Category Archives: Hunting

Sean Gets His Buck

Hunting with Sean, my grandson who you’ve met before in several of my posts, in MaMaw’s blind, we climbed up into it and hadn’t waited 15 minutes, when a big 7 pointer walked up behind the feeder.  Sean was a little nervous and surprised that the buck had just walked up.  He already had the .243 stuck outside the window, as he moved the rifle slightly and waited and waited and waited until the buck walked off into the thick stuff.  Asking him, “Why didn’t you shoot”, his reply was a series of reasons why he didn’t shoot, mainly nerves I expect!

Within 5 minutes, an 8 pointer showed up and Sean was ready this time.  With very little coaching, BOOM, the .243 sounded off, I wasn’t expecting the shot so I didn’t see the buck jump, but he ran off behind the feeder at speed!  We waited the 15 minutes, they seemed very long, then we closed up the blind and walked to the feeder.

Good, there was a spot of blood and it looked like some lung mixed in, this wouldn’t be a long search.  We found the buck out in the open, the shot was right through the lungs and he hadn’t run less then 50 yards.  Here’s the picture with Sean smiling and his first buck.

Last Wednesday, hunting with Randy, he addled a buck, a nice one, at a friends place, knocked him down, but he jumped up and no worse for ware ran off.  Addled was the word we used because obviously, he hit a wire of the feeder and the shot must have glanced up to the horn area.  We searched and searched, but no buck, no blood trail either.  Going back on Thursday AM early, no sign and no blood from the buck, so I guess he wasn’t hit very bad!  My neighbor hunted for him Thursday morning also, no buck or, a good sign, no buzzards circling.

Then the bad weather hit, I was frozen in my place, ice on the roads, ice on my driveway, ice everywhere, but lucky for me no power outages, I was frozen in for 2 days.  No deer hunting either, way too cold.  During this cold snap the temps got below 10 degrees, too cold for me!

More Outdoors Pictures, December 10, 2013

The first buck just jumped over the fence to the feeder.  The feeder went off and he just had to get some corn and protein.

We’ll continue with a real nice 3-1/2 year old buck, he’s a 7 pointer now, but in a year or 2 he’ll be a 10 or 12!  He came right up to the feeder and jumped over the closed gate, caused by the Barbary, Sheep you know.  They’ll eat anything and they mop up on the protein that’s mixed in with the corn
   
These 2 sheep just showed up one day and are still hanging around.  I’ve closed the gates to the feeders, maybe that will stop them!

Funny thing, this yearling deer is all bowed up at the 10 pointer outside the feeder.  There is a good 8 feeding inside, but on the outside this little one is getting in trouble.  The 10 on the outside looks just as big as the 142-6/8 buck I shot on the November 8th.

An 8, point buck showed up at the feeder with a 2, pointed brow tine.  He’s just 3-1/2 years old now and he’ll be a real good one at 4-1/2 or 5-1/2.  Maybe the corn/protein mix has something to do with it?
    
Then a nice 8 pointer 3-1/2 also, showed up at the feeder.  He’ll be a good one too!

The Shooter

Bucks, white tail deer, do funny things, this buck that I shot on Saturday, November 9th was more interested in fighting than chasing doe, this was his downfall!  The second thing that led to his downfall was that he was hanging around the feeders too much, hanging around in broad daylight.

Opening morning, November 4th, Randy and I hunted and rattled in the tree stand along the back of the property, but didn’t see a shooter.  In fact we didn’t see anything!  Then on the second morning Wesley and I saw a lot of deer, several bucks, but still no shooter!

On November 6th this “shot” showed him checking in at another feeder, thinking he was safe since I had hunted this blind on opening day afternoon (and he didn’t come around then). This “shot” and the following “shots” were all taken on successive days.

The next “shot” shows the buck leaving the feeder on November 7th he thought, if bucks think, that he was double safe here.

This “shot” shows almost all of his 11 points.

Then on November 8th, back at the same feeder, feeling real safe, this “shot” caught him.

My guess is that he was 5-1/2 or 6-1/2 years old.  Mickey Donahoo will do the taxidermy and he will age him then.

On Saturday the buck made a fatal mistake, he came to a grunt call and I was left with this picture of him laid out in the back of my truck!  Bucks do the stupidest things when they’re rutting!

He Came To A Grunt Call

The first week of deer season was a bust for us.  We saw very few deer and bucks were scarce.

