Story - 2009 Highline Pistol Doe

I was sitting in a tree with the 7mm waiting for some deer to walk by. I had a doe walking perpendicular to me at about 100 yards. I was going to follow her with the crosshairs and try to shoot her, but I decided to hold the crosshairs still and shoot when she walked through them. I shot and she ran off into the pine field. I called Robert to come help me. After getting down and looking, we couldn't find any blood. Robert made a loop into the pines to see if he could find anything. I looked to my left and saw her about 30 yards away staring at me. I pulled up the 7mm and shot for the neck. She fell, but got right back up and started running perpendicular to me with both front legs tucked under. I pulled out the pistol and shot a couple times. One hit her in the chest and we found the bullet lodged in the opposite shoulder. It hadn't expanded like it was supposed to. It crumpled thef front corner and tumbled, but it did the job. 

 



 

Homemade lighted arrow nock

 I have always wanted a lighted arrow nock, but I didn't want to pay $10 each for them. We tried making our own for about $4 each using the Thill bobber light. Mark your nock and arrow to be sure that they are aligned when you put them back together. Drill out your nock large enough for the bobber light to fit. Cut the section that goes inside the arrow in half. Glue the tip of the bobber light in the outer portion of the nock. Glue the base of the light to the inner portion of the nock. Sand down the outer portion of the nock on the half with the light tip so that it doesn't have as much resistance when going into the arrow. Push the rear portion in a click to the on position and insert into the arrow. With it fully seated, you should be able to pull it out a click to turn it off.. You need to use a gel type glue so it doesn't run down and seize up your switch. I used gorilla glue because it is what I had, but I didn't realize that it expanded when it dried.

11/26/14 Gun hunt

Brent called me up and asked if I wanted to run out into the woods before Thanksgiving. It didn't take much arm twisting for me to agree and set up a plan. We decided to really try to film a hunt. We were going to climb the same tree with me filming above and him hunting below. I had the 22 with the camcorder and iphone strapped to it in case we got attacked by squirrels and he had the slug gun. We got out with plenty of time before sunrise. The place we went has a steady uphill walk from the get-go. About halfway to the tree I was ready for a break, but I didn't want him to think I was a wuss, so I trudged on. When we got to the tree Brent said "I wish we would have taken a little breather back there." I started up the tree and he followed behind. A little after shooting light the squirrels came out, but it was too dark to see through the viewfinder. About an hour after being in the tree we heard a deer behind us coming out of the brush about 50 yards away. I spun around and started filming. I realized right away that the camcorder was too far forward to really see the viewfinder well. Also, my phone ran out of storage so it shut off on it's own. I was trying to keep up with the deer, but more kept coming down the trail. I think we counted at least 6. They were milling around and I couldn't tell which one he was wanting to shoot. We were really too far away from each other to talk with the deer that close. I peeked down at him a few times, but couldn't really tell where he was aiming. Once, he tried to shoot, but he forgot to take off the safety. We just happened to be on the same deer when he squeezed one off. It ran back the way they had come and the other deer slowly followed in the same direction. You can hear the deer crash in the video. After the area was clear, we started to climb down. We weren't exactly trying to be quiet. We crunched our way up to the trail while talking and both spotted another deer at the same time. Brent took the camera and I took the slug gun. I kept inching to the right until I had a clear shot on the chest. It dropped. Back at the house, I was wanting to try skinning them with the electric hoist. It seemed to bog down a lot in the 220lbs mode, so I think next time I am going to double the cable back to get 440lbs. I am also going to try to skin them back legs first to see if that keeps the neck cleaner. I think that would also help cut the ribs out since the bottom is flat.

 

Monster morning glories

I was going through my old videos and found this one of the first house I bought. It had a pool with some overgrown planter below it, so I tore out the old vegetation and put in a retaining wall. I heard that morning glories were vines that had good looking flowers that new blooms every day. Went to the Bentonville compost facility and picked up a truckload of compost for about $6 and a pack of seeds from Walmart.  At the end of spring only a few plants had sprouted, so I left the planter mostly compost. As the summer went on, the combination of compost and splash water exploded the few plants that were there into a 10'x30' heap of vegetation.

