Story - 2014 Doe Gun Hunt

Daniel and I went out for the doe gun hunt hoping to even see a deer. We were just going to do a quick hunt on the last morning of the season before I went to work. The place we were hunting is not remote by any means, so Daniel took the shotgun and I took the crossbow with the 44 revolver as backup. I climbed a tree in stand 1 and Daniel did the same in stand 2. A little after sunrise I had a yearling come by about 30 yards so I stuck it with an arrow. It ran off about 30 yards, laid down, and expired. About an hour later I decided to get down to start cleaning so I could get to work at a decent hour. As soon as my bow hit the ground I had 2 doe come up on me about 20 yards away. I pulled out the 44 while still in the treestand and shot at the closer one. It turned and ran up the hill and I shot at her again at about 50 yards just to make sure. I was for sure done now. I climbed down out of the tree and as I was packing up the stand I heard a racket behind me. Three deer were running down the hill straight at me. The first one noticed me about 10 yards away and froze. The second one ran past her about 10 yards to the left and stopped. The third one did the same on the right. I have heard Robert say several times on the radio "Boys, come help me! I am surrounded by deer!" I guess now I know what he is talking about. I shot at the first one, spun right, shot at the third one, spun left, then shot at the second one. I wanted to save one bullet just in case. I missed all three of those deer at point blank range. I guess I need to practice spinning in circles and shooting at moving targets more. Daniel texted and said he had one coming up and put a heart shot on her at about 40 yards. She ran about 40 and piled up. We cleaned deer for a few hours and I got to work about 2. Totally worth it.

 

 

Story - 2014 Gun Hunt

As Brent's grandpa used to say, "There are days you can't kill them, and there are days you can't keep from killing them." Saturday was a day we couldn't kill them. Sunday we decided to go hunt our newly gated deer community. Daniel stayed over in the highline, so I don't really know the specifics of what all happened over there.

5:45 - I took the RZR over and climbed a tree at stand 1 and hunted the main trail.
6:15 - Robert and Brent came over in the truck and Robert sat on the ground at stand 2 and Brent set up a blind at stand 3.
6:30 - Robert shot a little buck at the indian mound field with the 35 and he dropped in his tracks.
6:45 - Brent radioed that he saw a big buck and Robert started making his way around the big rock.
7:00 - I decided to move up and climb a tree in the top field.
7:15 - Brent saw a little buck chasing a doe and shot him with the 270.
7:16 - Robert came face to face with the doe that Brent's buck was chasing and shot her with the 35.
7:30 - I had a yearling come out into the top field and I shot it with the 308.

At some point Daniel threw a temper tantrum in the woods and started yelling and smashing dead limbs on standing trees. A doe came in to see what the heck was going on and he shot her with the 25.

We got to try out our new skinning system using a screw step, paracord, cable, pulley, walnut and the truck. It worked out pretty good. We also got to eat deer for almost every meal. Deer polish sausage with deer chili, barbecued deer rib sandwiched, and bacon covered jalapeno cream cheese stuffed backstrap.

Recipe - Stuffed Backstrap

 Take a backstrap and cut it almost all the way through the side like a hotdog bun. Pound out the meat a little to make it more of a uniform thickness. Place cream cheese and jalapenos in the middle and fold back over. Sprinkle some seasoning on the meat and top it with bacon. Roast in the oven at 350 for about 30 min or until the internal temp is 140. Turn the broiler on low to crisp up the bacon for about 10 minutes and pull out of the oven when the internal temp reaches 160.
 

