turkey hunt this morning.  No gobblers heard or seen, but I did call in a hen.   She started yelping about a minute after I blasted out a series of yelps with my loud mouth call, from just over a hundred yards away.  
 

At first, I thought it must have been another hunter, but it seemed like they were calling way too much.  Steady yelps, about one per second.  Then I saw her beeline right towards my hen decoy,  which was about 20 yards from my box blind.  
 

I was able to raise my 16 gage Ithaca, and get the 1.5X Weaver crosshairs on her at under 25 yards, but no beard so no shot.  It was a good trial run.  The decoy really gets their focus, and my movement in that blind, 8 ft in the air and less than 25 yards away, didn’t spook her at all.  
 

When she figured out that the decoy was “fake”, she walked away, still yelping steadily.  When she got about 100 yards away, I gave a few clucks with my little wood push button box call.  That turned her around and brought her back in.  Since I knew she was “beardless”, I raised my camera rather than my gun.  Once again, she did not get spooked at the motion.
 

This was my first extended, close encounter, with a wild turkey when hunting them.  Compared to a deer in close, this hen did not seem very bright.  
 

No “tastey” white meat collected this morning, but I did bring home a couple of face cords of fine cherry fire wood.

 

 

[wolc123]

I hunted our place a couple hours this morning for turkey.  I walked back about 5:30 and could hear a tom gobbling steadily.  It was coming from just off the sw corner, about where I heard one last Sunday morning.  
 

He gobbled steadily from about 5:30 until 6:15.  It sounded like he answered my first series of yelps, with my loud mouth call, but he never came in.  I heard at least one other gobbling, farther away and to the east.  
 

I will probably get back there again the Sunday after next.  My plan is to set up my pop up blind about 150 yards closer to where I heard him the last two weeks, and try from there.  
 

I set my decoy up this morning in a small clover plot behind some picked clean corn stalks. It looks like the deer have cleaned out all of the radishes and purple top turnips that I had next to it.  I never saw ground picked that clean. there was hardly a weed left in that dirt.