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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