Saturday morning, November 9th, dawned clear and bright, but Tim Albee called and said that he’d hit a deer driving over from Copperas Cove and that he wouldn’t be hunting with us, that just left me to save the day.  The first deer, way before shooting time that came to the feeder near Mamaw’s Blind was a buck and a spike, with the binocs they were just gray looking blobs.

Day was fast approaching, the light was getting better and now, I could count the points on the bucks.  The first, a nine pointer was one that I’ve seen around the feeder back in September, a good one, but, as the Texas Aggies say, “Wait ‘till next year!”  He will be 5-1/2, will rut this year and be much bigger, that is if he makes it until next year. The other was a spike that I would end up saving for Will.  He and his dad will be over next week to shoot one.

The 9 pointer was edgy, he knew a bigger buck was in the area, the spike, with his non-swollen neck was happy just to be feeding. Just then, a doe flashed by behind the feeder and I knew a buck would be behind her. All I saw was a tail end look at him and he was huge!  Sticking the grunt call out of the window, I blew a challenge grunt, three blasts, grunttt, grunttt, grunttt, then nothing.

Shortly, not 3 minutes at the most, the big one came back I centered the scope just behind his shoulder and fired.  He hopped, then took off at full speed, I waited for 15 minutes, climbed down from the blind and began my search.  He ran at full speed for 50 yards until he couldn’t run anymore then crumpled under some brush.

My job now was to get him out of the brush to where I could load him up and tag him. Dragging the buck for 50 yards was no small chore, I did it and then it hit me, I couldn’t call Layla, so I walked back to the house to get my truck. Danny and James, my closest neighbors were gone and as I was walking up I saw James’ pick up heading down the County Road, also I walked past the tractor that was on the fritz. It almost had gotten me to the house last night, almost!

Calling Laura, luckily she was at home, and she would wake up Mikayla and be right out. Twenty minutes later she drove up.  All three of us loaded the big buck into the back end of the truck, then Mike drove up, he was going to fix the tractor, and he gutted the deer and I took it down to get it scored.  It scored 142 on the B&C score sheet.

This buck had some mule deer in him. Notice the back left tine, it really is an outgrowth of the G-2 and the right tine is exactly the same, this is common on mulies!  The buck also had a kicker, it can barely be seen in the photo on the brow tine, he was a 11 pointer

The buck I shot last year, almost to the day, scored 142.5, his picture below.

I know that Layla was looking down from Heaven saying, “All the good bucks are shot out of my blind!”

The Wrong Turn

There were worlds of mourning dove coming in to feed on the grain field stubble, in a field, on an Indian reservation in the Phoenix area. This particular reservation allowed hunting in the grain fields, but we had to be careful not to go into the “No Trespassing” areas that were well marked with signs.

My family, Brad, my ex wife and I, were fast into knocking down these twisty fliers, Randy and Suzanne were doing the retrieving and our bird count was rising. This afternoon, we were the only hunters out so we were hunkered down, a hundred yards apart, along an irrigation ditch, now dry. Many of the birds flew over us as they came into the field to feed, providing some easy overhead shots.

We took a break to count up our birds and our tally indicated that we had knocked down 31, five short of our combined limits. Shooting time was just about over so we let Brad, who was an excellent shot with a shotgun and the reigning Arizona, junior state champion trap shooter, finish out the string.

We set to breasting out the dove, leaving both wings on and dusk was settling in by the time we finished. Rinsing our hands, we loaded everything up into the camper, kenneled up the kids and drove off the reservation, we thought. Coming to a cross road, we turned, we thought, the correct way because there weren’t any signs. The next thing we knew, through the dust, here came a pickup barreling toward us, loaded with Indians and as they came closer, we saw they were all armed!

As the truck pulled to head us off, all the Indians were shouting and waving their firearms, we looked to be in deep stuff, but didn’t know of any tribal laws we had broken. One, possibly the headman, yelled over to us, “You’re on private, no trespassing, property and are under arrest! Been hunting, too, we’ll get all of you for shooting after hours?” This really looked serious now.

The year before, we had a run in with an Apache Policeman, he confiscated our .22 pistols and was going to ticket us for carrying firearms on the reservation, until he calmed down some and I told him that I was friends with the Tribal Chairman and named him. He relented, but told us “Friends with the Tribal Chairman or not, if he caught us on reservation with loaded firearms again, we be in big trouble!” Luckily, we never saw this policeman again!

