Deer Hunting
If I was the NewGuy at Camp
If I were the NewGuy at Camp, what would I want? That’s an interesting question. None of what I’m going say here is an outright endorsement/best of class recommendation of anything in particular. What I’m giving is based on a scenario of my nearly 2-decade experience at our camp and what I’d want to bring if I were starting over. Clothing Opening Week at Camp starts the second Saturday of November. Here in the Trans-Bluegrass normal temperatures are a low in the mid-30’s and a daytime high of the mid-50’s. By the end of the month both ends have dropped … More . . .
Eye Candy, 2020
I pulled the memory stick from the camera next to the stand at Campground this past weekend and found the most buck appearances I’ve ever seen at that site. I edited it all down into a highlights real. Enjoy. Of particular interest is this single frame. It holds signifigance that will be discussed later. This post has already been read 1057 times!Views: 0 Related posts: Campground: A Treestand Profile The Deer Camera, Introducing the 2 of 7 Rule Remembering the Monarch Report from Deer Camp, 2011 The Sport of Not-Hunting for Deer The Doctor, the Shaman, and … More . . .
The Garden of Stone
I was trying to explain The Garden of Stone the other day. After I got done, I realized that I have never written down the whole story. I should. It has accounted for dozens of deer over less than 2 decade’s worth of hunting. Its story goes all the way back to the founding of our deer camp. It took most of a decade to fully develop it. Y’all probably deserve a complete description and history. What is the Garden of Stone? The Garden of Stone (GOS) is a patch of pasture no bigger than a tennis court. I discovered … More . . .
12 Weeks and Counting
Yesterday marked the 12-week mark in the countdown to the Rifle Opener in November. It found me staying home from camp to escape the all-day rains that never quite materialized. So what needs to be done? Odds and Ends By this time of the year, I have all my clothes washed and put away. I ran a couple of loads of leftover clothes from turkey season and got them stashed in sodium bicarb. See Baking Soda– the Shamanic Method KYHillChick did some mending on the orange clownsuit. I put a tear in the bibs crossing a barbed-wire fence last fall. … More . . .
Camoflauge
Last night #3 son, Angus, was asking me about camo. He’d seen some Youtubes with this guy touting the ultimate new super-duper stuff. He wanted to buy a set. I explained to him that I’d been where he is starting off about 30 years ago. I had not only 1st gen TreBark and MossyOak, but every camo you could imagine and I was like that for years. I used to even hang my camo out on the back fence and video them against the woods to see which showed up. The winners? For my eye, for the woods where I … More . . .
Scent Reduction Rant
The last bit of rain hit about 0300. By 0700, I was loading up the washing machine with hunting clothes. By evening, they’ll be dry and packed in sodium bicarb, waiting for the November Opener I’m following the same Baking Soda regimen that I’ve been doing for years: See: Shamanic Baking Soda Method BTW: Word must be getting out. It’s the hottest post on this weblog right now. I’m of an age that I can remember the world prior to all this scent reduction hoopla. I spent the first 5 or so years doing it old school with wool clothes … More . . .
What Makes the Perfect Deer Rifle — PT 3 The Ammunition
The last piece of the Perfect Deer Rifle Puzzle is Ammunition. There are guys out there that will tell you Barnes TSX is all you need to know. I have a friend that hunts with it exclusively. Let me just say up front, if you’re hooked on premium ammo, there is no reason to change on my account. The reason I am writing this is for those of you who may be forming your ideas on deer hunting, or second-guessing your ammunition choices. I am here to give you a middle way. Let me give you some basic truths about … More . . .
What Makes the Perfect Deer Rifle — PT 2 The Rifle Itself
In the previous missive, I examined what makes an ideal deer rifle from the perspective of chambering. The answer was “Yes, one of those will do nicely.” Now, I’m going to start getting into the real meat of it. What action? What length? The answer is still the same: “Whatever works.” Look, I’ve built my preferences over 40 years. If you start now, in 40 years, you will probably come up with some radically different answers. One guy is going to be a lever nut. The next guy will have a nice AR-type MSR. Someone else may be carrying a … More . . .