Story - My First Buck



Bays and I went hunting one freezing morning during gun season. He went on one side of the hill and I went on the other. A couple hours into it I saw a deer walking down an old road. I was sitting on the ground, so I tried to spin around a little to the right to get a better aim on him. He saw me moving and stopped facing me to check me out. I couldn't get a broadside shot on him. When he lifted his head up above the rest of his body I poked a 7mm hole through the top of his neck. When I recovered from the recoil, he was gone. I waited a bit and headed over the hill to get Bays. We started walking down the road to where the deer was standing to try to find the beginning of the blood trail. As we got over the hill I realized that he had dropped in his tracks. There was just a little berm between us so I couldn't see him. When I got to him I saw what the 7 mag did. It was a pencil in and a softball out. It still amazes me how much I learn from every hunting trip I take.

 

 

 

Story - First Fish of 2014

There was a warmer day just after new years so Daniel and I decided to go out on the lake and get some fresh air. We were motoring around trying to find some fish when we came across a huge school of what I thought was crappie. We fished for a while and Daniel finally hooked into one. It wasn't crappie, but a big school of shad heading up the creek channel. We motored around a little more, practiced starting a fire with a ferro rod, and called it a day. 

 

 

Story - Crossbow Shoot-through Mesh Miss

When I first got my popup blind, it was advertised that you could shoot through the screen with broadheads with out affecting accuracy. I did a test in the back yard and sure enough they were right. I went out to put it to the real test. I set up the blind and hung a cheap feeder for a few weeks and had deer coming into it pretty regularly. I set up in it one day after work and had a few does coming in about 30 minutes before dark. It was a perfect 20 yard setup, but I shot right under her. The footage is blurry because I was filming through the mesh. After watching the video, I realized that I needed to lift a corner of the flap to have a clear spot to film from. I thought I missed because of the mesh, but I lent the crossbow to Robert and he missed one too. I went back to the target and it was shooting way low. The only thing I can think is that I must have bumped the scope or the cooling temperatures affected the speed of the limbs.

Review - Permethrin Tick Killer



Hands down, my least favorite thing about the outdoors is....seed ticks. I never got them growing up in Oklahoma, but the first weekend I moved up here my legs were covered in sores for weeks. I remember laying awake at night because they itched so bad. Some how I stumbled upon Repel Permethrin Spray. It is about $8 and will do about 3 sets of clothes. You spray it on your clothes and let it dry. It actually kills bugs unlike DEET products which repel them as it evaporates. DEET will last for a couple hours of repelling, but the permethrin will kill bugs for several months even after washing. I had gone through a few cans of the aerosol permethrin when one day at tractor supply I noticed this concentrate. It was about $6 and would dilute enough to last years. I am still only about halfway through my first bottle after about 4 years. This stuff works too. We have had many instances of permethrin/non-permethrin hunting trips and the non-permethrin trips have ended up with us picking off seed ticks for the next few days. Try not to get the liquid directly on your skin or breathe the vapors. It is still a chemical, but once it dries it is not harmful to humans. The old saying "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is magnified to "8 fl oz of tick prevention is worth 2 tons of cure".  

 

 

Story - Hog Hunt(ish)

