We finished up the season Sunday. The Shamanic Dream Team took 6 deer, tying the previous camp record. Overall, action was light. However, unlike last year, there was a payoff for being out there and being patient.
I snuck a peak at the KYDFWR telecheck site; Bracken County’s numbers are out of the basement, and they are back on top of the Northeast Region. That is good news.
There has been a general lack of good racks showing up on neighbors’ cameras. The big boys seem to have gravitated to those parts of the county with more agriculture. There is also a trend in the Northeast region in general where Bracken County has been falling as the powerhouse of the region. Other counties are starting to surpass us. I’m not sure of the underlying cause. One thing is for sure: the shots I hear on the Opener and throughout the season are way down. A decade ago, we were hearing 3 shots per minute for the first 5 hours of season. This Opener, the shot count was 1 per 2 minutes and it dwindled to nothing by 10 AM.
If I had to venture a guess, the KYDFWR is succeeding in its plan to reduce herd size with its Zone 1 policies. Zone 1 allows unlimited antlerless harvest. Their goal is to get ZONE 1 down to ZONE 2-type numbers. Statewide numbers for November have held fairly steady. However, Bracken County (Zone 1) hit a peak in 2015 and then dribbled away. Last year’s November’s harvest was 30% lower than the peak.
Locally, I think our reduced successes over the past few years are due to the neighbors. In the past, we had The Orange Army. There was a horde of non-resident hunters rolling around on ATVs and scaring all the deer onto quiet plots like mine. Property has been changing hands and I’m now bordered by new neighbors on 3 sides that take their hunting seriously and limit unauthorized access. There’s less stress on the deer and they’re no longer running onto my land to hide. After the Opener I used to have 3-4 times the number of deer hanging in my pastures.
Equipment
I had just one big item that needed to be replaced this year, and it came in the middle of the Opening Week of Rifle Season. The front zipper of the top half of the orange clown suit fell off. The zipper had ripped. I came in from the hunt and went shopping online. Finding an hunter orange parka in 4X has always been problematic. In recent years, the fashion has tended towards Blaze Camo, but that is not legal in Kentucky. It has to be solid. Of about half a dozen sites, I found one on Cabelas.com.
It’s a RedHead Silent Stalker Elite Parka for Men. Cost for mine was $160, but I cashed in a bunch of points and got it for free. It was on the stoop before I got home a day later.
I’ve had it out now for a few hunts. The coat is overall much warmer than my previous one. A lot of these medium-weight parkas have a single layer of polypro for the inner liner jacket. This is a quilted jacket that is pretty substantial on its own. The outer shell is waterproof. It has a warm detachable hood and plenty of pockets. I like a detachable hood; I only put it on when its raining. The handwarmer pockets actually have some insulation. It is heavier than the Herters coat I have been wearing since 2011, but it is warm enough that I can shed at least one inner layer, for a net loss in weight going into my pack.
I’ve had the clown suit now for 13 seasons. It became famous as an Internet Meme back in 2020. Folks have wondered what effect switching to this eye-melting kit has meant for my hunting. The answer is that I have seen no ill effect. I had deer close up to the stand this year as with most years. However, this deserves a bit more discussion. First off, the deer see me either in a treestand with an opaque shower-curtain-like skirt around the shooting rail or they see me peeking out of the window of a shooting blind. I am not sure how well an orange blob like this would work with stalking.
Deer Rifle Shakedown
7mm-08
I acquired my 7mm-08 TC Compass in 2020. It was late in the year. I had to replace another rifle just before season. I loaded up some 139 grain Hornady Interlock SPS and went for it. It clobbered a small doe that year. I was so impressed that I took it on my boar hunt in Florida. Again, the rifle poleaxed a nice hog. Last year, I had it out and never saw a deer. This year, I switched to Winchester Staball powder and got over 3000 fps with the same bullet, a 200 fps increase. I used that load this season.
I could write a whole article on the Compass. It comes as close to an ideal rifle for my deer hunting. However, the Compass is no longer made. Secondly, I did not like the plastic stock. Specifically, the comb was too low for me. I ordered a Boyd’s Heritage stock for it, and that did the trick. What I want to do is give you my final impressions on the 7mm-08.
7mm-08 has been around since 1980. However, it always seemed like a good round for somebody else besides me. I did not start looking at it until the mid-2000s. By then I had been a 30-something snob for 3 decades, and I was just beginning to wake up to other possibilities. In 2014, I retired my 35 Whelen because I just didn’t see an improvement over 30-06. I vowed to buy one more good 30-06 rifle and spend the rest of my life exploring life in the world smaller than 7.62 mm. I tried 25-06 (I’ll have more on that in a bit.) Of all the chamberings out there that seemed worth trying 7mm-08 seemed the most likely to bring me joy.