What Makes the Perfect Deer Rifle? PT1 The Chambering
What DOES make the perfect deer rifle? I’ve tried to answer this several times over the past couple of decades. Most of those thoughts ended up on this weblog. The question continues to haunt me. Part of that is that I spent so many years trying to come up with an answer. Part of it is that, as a writer, people kept wanting to know an answer from me. A big part of it is that despite decades of searching and a room full of deer rifles, my answer is still full of qualifications and provisos. Why is that? … More . . .
Deer Hunting in a Nutshell
Folks seem to think there is a lot more to deer hunting than there really is. General Mattis: ‘The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.’ This is your most important tool. The rest is gravy. Whitetails are not hard to kill. Equipment is largely unimportant. It is all skill and experience. 1) Know where to find deer. Don’t hunt them where they ain’t. 2) Learn how to regulate your body temperature. Know how to stay warm under your hunting conditions, and especially know how to keep from sweating. This is the single biggest reason for … More . . .
How to Construct a Deer Battery
So Shaman, exactly how many deer rifles do you need? If I said just one, this would be a really short post. In a way you do only need one. As I’ve written many times before, just about anything can kill a whitetail– certainly any modern centerfire rifle. Okay, maybe a 22 Hornet is a bit of a stunt, but nowadays nobody is pooh-poohing a 223 REM. On the top end, I know that 45-70 is very popular in states like Ohio. Between them is a pretty wide range. So why do you have so many deer rifles? This is … More . . .
Deer Eyesight — a shamanic view of things
Originally Posted by StrayDog Shaman, I enjoyed reading about your trip and especially the informative regarding photos of different types of colorblindness, Especially the example of what deer would see. Thanks. You know, of all the things I’ve written over the years, I think the thing on what deer really see was the most flat-out informative piece I’ve done. If you go back and look at the canon of stuff written about deer and their eyesight, you see mostly flat-out manure. I’m talking about whole chapters of books that are completely wrong. I was decades into deer hunting and even … More . . .
New Load for the Whelenizer
Being trapped at home in Covid-19 purgatory gets a mind to thinking. I’ve had a real dearth of reloading projects. I have two major windows for reloading each year; they are between my two main hunting seasons. By 1 March, I have a backlog of projects that are done and need shooting. I have not been to the farm in nearly a month. I have a window of a couple of months after Turkey Season ends and then I’m back home for a month or so in mid-summer. The larder is still full from winter, so coming up with … More . . .
Whitetail Feeding Frenzy
I’ve published video off the security camera before. This one come from 2/10 just at sundown. It had been one of those miserable February days. A mix of rain and snow was in the air. All of a sudden every doe group in the neighborhood suddenly decided to come out for a quick feed before dark. This is not uncommon for this time of year. However, I don’t usually have that many at once in this pasture. My guess is that the browse in the woods has started to peter out and the deer are starting to get pressed for … More . . .
Which is harder: Deer or Turkey?
Which is harder: hunting deer or hunting turkey? This is just one man’s perspective. I know this is going to have a lot of different opinions. However, I’ve been at both for nearly 40 years, so maybe I can at least lend a valid opinion. Twenty years ago, I would have said they were both hard to do. Why they were hard had nothing to do with the animals themselves. It all had to do with my lifestyle and my hunting opportunities. No animals to hunt This is first and foremost. It sounds silly, but make sure there is enough … More . . .
Bob’s Model 44 — Some Final Thoughts
I cannot help but mention Big Bob’s passing one more time as well as talk about his Ruger Model 44 and the 44 Mag as a deer round. Big Bob only made it to our camp a few times. I rode him around in the truck. His legs had given out even before we got the place back in 2001. However, I always called Bob first whenever I got a deer or a turkey. He had been the major reason for my interest in hunting and shooting back in the early ’80s. Back then, I was a kid fresh … More . . .
Deer Feeding Before the Snow
On 12/15/2019 we had a clipper-type storm come through and dump a couple of inches of snow in a blink of an eye. KYHillChick and I were watching a football game at the time; we knew the snow was coming. It still surprised us when we looked up from the screen and there was suddenly a blanket of snow on everything. Down at Deer Camp, the camera over the Thoughtful Spot caught the deer coming out for a quick feed just before the storm hit. You can see them scurrying off to their beds just before the action starts. I … More . . .