You never know what you are going to see when you are out in the wild. We all split up for a morning muzzleloader hunt. I climbed a tree by an old pond and waited for the sun to come up. After not seeing anything for a couple hours, I spotted what I thought was a deer running down a trail towards me. I threw the gun up and when I got the crosshairs on it I realized it was a little brown calf. All the cows were supposed to have been moved from this property, but I guess a couple got left behind. I hunted a little while longer before deciding to come down. I decided to cut up a ridge through a higher field on my way back to camp and when I got to the field edge I saw what I thought was a bear run off into the woods. I checked out the trails and found a spot to sit for next time. We went back to camp and hung out for a while. Robert and Amy doubled, so they weren't even going to hunt that evening. I just took the fourwheeler to the top of the hill, backed it into some briars, and sat there on it enjoying the scenery. About an hour later I saw something black out of the corner of my eye about 20 yards away. I thought it was a lab or wild dog at first, but when I got a good look at it I realized it was a hog. I threw up my gun and shot all in one motion before it went off into the briar thicket. After about 10 minutes I hopped off the fourwheeler and went to see if I could find the blood trail. I followed blood into some pretty thick woods, but when I realized I was crawling around on my hands and knees tracking a wounded hog I decided I should go get some backup. I raced the fourwheeler back to camp, hit the brakes sliding the back end around, yelled "I shot a hog! Bring a gun!", and took off without the wheels ever stopping. Robert and I ditched the muzzleloaders and headed into the brush with the pistols. About 80 yards into the tracking, we heard the hog running in the thicket with us. We decided to leave my hat as a marker and get back out to where it was more open. Before splitting up, Robert got his lip hung on a little shop of horrors briar and I had to come to the rescue. We got up to the edge of the field about 80 yards apart and I heard Robert start shooting as the briars and buck brush were splitting about 30 yards in front of him. I ran back to get the fourwheeler so I could drive around the briars and look down in them. I found the hog and he wasn't moving.
Robert: Shoot him!
Me: He's already dead!
Robert: Shoot him anyways!
Me: *POP* He's still dead!

 

 

Story - 2012 Late Season Buck

We went out real quick one warmer afternoon before bow season came to an end. I sat with the sun directly in my face the entire afternoon. I saw a few deer heading towards Andrew, so I sent him a text. He said later that he was sleeping and woke up just as they went out of sight. Finally as the sun went over the horizon, I could see more of what was going on around me. I heard something rustling in the leave about 30 yards from me for about 10 minutes behind a group of cedars. After a while I had just assumed that it was squirrels and came down off alert. Eventually I saw a buck and a doe feeding towards me. I got the buck in my crosshairs and waited for a clear shot. Finally he slowed down enough in an opening and I let one go. I saw the white fletching of the arrow sticking out of him as he ran off. Not much later it was dark, so we all got down to see what was going on. When I went to see where the deer was standing when I shot, I noticed the arrow sticking out of the ground. I couldn't figure it out since I had seen the arrow sticking out of him as he ran off. We trailed him for about 100 yards and found him. What I thought was fletching was a patch of hair missing from when he bumped a tree on his way out. As we dragged him back, his hair was falling out all over the place. I had not seen anything like it before. 

 

 

 

Muzzleloader Acorn

One day when we were sighting in our muzzleloaders I noticed that an acorn was about the same size as my .44 round ball. I wanted to shoot it to see what would happen. The load would be 20 grains of powder with a 10 grain projectile. How cool would it be to kill a squirrel with an acorn?