 

 

  

Story - My First Deer



I didn't really grow up hunting. My dad took me shooting a lot, but we only really hunted squirrels a few times when I was younger. Dad still gets grossed out by touching fish and guts. When I got my drivers license at 16, my friend Michael and I would go dove, rabbit and squirrel hunting. It wasn't until I moved to Arkansas and lived out of town that I started deer hunting. My roommate and I started seeing deer around the house so we went and bought a couple cheap bows to practice with. We went out behind the house and made some treestands out of milk crates and forklift pallets. The first evening we actually hunted I had a doe come in about 20 yards and I shot right below her. She came back about 5 minutes later to the same spot and I put one right through the heart. She ran off about 50 yards and died. We had no idea what we were doing, so we left the guts in, tied her legs to a log, and carried her back to the house. We had Papa come guide us through the cleaning process. He hung her up by the neck, stuck a 6" fillet knife straight through the chest, and ripped straight down all the way to the bottom. That deer was probably the worst tasting meat I had ever eaten. About 30 deer later I am finally getting it right. It's amazing how experience has changed the process in which we do all our deer cleaning now.

The main things I did inefficiently were:

Field dressing at the house instead of on site

Carrying instead of dragging

Cutting straight through all the organs instead of cutting the skin and pulling the organs out

Laying the deer on a table and cutting off every piece of meat instead of quartering

Wrapping in butcher paper instead of vacuum sealing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Story - Spring 2012 Crappie



This was the first year we actually caught crappie at Beaver Lake. It lasted about two weeks before the flood came. If the fish are biting you had better go, because it wont last long.

 

 

06/10/14 Fishing Report

Lake: Beaver
Location: Highway 12
Time: 5:00PM-9:00PM
Air temp: 60 degrees
Water temp: 76 degrees
Clarity: Clear
Visibility: 5'
Wind: NW 15
Sky: overcast
Winning tactic: Jigging brushpiles in 25' of water.
Catch: 7 crappie, 4 whites, 2 bluegill

We started out trolling and picked up a few here and there. We couldn't get anything consistent. The deep brushpiles were holding a few fish so we threw out the markers, anchored up, and jigged them. The shad colored jigs weren't doing very well, I guess because the wind and clouds, so we switched to yellow and green on a 1/8oz jighead and started reeling in the crappie. I guess we need to check the brushpiles more, because it was a lot more productive than trolling tonight.

We should have gotten ice before we went. Robert thought it would jinx us.

This roadbed had fish on it the first time we went over it, but they had moved the second time around.



Finally found a brush pile I had heard about for the last 10 years.

This was crossing over the roadbed at an angle.

This was going down the road bed, you can see where the old creek channel was on the side.

This was the main brushpile we caught the crappie from.

We trolled about 5 miles with 4 lines out at 10' deep in 4 hours. That is about the equivalent of 2,400 individual 50' casts of which the bait is only at the right depth for about 60% of the time which would take about 40 hours to complete at 1 minute each.

05/1714-06/07/14 Fishing Report

Lake: Beaver
Location: Highway 12 - Monte Ne
Time: Misc
Air temp: 60-80 degrees
Water temp: 68-80 degrees
Clarity: Clear.
Visibility: 3'-5'
Wind: NSEW 0-30
Sky: Clear-Rain
Winning tactic: Trolling crankbaits 10' deep in 15'-30' of water.
Catch: walleye, crappie, whites, catfish, carp, gar

 This is just going to be a mass update for the last month. Highway 12 has been pretty steady in producing fish. Monte Ne and Horseshoe bend have seemed to dry up. Night fishing under lights is not happening this year. We have caught no shad or fish in the 4 trips we have taken. Bowfishing has been good, but only on windless nights near the main channel. Trotlines on dead shad have been good in 1'-5' of water. Trolling flicker shad and 1/16oz jigs seem to be the most consistent.

We saw a pelican at horseshoe bend. He must have been lost.

Roberts first fish with a bow.

My first fish with a bow.

Trotline while we bowfished.

Robert and Brent hit the same fish.

Flathead from the trotline.

Test run of the LED rope lights for bowfishing.

Raised platform and bow holder really help out.

First fish on a homemade jig.

All the whites recently have been tiny.

Caught a few baby walleyes and this keeper on a flicker shad in about 15 FOW.

Enough for lunch the next day.

Walleye vs Crappie fillet.

Billy's state record crappie.

First fish on a homemade bucktail.