After this year’s buck, I can announce that 7mm-08 does indeed bring me joy. The poleaxing, dead-right-there, lazer cannon performance I love in 30-06 is just about there in 7mm-08. Everything I have shot with it has gone down promptly. Hearts and Lungs have been jellied. I am ready to say I am done experimenting with 7mm-08 and declare the project done.
25-06
I had never considered 25-06 as an option until I met O.T. O.T. ran the mower shop over by Browning’s Corner. I started visiting him in 2001 and we became friends. He had been a hunter around these parts all his life. It was a time when he could take off in the morning and hunt all the way to Brooksville. Whenever he tired, he could go to any house and find a relative that would take him home. O.T. hunted grouse, quail and deer for decades. His custom-built Mauser in 25-06 was a legend.
O.T. went blind suddenly, and his health was failing. I visited him towards the end and offered to buy his rifle. He needed the money. I wanted to keep the rifle on our ridge. I paid him probably more than it was worth, but that was the idea. I got to work getting it set up for me. O.T. said it shot 100-grain and 120-grain Remmie Corelokts equally well. My first loading attempt was a 117-grain Hornady bullet over H4895. The results were more like a 257 Roberts. I shot a deer and it ran. I then tried several other loadings and each time the deer ran quite a bit more than I was used to. I finally shelved the rifle in 2014 after I watched a doe run in circles in the middle of the field and finally exited, to drop over just past the treeline. Yeah, they were dying, but. . .
One of my first reloading projects after I retired was to get this rifle fitted with a better load. This time I tried 100 grain Speer HotCor over H4831sc. It took two seasons before I finally got a doe in my sights.
As I said, I grew out of my 30-something snobbery. However, I still use 30-06 as a good gauge of how much terminal damage you can inflict on a deer without excessive recoil. What I saw when I opened up this last doe left me satisfied, but not overly so.
There was a nice big hole in each lung and a hole in the heart and a decent hole, maybe quarter sized, coming out the other side. The deer only ran 10 yards or so. However, compared to a 30-06? the 06 would have left me a pile of goo on the inside of the deer. It would have left lung on the outside of the deer.
Am I writing off 25-06? No. The deer died.
Shaman !What’s your problem? I’m 66 and I’ve had cancer and chemo. I’m feeling better than I have in years, but my days of schlepping deer out of the ravines are over. I have zero tolerance on goat rodeos. I will use this rifle at targets in the open, where they can drop out in the middle of the pasture.
Rossi Model 92 in 44 Magnum
One rifle never made it out this year, and that is my Rossi Stainless Model 92 with the 24 inch barrel. I love this thing. I fell in love with it in the gun store, and I was dazzled by my ability to sight with buckhorn sights. One thing the chemo did was cause my eyesight to improve. This was the first iron-sighted rifle I’d been able to use in 30 years. I was really cranked up about it.
On my last sighting session, the day before rifle season, I had to give it a pass. There was nothing wrong with the rifle. However, my eyesight has changed a lot in the past few months, and I was no longer able to see the target. I need to get to the doc and get a new prescription. The rifle is going to have to wait. You will hear more about this rifle– just not this year.
New Deer Processor
I am always on the lookout for a good deer processor. The store at Lenoxburg has been the camp’s mainstay since our first trip. However, I like options. B&B close last year due to a divorce. That was our closest, and it was an easy trip from there to Falmouth for a meal. I was asking around. S&J was the name I kept hearing. However, it is a 45-minute one-way trip up US 27 towards Cincinnati. I was eating dinner at Bub’s the other night and I heard some discussion of deer processing and asked Mike Jett. He’s the proprietor of Bub’s and he also used to run Salem Ridge Deer Processing. He turned me on to Poe & McFadden on Route 1289
We took all our deer there. They charge $80 per deer and that includes skinning. They use a boneless method. If you are not used to it, you may think you are getting cheated. The volume and weight are greatly reduced. However, I learned using Mike Jett in years past that you are getting the same amount of meat. Turnaround is also great. I brought my doe to them after sundown on Saturday and was able to pick it up at Noon on Sunday.
`Speaking of Bub’s, I lost count of the number of times the Shamanic Dream Team visited them. This is our new go-to eatery.
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