Back to our immediate plight, the Indians were really heating up and I started fearing for my family. My ex had the, formerly confiscated, .22 pistol on her hip and she slipped it over to me, one pistol, 6 shots against a truck full, bad odds, before another Little Big Horn, I thought, I’ve got to get the headman talking. Telling him we thought we were headed out toward Baseline Road, he settled down a little and told us we took the wrong turn and were heading deeper into the reservation. He added, “Over the past weeks, we’ve had an increase in grave robberies, but to me, it looks like you just took the wrong turn.” The occupants in the truck were still yelling until he told them to be quiet and told us, “Just turn around and we’ll follow you out.”

Grave robberies meant that folks were sneaking on to the reservation, not robbing the graves of recently buried people, but rooting around in the desert trying to find graves hundreds, up to a thousand years old. This definitely wasn’t part of our program!

This was to close a call, so during our remaining years in Phoenix, we never went back to that reservation. That truck full of Indians really scared us off!

The Glass Forehead

In the 1970’s, one of our favorite dove hunting spots in Arizona was south of Phoenix on the St. John’s Indian Reservation. Back then, a hunting permit was a whopping $5.00 and like $10.00 for a family and this allowed the hunters access to some great mourning dove, plus real good quail and, believe it or not, some good duck hunting.

One of the best spots on the reservation was along an irrigated, grain field, the north edge bordering on thick brush that the doves were using as a roost and rest area. This particular Saturday afternoon, we, my family and the Schroder’s, had decided to combine a dove hunt along the edge of the brush and, after the hunt, a cook out in a clearing fifty yards in. The afternoon sun was to our right and the birds flew south to north, coming out of the field and flying right over us, providing easy head on, or quartering, shots.

Head on’s are easy. Track the bird, cover it with the muzzle, fire and follow through. The bird flies right in to the shot string, usually providing a clean kill, then falls near the shooter. Not having to walk around much in the sun means a lot on a hot September day in Arizona! Quartering shots are a little different, just be sure to get the right lead and then bang away!

The afternoon flight was just beginning, scattered shots coming from our four shooters strung out along the edge of the field. On my first shot, a quartering one, I knocked down a dove that was just loafing along, not flying anywhere near max speed, but soon, with all the shooting the birds picked up their pace considerably! With the doves pouring over us, we kept banging away. Before long, with the temp over a hundred, combining this with all of our shooting, our barrels started heating up. Just load up and keep shooting, but don’t touch the hot part.

One bird away from my limit, I looked up and here came one heading right over me, an easy head on shot. Tracking the bird and firing, puff, a clean hit and the bird rocketed straight for my chest. Holding my shotgun with my right hand and holding up my left, I was going to be real cool and catch this one, one handed, but at the last moment the dove gained a little lift rising over my outstretched hand and smacked me right between the eyes, knocking me over!

The force of four ounces traveling at, I guess, 35 MPH, applied right between my eyes, was a wallop. Getting up and looking through my broken shooting glasses, covered with mine and the dove’s blood, I saw that, besides being shot, the bird had a broken neck. However, the dove got his revenge, but $100.00 later for a new pair of shooting glasses, I wasn’t to be deterred, and soon, my next free afternoon found me back on the reservation.

After cleaning the birds, we washed up, grilled the steaks and along with green chilies and onions almost had a feast. After dinner, Jake looked over at me and, with a straight face, asked, “Beech, you went down real easy, think you have a glass forehead?”

Dove Season Opens

Dove season opened on Sunday, September 1st, and between Church, going out to eat and napping, of course, I didn’t get any birds. Besides, the annual hunt in San Saba didn’t pan out because the landowner sold the place. Early Monday morning (3:30 AM) I was driving over to Killeen for Layla to catch an early flight to Atlanta. No birds on Monday either!

Having limited success on Tuesday afternoon, I did get one bird that came into the MOJO dove. Wednesday was dedicated to shopping in Temple, Thursday to getting my truck and the Jeep serviced, then there’s a JV football game in the afternoon.

Friday will be my day to really open the season. A lot of birds are using my pasture to feed, no crop this year because of the anticipated drought, but we’ve had rain at all the right time, I even had some red top grass come up unexpectedly from the seeds planted last year!

We’ll see though how it goes.

Jumpin’ The Gun

This buck, the one I’ve been “following” for 3 years, has finally reached his mature years.  He’s 4-1/2 now and quite a nice buck, in fact I told Mickey Donahoo yesterday that I didn’t know if this buck was a 9, 10 or 11 pointer.  Notice how small points have formed below his antlers, the one on the right is definitely over an inch in height, our State, the great State of Texas, says that anything over one inch is to be counted, maybe by the time he sheds his velvet the one on the left will be an incher too!