Story - 2012 Muzzleloader

Muzzleloader season was upon us, but our scheduling wouldn't allow all of us to go on opening weekend so we decided to go out the second weekend. We left work early on Friday and got down there early enough to go check out a few spots. Brent and I set up a popup blind on the edge of a field under a cedar tree and brushed it in a little. When they say it is a 2-man blind, they mean two people can fit in it with no equipment. We were sitting in opposite corners from each other basically face to face looking past one another out the windows. It wasn't long before Brent spotted a few does in the field edge about 80 yards from us. He dropped the hammer on them and they disappeared in the smoke. After giving her some time, we saw a buck chasing a doe across the field about 500 yards away, but they weren't coming to us. We decided that Brent should take a radio out the back of the blind into the woods to see if he could sneak up on them. A little while later I heard him shoot and that buck ran back across the field. He stopped just before entering the woods and wagged his tail a bit before proceeding. Within a couple minutes of us calming down, I saw another tall buck coming across the field to where Brent was sitting. I radioed him and told him to hold tight. The field rolls and there was a time where the buck disappeared in the middle of the field. When he popped out on the other side, I radioed Brent and told him that the buck should be right in front of him. I heard a bang and then Brent come on the radio "What did you just say? I just shot a buck." That buck ran across the field into the woods about the same spot as the first one. We agreed that we should probably quit shooting for the day and go try to find some blood. As I was turning around, I saw a doe back behind me in the field. I got the gun up, but the sun was setting directly behind the deer. I could see a fuzzy outline of a deer in the crosshairs at about 90 yards so I squeezed one off. We called it quits for real that time. I got out and looked for blood on my doe, but we couldn't find anything. Brent found his doe right off. We went across the field to look for his bucks. It was dark at this point so we got out the flashlights and found a deer trail where the buck went into the woods. About 40 yards in we found the tall one and drug him out. We went back into the field and looked and looked for blood. We finally had the thought that they might have went into the woods at the same spot so we headed back in to where we found the tall buck. Walked a little further and found more blood. The first big buck had used the exact same trail as the second tall buck. We kept following blood for about 80 yards and found the big one. What a day. This was also the hunt that I lost my good flashlight. May it rest in peace.

 



 

 

 

Quick Morning Projects - Phone Stand and Belt Sander Angle Jigs

Since I am getting into the blogging a little heavier, I needed a way to make some quick videos. I have a camera on my phone, but it is difficult to get good angles with it unless someone is holding it. I got the chop saw out and cut a groove at 90 and 95 degrees. One lets me shoot horizontal and the other lets me slightly up or down.

I also got a belt sander to sharpen the knives with, but my fine grit belt and leather belt have not come in yet. The only thing I have right now is an 80 grit belt. I made a few jigs at 15, 20, 25, and 30 degrees to hold the proper angle. After using them though, I think that it would be best to learn to freehand at the correct angles except with the greater angles like 30 degrees. I tested a junk fillet knife on the 15 degree angle and it sucked the knife down between the belt and jig. The chisel on the 30 degree angle worked good though.

 

 

 

 

 

11/14/14 - 35 Whelen Deer

Robert shot these. I wasn't there.

Story - 2011 Muzzleloader

I went out muzzleloading one night and as I was driving out, I spotted a big buck heading towards the area I had been hunting. I told Robert about it the next day at work and we decided that we needed to go back and get him that evening. We went out and climbed up a couple different trees. About an hour into it I saw a doe come by about 30 yards, but I had decided that I was going to wait for the big one. As I watched her go off into the bushes, I noticed something moving to the right of me. I turned to look and it was a buck trailing her. I only saw two points on the one side before it went into the bushes. I radioed Robert and said "There's a forkhorn coming down the ridge, but I don't think he's legal."  About 5 seconds later I heard the boom. As we waited a bit to give the deer some time, I noticed that another little buck was coming up the field towards Robert. I radioed him again and said that he needed to shoot him when he gets there. Robert was out of the tree and standing on the ground with an unloaded gun by the time the deer got to him. He was whistling and waving his arms with orange on trying to spook the deer back towards me. Finally he had enough, loaded the gun, and shot the deer dead. I got down at this point and we met where he thought the deer had been standing. I had never seen so much blood. We followed a short trail of what seemed like five gallons of blood and found the big buck. He was not a forkhorn, but a solid six. When we were dressing him, there was some mayonnaise type substance pouring out of his neck. Disgusting. That was one of the toughest short drags also. This was before we had our ropes and harnesses and had no way to get the truck in there. Dragging with a hand grip is the worst way to accomplish the task. Your fingers get tired way before your legs and lungs do. Also in the pics below was our original hanging station at the house until someone stole my pulley out of the tree.