KY: Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season
Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lee McClellan lee.mcclellan@ky.gov 1-800-858-1549 Record Harvest for Modern Gun Deer Season Timing and weather boost tally for statewide 16-day season FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 5, 2019) – Kentucky deer hunters harvested a record 107,039 deer during the 16-day modern gun season that concluded Nov. 24. “Season timing and weather conditions before opening day made us think we should have a good season,” said Kyle Sams, acting Deer and Elk Program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We had a poor mast … More . . .
Deer Season 2019 — The Post-Mortem
I’ve tried a couple of times to write this Deer Season Post-Mortem, and every time I get bogged down in darkness and regret. The fact is this season turned out to be something other than planned. It’s over– ’nuff said. I suppose I should be standing proud that I made it through. That was the absolute worst sore throat I’ve had since I as a kid. I went through over a week where it was darn near too painful to swallow. However, I made it to camp. I kept up my responsibilities as Patriarch. I got the job done. From … More . . .
A Cautionary Tale
(I missed posting about this earlier, because I was sick and tired and my head was a fogged up from cough syrup.) Friday morning of Opening Week, it was colder than usual. I admit my hands were cold and fumbly when I got up into the blind. However, they were thawed out after I got settled in about 10 minutes before legal hunting began before 0700. About 0800, I looked at the barrel of my rifle, a stainless Ruger Hawkeye in 30-06. Something seemed amiss. Sure enough, there was a plug of frozen mud in the end of the barrel. … More . . .
Closing Weekend — Shaman Nails a Doe
Angus and I were just pulling onto our street back home as Rifle Season officially ended on Sunday. We had a cooler full of frozen venison. The truck was packed with all the rifles and gear. It had been a crazy season for all of us, but that was that. It was time to move on. Our last weekend at camp started off with major let downs. I talked to SuperCore on Thursday and found out he was nursing a very bad cold and was going to stay home. He also said he’d taken his Wetherby Vanguard out to the … More . . .
Bob’s Model 44 and the Buck
As you all know, my buddy Bob died this past winter. He was an outdoor writer and magazine editor. Out of the estate I managed to snag a minty Ruger Model 44, and swore I’d put it to good use. Bob would have been proud. I nailed a buck with it Friday night– 80 yards, perfect shot, The only down side is that this is the first season in 40 years that I haven’t been able to call Bob to tell him. I miss the old coot. He and a bunch of his now long-dead friends got me into hunting … More . . .
Rifle Opener 2019– The Story So Far
I woke up this morning in my suburban bedroom. Two inches of snow fell overnight. In other situations, I would be kicking myself that I am not going out this morning to hunt. Here it is Tuesday Opening Week, and I’m passing up a chance to hunt Kentucky with snow on the ground! Yeah well. It was exactly a week ago, the Tuesday before the Opener that I noticed I was developing a sore throat. By the time I was able to get in and see the doctor on Friday, it had gotten to be the absolute worst sore throat … More . . .
In Case You Had Questions . . .
KDFWR has a video out on Youtube that gives answers to frequently asked questions regarding deer hunting. No big news here, but the answers are concise. This post has already been read 705 times!Views: 2 Related posts: So you want a new deer rifle for Indiana The Sport of Not-Hunting for Deer Checking my Backtrail Eeeets Alive Pt I What makes a Deer Rifle? Playing the Wind or J-Lo and Steve find each other? Obeying the Voices Strong Harvest Expected
More . . .From the KDFWR: Outstanding outlook for the hunt
Outstanding outlook for the hunt Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lee McClellan lee.mcclellan@ky.gov 1-800-858-1549 Modern Gun Season for Deer Opens Statewide Nov. 9 Hunters can take advantage of full rut cycle over 16-day season FRANKFORT, Ky. (Nov. 5, 2019) – One of the favorite times of the year for tens of thousands of Kentuckians begins Nov. 9 as modern gun deer season opens statewide. The 16-day season closes Nov. 24. The season sits squarely in the rut, when male deer are most actively pursuing does to breed. “Our modern gun … More . . .
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