Now that the status of the buck is established, he’s already started making a scrape, the following “shot” shows him worrying on an overhanging branch of a cedar tree.  To define his territory a dominant buck, and this one thinks he’s dominant, will worry an overhanging branch and rub the glands below the horns all over it, then urinate over his tarsal glands on the spot below, this is called “scenting” and it clearly defines his territory.

Fall’s decreasing sunlight triggers the amount of testosterone in a buck’s body. The increase in testosterone influences the buck into becoming more territorial, beginning the scrape activity.  Many believe that the scent left around deer scrapes is meant for subordinate bucks to learn if a dominant buck is using this area, it’s quite likely that the sexual intensity of the lesser buck is suppressed.

The buck will worry this branch until the leaves are worn off.  Notice how the cedar leaves are almost worn off of this branch, this is from the spot that the buck is worrying in the “shot” above.

It rained a half an inch yesterday, so the scrape got washed out, but the general outline is visible in the “shot” below.                                                                                                                                                      Several day later the buck revisited the scrape.  Who knows if he went through his full routine on this trip by?                                                                                                                                                                             If bucks are beginning their scrape activity now, tomorrow it will be September 1st maybe the rut will start early this year?  It sure seems like the November 2nd opening day is way off, maybe 2 or 3 weeks, however, we’ll see what it turns out to be.

Turkey Season, 2013

Last Saturday, I opened the season right next to my “Corner Blind”, not in it, but within 50 feet of it.  No turkeys sounded, in fact, I didn’t see anything but my decoy, that’s pictured below.

Saturday afternoon was much different, jakes galore!  Two jakes, young gobblers not a year old, came around my decoy, not quite gobbling, but wait till next year!  The jakes were stretching out their necks to see where the clucking was coming from, but the pics didn’t turn out, all I got was clumps of grass.

Monday was taken up with a doctor visit, to treat a stupid mistake on my part.  Three weeks ago I’d applied the wrong medicine to an impending fever blister, then played 5 games of Senior Softball (my performance was great) with the wrong meds on my lip, not reading “Don’t Go Into The Sun” label on the tube, resulting with a “fried” lip!  Having been to the docs on March 20th, he started treating me on that day, but finally, today, the lips healing

Tuesday morning things changed.  Coming back from San Saba, around 9:30 AM, I passed my neighbor’s place.  In November two years ago, Randy had shot a nice buck in the “Corner Blind” and we called the neighbor to see if we could go on to his property to look for the buck.  See my post “[Deer Season, November 27, 2011, (Perseverance)]”.

Anyway, in the back of the field next to the tree line, there stood a hen turkey, having the windows rolled up I couldn’t hear her, but she must have been clucking.  Then, from the other end of the field, running as fast as their short legs could take them, 3 small turkeys were running to the mother bird.  Thinking that she must have been bred in mid January, really early, with a 28, day gestation period for wild turkey eggs, the little ones must have been 3 to 4 weeks old, wow.

As I continued my drive, still watching the small turkeys, I noticed movement in front of my truck, then a gobbler nervously hopped over the fence on to my property and scurried into the thick stuff!  Another wow, but lightning was popping around and it looked like rain and I had work to do and couldn’t mess with turkey hunting, but by Friday the rain should have abated and I should be finished with the work!

Then it started to rain and by Wednesday PM we’d gotten over 1-1/2 inches, more rain the end of this week so, maybe, the current drought will be broken!

Waiting For Turkey Season

This past Sunday, I drove down to metro Houston, Tomball, Texas to be exact, and attended a going away party for one on my grand nephews, Jarred Buck. Jarred has enlisted in the U.S. Army and leaves next week for Ft. Jackson, S.C. for his basic training. Brad was a big influence on Jarred and his decision to enlist, Jarred, an Eagle Scout, is super qualified for this job and I wish him well for this endeavor!

After the going away party I drove on in to Houston and spent the evening with Chuck and Linda Towne and Monday at 1:00 PM I went on one of the most eventful doctor’s appointments of my life! The doc, who I’d been to several times with my right knee told me right away, “Jon, you don’t need a knee replacement because your right knee is basically strong, just a cortisone shot, (which didn’t hurt at all), some (inhuman) exercises along with heel inserts and within a month or 2 you’ll be fine!” Those were welcome words to my ears because the doc knew me and my love for Senior Softball he was willing go the extra mile for me and rehab my right knee and not resort to a very painful surgery, Praise The Lord!

Eighteen days to turkey season and this one should be fairly good, (they all look fairly good two weeks before), but we’ve had some good rains and very cool nights, maybe the drought is broken and maybe the big birds will be moving around!