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.