 

 

 

 

Story - 2014 Muzzleloader Buck

This spot was a couple years in the making. A couple years ago I was checking out a few different benches and found a spot that looked pretty good. I came back with a tree stand and hunted it. A few hours into the hunt I pulled out the binoculars to do a scan and when I brought them up, there was a deer dead center in the viewfinder just standing in the brush. I got the gun up before I could really tell what it was. As it walked off through the woods I saw horns once, but I couldn't tell how big they were, so I never pulled the trigger. I climbed down at the end of the hunt and did a little more scouting in that area. He was walking down a good trail and I had a much better view from the bench above.

This year I went to the higher bench and found a good tree to climb. A couple hours into the hunt I heard a squirrel barking behind me. As I turned to look, I spotted a deer making it's way parallel to me about 60 yards away. I spun around, got the scope on the last opening before the brush, and cocked the hammer. When it came through the last opening I saw good horns and squeezed the trigger. After the smoke cleared I didn't see or hear anything, so I figured he dropped pretty quick. I called Brent on the radio and told him he could come down in about 30 min. About 15 minutes later I looked to the right and saw a little fork-horn with a big hole in his leg. I couldn't believe how much his rack had shrunk in the last 15 minutes. I put one in his chest and he went down about 5 yards later. After that smoke cleared I saw a doe that had apparently been with him the whole time. She was slowly making her way back down the way that they had originally came. After dumping powder all over the place and finally getting a bullet shoved down the tube I took steady aim and jerked the trigger harder than I ever had before. I could see the crosshairs move about 2' before smoke filled the glass. Brent came on the radio and asked if I was done shooting up the woods, and I confirmed. He walked in while I was still in my tree to check my shot angles. I guess I was in a really good tree, because no matter where he was on the ground he couldn't see me. The buck was in plain sight, but we couldn't find blood on the doe. We found a spot on the ground where the bullet hit and it looked like it was about where her feet would have been. When I got to the buck, he was smaller that I originally thought, but bigger than I secondarily thought. I guess he was like the baby bear porridge. We got him dressed, dragged, hauled, skinned, quartered, butchered, froze, thawed, and ate.

I have tried a few different ways of horn saving.
1. Cut 90 degree angles from the top and back to cover on a plaque.
2. Boil the whole head for a European mount.
3. Cut from the back just below the ears to just below the eyes.

I think #3 will probably be my new way of doing it for these reasons.
1. It is easier to cut.
2. It can be presented Euro or covered.
3. It sets on the wall better with or without a plaque.
4. It sets in a pot better to boil off the meat.
5. It makes for easier brain access for tanning.

 

 

Story - The 2011 Lake Buck

Andrew and I went out for a quick bow hunt before work. This area we are hunting is pretty tight. We both climbed trees about 60 yards apart. About 8:00, Andrew decided to call it quits and go to work. As he was packing up, I noticed a few deer behind me coming down the hill. About that time Andrew slammed his car door as hard as he could (or so it seemed) and the deer spooked. I was mad. About 30 minutes later I saw a buck coming down where those does had been. As he was about to enter a thicker part I stopped him. I put the 40 yard pin on him and let one go. I heard a pop. I don't know if it was the arrow hitting a limb, the deer, or the ground, but he ran off. After a little bit I got down and checked out the arrow. It had blood on it, but it smelled pretty bad like it was hit too far back. There was a little blood trail, but I decided to go to work for a little bit and come back in a few hours. After telling the guys at work what had happened, Will and Robert wanted to come back out to help look for it. We got back to the woods and started following the blood trail. It went uphill and turned back towards the lake. Robert said "I bet he went to water." Will and Robert went on a body hunt while I stayed back looking for the trail. Robert hollered at me that he had found my buck. I ran down the hill expecting to see my deer laying there, but he was not. He was about 100 yards away flopping in the lake. I grabbed the crossbow and headed out after him. I was in my work clothes and my boots were about 1/2 from filling up with water. I shot him again in the neck with the crossbow and finished him off. He was still a little too far out to reach without my boots filling up so I grabbed a tow strap and lassoed him. He wasn't as big as I thought, but he was my biggest to date. That was the first deer that I had boiled the skull. It wasn't too difficult, but I probably won't do it again unless it is really worth it.